The concept of Child and Early Childhood

  Significance:

Why the concept of child or childhood is so important???

The amazingly rapid progress in the care and education of children in recent years may be attributed partly to a generally higher standard of life, but still more to an awakening of conscience. Not only is there an increasing concern for child health (it began in the last decade of the 19th century) but also a new awareness of the personality of the child as something of the highest importance. Today it is impossible to go deeply into any branch of medicine or philosophy or sociology without taking account of the contribution brought by a knowledge of child life. 
Now let's discuss, what is the concept of child and childhood, what are the characteristics of childhood in brief.                 

Childhood has not been defined and experienced in the same ways in all societies and at all times. According to UNICEF, childhood is the time for children to be in school and at play, to grow strong and confident with the love and encouragement of their family and an extended community of caring adults.
Biologically, a child is a human being between the stages of birth and puberty. Childhood is the age span ranging from birth to adolescence. In developmental psychology, childhood has been divided up into the developmental stages of:

• toddler (learning to walk)
• early childhood (play age)
• middle childhood (school age)
• adolescence (puberty)

It is a period of rapid- physical, mental, emotional, social and language development of a child. Some major developmental aspects such as, development of -understanding, moral values some common interests are some common characteristics of Early Childhood stage. 

Child development refers to the sequence of physical, language, thought and emotional changes that occur in a child from birth to the beginning of adulthood. During this process, a child progresses from dependency on their parents/guardians to increasing autonomy. 

The child as learner:

Everyone teaching young children should first have some understanding of the nature of the child. We must know how his/her body develops and what he/she can do at different stages of growth and development. We must know what interests the child and how long he/she can stay at one thing/activity (also known as attention span), depending upon his/her age.




We must have some idea about how he/she thinks and understands the world around him/her, how he/she adds new information to what he already knows.

To be simpler, let's briefly consider certain important aspects about how the child learns:

• The young child is naturally curious and wants to understand.
• Child development requires ample scope for movement.
• The child learns by doing - by play and imitation, by experimentation and discovery, by action, by all the senses, not by words.
• Passes through "sensitive periods" of optimum readiness for growth in certain aspects. M. Montessori has clearly described the periods in a child's growth, when he/she is just ready for certain types of development; if missed during that period, the development will not take place fully and smoothly.
• A child's logic is not an adult's logic.
• Each child grows at different rates.