FOSTERING COMPETENCE
The children in your care learn a sense of competence when they have a supportive environment. We often hear preschoolers saying, “ I can do it myself.” They are learning everyday what they are able to accomplish. It’s that sense of competence that tells the child they can in fact do it.
A supportive environment is as important to the development of a preschool child as good health. The child’s surrounding have to stimulate and support an emerging sense of competence.
What can you do as a provider to encourage competence in the children in your care?
• Encourage each child’s talents.
• Help them to accept their limitations.
• Show them how to set goals. Make sure it is the child’s goal and not you or the parent’s expectation.
• Don’t compare one child with another
• Make sure you have plenty of activities such as puzzles that will give the child opportunities to be successful.
• Do activities with the children that result in an accomplishment.
For Example: Allow them to help mix, cook and decorate cookies.
• Teach children problem-solving skills. Instead of stepping in and making a decision for the children when a problem occurs, help them think about ways to solve it. Learning to solve problems with other children is an important social skill, but when a child is able to solve a problem on their own it allows them to achieve a solution building their own sense of competency.
• Encourage the children to ask questions
• Allow the children to express their ideas and their needs
• Make available opportunities to work with various materials
• Try to schedule time for the children to finish what they start
• Allow them the opportunity to be rewarded for their success.
For Example: Putting up pictures the children drew up on the wall for everyone to see.
Whether preschool children develop and feel a sense of competency depends on how their work is valued by the people they love and respect. Sharing with the parents how your program is structured to help their child achieve a sense of competency is a good marketing tool.
Warning: Of course, in childcare because there are children of many ages, sometimes a younger child will copy an older child to do something that is beyond their developmental abilities. When fostering competence in children always be aware that what the child is trying to accomplish is within their development stage and ability.