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The key to the wellbeing of the children – the sense of belonging
In order for a child to go to their pre-school with joy, it is important to create a sense of belonging. One of the first steps of creation is for the teacher to give a moment of undivided attention to every kid, who come to the kindergarten in the morning.
We can imagine, that every morning, when children come to a kindergarten, they have a cable in their hands. When they enter their classroom, they are looking for a place, where to put that cable in. In other words – they are looking for a place, where they belong. It is important for the teacher to go to the child and say “good morning”. It is even better, if the teacher remembers, what happened the day before, what were the child’s plans for the evening, and then the teacher can ask, if the child managed to do everything he or she wanted. That way the child understands that he or she is welcomed in the kindergartens and he or she has a place, where to be. It is difficult for the child, if he or she comes in, and the teacher is busy with his or her own things. The little one doesn’t feel welcomed and the sense of belonging is lost. There are teachers, to whom this comes naturally, but then there are others, in whose classes children feel a little bit confused.
“It would be excellent, if in our kindergartens there would be one adult for every three or four children. As we know, in our pre-schools we have one teacher and one nanny for 20-25 children. In this case it is nearly impossible to create a connection with every child. The nannies have to, for example, automatically dress all the youngest children one after another. That dictates the child’s bodily consciousness as well – do they want something, or not, do they need something, or not. There are mothers, who have said, that after seeing this day to day life, they don’t want to send their children to kindergartens. Yes, there can be really nice teachers in some classes, but there aren’t enough of them,” says physiotherapist – osteopath Līga Latkovska. The expert adds, that recently an issue has come to life in the circles of doctors – a lot of patients go to their family doctors with somatic problems, when they should be going to a physiotherapist. And the root to all of these problems can be found in their childhood. The kindergarten shouldn’t be a place for a technical care, while mom and dad are at work. It should be a place, where a child can feel emotionally safe.
The good news is that children learn to adapt and live in any given conditions – that way they can also protect themselves to an extent. The same goes for children, who learn to adapt – they can live without enduring unnecessary stress.