Child Development and Early Learning

Every child is unique. All children are different, no child is the same. So this means that all children will grow up at different speeds and different rates. Holistic development sees a child as a whole person. It sees all the child’s areas for development. Each area of development that children will develop in are dependant on one another. Even though there are different areas of development and people see them as different areas, they are interdependent. So when a child progresses in one area, this will indefinitely affect progress in another area so if something went wrong in one area of development, for example, physical, this will have an effect on all other developmental areas like social, emotional, intellectual, etc.

There are also many things that will have an influence on a child’s development, like teachers, parents, observations and the environment.

A teacher has a major role in a child’s holistic development. They help all the children with all areas of their development.

Get quality help now

Dr. Karlyna PhD

Verified writer

Proficient in: Child

4.7 (235)

“ Amazing writer! I am really satisfied with her work. An excellent price as well. ”

+84 relevant experts are online

Hire writer

A teacher can help children can help a child with any part of development whether it is social, physical, etc. A teacher will help a child with their mental and physiological development, but not only do they help with this but they also help children learn about table manners, unity, teamwork and sharing which a child needs to learn in their life and sometimes, they can be the more important things in life to make a child a better and friendly person. By the teachers in the class showing good and respectful relationships with students, staff in the class and parents, this will encourage the children to do the same.

It is very important to also take into consideration a child’s well-being and health. Enabling environments when a child comes into school in the morning, they want to feel comfortable and relaxed, so by setting up an environment that will help this will help the child. Enabling environment is also about observations and using these observations to evaluate and form assessments for the children.

One implication that the teacher could find could be with the parents. If the parents refuse for the teachers to help the children with their development as some parents think they always know what is best for the child, which they are and they do know the children the best but not always when it comes to development. A teacher will have a major influence on a child’s holistic development in different ways. They will help with a child’s behaviour by setting examples of what behaviour is right and wrong in their classroom and showing praise for good behaviour and discipline for bad behaviour. A classroom environment can also have an effect on a child's holistic development. By the teacher understanding the student, they will be able to set up an environment the student will like and enjoy and feel welcome and the teachers can do this by asking the children what they would like in their classroom and using a few of the students’ ideas. This will make the children feel a lot more welcome as they will feel that they have made a contribution to the classroom area. By creating an enabling environment where children feel welcomed they are more likely to use it and develop within it. It is not just the classroom where teachers can create this sort of environment.

The outdoors is where children learn and develop and explore when they are young, so, by also bringing the children’s interests outside, it will help them develop a whole lot more. The role that teachers have with a child’s language development is important. Physical development has become more and more important in schools because of childhood obesity, so the role of a teacher in physical education has become more important than ever. Children learn through physical development as they like to look around and explore. Babies and young children are born with a deep interest in people and with a drive to find out about their world. Their search for meaning is an active process as they seek to understand how people behave and communicate, how objects work and what can be done with them and how space can be used. Children are always active when in school whether this is by using they're fine motor skills by writing or using their gross motor skills outside playing on bicycles. Children want to be active and it is important for them to be active to have a healthy lifestyle.

There is very strong evidence that being outdoors is the most powerful correlate of physical activity, particularly in pre-school children. Social and emotional development are closely linked together so when teachers are developing children in these areas, the teacher will link these two together. Children will develop their social and emotional skills by going to school and making friends. It is important for a teacher to build a child’s self-confidence and self-esteem. A child’s cognitive development is learned through all the other areas of development, as is their language development. They will learn language through different types of activities and will improve their vocabulary by learning new activities.

Parents are probably the most important people in a child’s life meaning that they are the ones who majorly help with the development of their children. The parents are the ones who start children off with their development, from the day they are born they help them to hold their head up, walk, learn to talk, etc. Parents will know the major milestones in a child’s development like walking or talking but sometimes they do not know the little bits of a child’s development like their mental development, social skills, gaining knowledge and understanding of the world and sometimes these can be the most important. This is where a teacher-parent relationship can be very important so that they can communicate with each other about the child’s improvement. It is important that the parents are involved in the child’s learning and development at school as well as at home for the child’s wellbeing.

Parents will help their child/children develop in all the 5 areas of development that are language, physical, cognitive and social and emotional development. Some parents might find some areas of development more important than others and may push their children to improve in these areas more. This could mean that their child could lack in other areas. Some parents worry about their children’s development when their children are not at a stage of development that they are meant to be at. Any parent will worry about this especially when they are young. All children grow and develop at different speeds and rates as all children are different. Statistics show that many parents are unsure about how they can help their child to learn. The most important thing is for a child to have fun to develop especially when the parents are the main influences on the child’s life. It is important for a child to play and have fun because children learn while playing and it is an important part of their life.

Observations are very important for a child’s holistic development they can play an important part in a child’s development and can potentially help them or can find something wrong with the child’s development. They can do this by evaluating the observation and comparing it to the thing they were observing the child for and see whether the child did or didn’t do what the observer was observing for. Observations will mainly be done by teachers in school but parents will also do observations of their children even if it is just watching the children at the park or watching them playing with toys.