As a parent, you probably already spend a lot of time with your child; but if your instinct is to be even more involved, you may be on to something. Beyond just the time that parents spend with their child, the parent’s emotional involvement in a child’s development can be crucial to how the child develops emotionally, psychologically, socially.
Young children’s acquisition of problem solving, language and social-emotional skills is facilitated by interactions with their parents.
Susan H. Landry, PhD
Parents who invest time and emotion into their child in the early years help the child to build healthy attachments. From the parents, the child learns how to regulate their emotions, social boundaries, and how to form new attachments with their peers. It also helps to determine how emotionally expressive a child will be, how well they can communicate, and how they are able to deal with various social situations.
For example, you can be involved in helping them communicate more.
- Ensure you are always attentive:
Letting the child speak, listening to them, and reflecting what they say back to them allows the child to understand that they can speak openly and safely in the company of people who are willing to listen to them without pressure or judgement. - Making yourself available:
Create a safety zone to help build trust. Since children do not have daily agenda for themselves, this allows you to be there when the child is comfortable enough to open up of their own. Trying to make children talk on the parent’s or the educator’s schedule can often have the opposite effect.
You can also get more involved by learning about adaptive living skills and how to teach those to your child. Some of these are:
The three major skill areas that need to be addressed are:
- Daily Living Skills:
Learning how to bathe, groom, cook, and maintain living spaces. - Personal/Social Skills:
Learning problem solving, activity planning, maintaining interpersonal relationships, participation in community.
This level of involvement helps a great deal in addressing behavioural problems that the child may have. Especially for children with special needs, parental involvement has a noticeably positive impact in how the child develops, how well they can regulate their emotions and behaviour.
Join us at College of Allied Educators to see how you can develop an understanding of the different types of exceptional children, their needs, and the different special needs programmes and specialities that are available to you, for them.
CAE’s 12-month Advanced Diploma in Special Education course trains educators and parents in the identification, diagnosis and treatment of these needs and the basic principles and practices of effective teaching and learning. The programme is highly practice-oriented to ensure that what you learn in class can be applied to children with special needs under your charge.
CAE’s Diploma in Learning Disorders Management & Child Psychology programme is designed specifically to train potential teachers, parents and caregivers to identify, detect and support children with special needs, such as Autism, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Dyspraxia, and Dyslexia.
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