The role of the child care giver
In this chapter you will learn the following:
- The definition of early childhood development
- The important role the caregiver plays in early childhood development
- Duties and responsibilities of child care givers
- Child caregiver’s role in growth and development
- Challenges faced by child care workers
According to a definition published by the South African Government and Department of Basic Education:
“Early childhood development (ECD) is a comprehensive approach to programmes and policies for children from birth to seven years of age. Its purpose is to protect the rights of children to develop their full cognitive, emotional, social and physical potential”
In layman’s terms:
As a child caregiver, your role is to:
- Protect the rights and safety of the child in your care
- Provide and environment that will improve the child’s development of cognitive, emotional, social and physical development
But also:
- Take care of the basic needs of the children in your care
- To observe their development and behaviour
- To communicate with parents on the development of their children
When it comes to early childhood development, there are a few aspects that child care centres, day-care centres and preschools should focus on.
| Key aspects of ECD | |
CREATING POSITIVE EXPERIENCES | A child’s brain is continuously forming and by creating positive experiences for children during their development stages, will have long term and long lasting benefits for their development. The opposite is also unfortunately true. Negative experiences will result in poor health and development across the child’s life. It is important to always keep in mind that we want children to have positive experiences in everything they do. We want to keep in mind that, as early childhood care givers, we have a contribution to the child’s foundational development and that in exposing them to new experiences and social situations, we have an impact on their ability to adapt to change in those environments and aiding in building their resilience. |
INVESTING IN GOOD OVERALL HEALTH | By focusing on the development of a healthy brain through learning, caregivers can instill the desire to learn and the willingness to cooperate with other learners and peers. Children who begin to receive education at an early age usually experience improved emotional, social and brain development. Providing children with the appropriate care and support to become physically healthy, mentally alert and emotionally secure is a foundation for their future. |
PROVIDE CARING AND SUPPORTIVE ENVIRONMENTS  | The environment that children are subjected to during ECD should be well-rounded, reliable and healthy. As a caregiver, you should focus on creating an environment that promotes interaction, collaboration, and teamwork. In doing so, you are paving a path for long term health of a child. |
In many ways, as a child caregiver, you are the first exposure to authority figures that children have to adapt to and develop in, outside of their home environments.
One of the most important things to remember is that the child must develop an understanding of how their behaviour affects them and others. The environment you create will develop this important skill in the child’s life.
Thought!
In many ways, as a child caregiver, you are the first exposure to authority figures that children have to adapt to and develop in, outside of their home environments.
One of the most important things to remember:
The child must develop an understanding of how their behaviour affects them and others. The environment you create will develop this important skill in the child’s life.
THAT IS YOUR RESPONSIBILITY AS A CHILD CAREGIVER!!
So what does a child caregiver do?
Child care givers attend to the basic needs of children. These needs include:
- Dressing
- Feeding
- Overseeing play
- Assist to prepare younger children for preschool
- Assist older children with homework
There are many things child care givers are involved in. Typically they do the following:
- Supervise and monitor the safety of children
- Prepare and organize mealtimes and snacks for children
- Help children with hygiene
- Change diapers of infants and toddlers
- Organise activities or implement a program that allows children to learn about the world and explore their interests
- Develop schedules and routines that children have enough physical activity, rest and playtime
- Watch for signs of emotional or developmental problems in children and bring potential problems to the attention of parents or guardians
- Keep records of children’s progress, routines and interests
- Communicate these records and signs to the parents
When it comes to an early childhood professionals’ role – it is important that there is an understanding of each individual child’s range of abilities. This understanding will help you to plan how you interact with children, adjust the way you create activities that can challenge children in ways that will boost their learning.
In addition, early child care givers need to understand the child’s values, the impact of their family culture and language as well as the expectations of families.
In early childhood development, you as a child caregiver, must understand the following:
- Understanding basic child development
You should understand how children develop and apply that information in your daily activities with the children and the process of monitoring them.
You need to understand stages/domains of development and how each domain (social, emotional, physical, language, cognitive) relates to each other.
- Identifying typical and atypical development
As a child caregiver, you need to be able to notice when a child is not developing or progressing according to basic child development standards. When you notice this, you can adjust your activities and interactions with a child and the environment to:
- Meet the needs of the child
- Identify when a child might need additional support
- Develop individual plans together with the parents
- Recognize and respect developmental challenges
- Considering Individual differences
All children are different, but as a child caregiver, we need to respond to each child’s individual abilities, temperament and learning styles.
- Knowing what can influence development
All things impact a child’s ability for growth and development. You need to identify and recognize these influences, such as family dynamics, stress, and cultural practices.
- Facilitating development
We can promote growth and development through understanding the role of relationships, providing a variety of learning experiences, and encouraging play.
- Collaborating with others
You, as a child caregiver, do not operate in isolation. You need support from other caregivers, early childhood professionals, families and communities.
One of your most important roles is to communicate and work together with the parents/guardians to ensure the best development practices for the child.
Early childhood caregivers face many challenges. It is important for you, as a childcare worker, to be aware of these challenges and be able to identify the triggers and find ways to overcome them as best you can with the resources available to you.
Early childhood development centres are faced with various challenges. These may include:
- A lack of teaching resources
- Poor nutrition
- Children to teacher ratio. This is currently 1:31
- Poor infrastructure of centres
- Depriving circumstances in which children are growing up
As an addition to this,
- Poor quality planning
- Mismanagement of centres including licensing issues etc.
- Poor service delivery
Rendering early childhood development services remains a challenge.
Many of these challenges, you have no control over but it is important to be aware of it, and do everything in your power to work within your limitations and provide the best service you can with the resources you have to ensure the development of the children placed in your care.
In this lesson you have learnt the following:
- As a childcare worker you have a role to protect, develop, observe and take care of the children entrusted to you
- You also have a responsibility to communicate with the parents on the development and progress of the child
- The key aspects of early childhood development are:
- Creating positive experiences
- Investing in good overall health
- Providing a caring and supportive environment
- You have various duties as a caregiver, including dressing, feeding and overseeing play as well as observing and keeping records to give feedback to parents on the child’s development
- As a child caregiver, you have to understand:
- Basic child development
- Identify typical and atypical development
- Consider individual differences
- Facilitate development
- Collaborate with others
- You are faced with various challenges, some of which may be out of your control but you must learn to manage within your limitations and resources available