Young children are like learning sponges and every new skill they learn paves the way for their bright future. At that impressionable age, each experience, every step they take, and the behavioural patterns they adopt get embedded deeply. This reaffirms the importance of early childhood education, which if done right can be a huge investment that continues to pay off well into their adulthood.
Fortunately, most parents across the globe realize the Long-Term Benefits of Early Childhood Education and how it shapes the minds of their children. The impact of early childhood education is not lost on the government either, governments across the world place a strong focus on the holistic development of young minds. Yet there is a huge gap that needs to be bridged because children in the right hands are capable of demonstrating endless potential.
That being said, let's dive into the key benefits of childcare education.
One of the major highlights when it comes to childcare education benefits is how profoundly it assists the brain development of young children. Young minds are molded by their genetics along with the environment they grow up surrounded by. Babies and toddlers are wide-eyed and willing to learn, and roughly 85 percent of brain development happens in the first 6 years of life.
This is why such a strong emphasis is placed on the early years of a child’s overall development. As Vision and hearing develop, it is followed by cognitive skills and communication skills. This is why early childhood education has so much potential to make a positive impact on children.
While discussing the Long-Term Benefits of Early Childhood Education, the concept of the development of their independence is often overlooked. Many children who partake in early childhood education spend a good bit of time away from their families. Being in an unfamiliar place, away from home, can help young ones to develop their self-reliance, confidence, and own identity.
During the process of a child’s budding independence, they develop major self-control skills between the ages of 3-6 years old. These skills may include sharing, focusing, and self-regulation. For instance, a child may show self-control by waiting for their turn to play with a toy, or by actively listening to someone who is speaking to them.
Another aspect that reinforces the importance of early childhood education is that it helps build a routine for them to stick to. With routines, children pick up on the functioning of their environment and control problematic behavioral patterns such as trivial tantrums. When deciding day-to-day routines for kids, early childhood educators will put together a combination of activities that are passive + active, outdoor + indoor, and child-run+ adult-run.
Routines are also scheduled based on children’s age requirements to space naps times, include any personal needs or medical requirements, and incorporate other aged-related needs.
Many research studies conducted on early childhood development prove that among the many benefits of childcare education, there's a remarkable improvement in the literary and numeracy skills of children who receive proper early childhood education.
It is fact that children who receive at least twelve months of early childhood education are far more likely to do well and score better in primary school. By supporting their cognitive growth early on, they have a very high probability of reaching higher levels of numeracy and literacy in the upcoming stages of their education.
Early childhood education teaches them to communicate with other kids and grown-ups who come from different cultures and backgrounds and endows them with the social skills that come in handy while trying to develop appropriate friendships with other people.
These social skills are critical not only for their formative years but for the rest of their lives. Establishing the base for it early will enable your child to make appropriate emotional choices and sustain healthy relationships throughout their life.
Long-Term Benefits of Early Childhood Education include:
Becoming better at social interactions
Demonstrating empathy toward others
Developing emotional maturity early on
Building bonds and interacting with other children and educators
Better academic performance
Holistic overall development
ECE promotes the development and enhancement of social skills in kids which pays off well into their future. Social skills are behavioral patterns that boost healthy interactions between children and their peers. Some instances of key social skills for young kids include sharing, waiting for their turns, helping and cooperating, and being able to interact clearly.
Evidently, kids with deficient social skills are likely to have a hard time mixing up with others. This is where Early Childhood education benefits children and their families, ECE paves the way to provide a multitude of opportunities curated to support these skills in young children.
Early childhood education can encourage the development of social skills in children. Social skills are crucial in helping a person develop and maintain healthy communication with their peers. These skills are vital in making and keeping friendships. Social development in young children does not always run seamlessly and ECE workers support children by implementing the right strategies, for example, conflict resolution when issues in communications surface. It is also necessary for children to develop the feeling of ’empathy’ as it enables them to react to situations in a compassionate and understanding way to the feelings of people around them.
One of the many long-term benefits of early childhood education is the fact that it sets the foundation for a child’s overall development and successful transition into different phases of life: every chapter of their educational journey depends on its success.
Quality early childhood education establishes a solid base for learning.
Universally, early education helps make education in later stages more efficient and impactful.
As per UNICEF, children partaking in at least one year of early education have a better chance to enhance the critical skills they require to perform well in school and are much less likely to drop out early or repeat classes. As they mature into adulthood, they contribute to harmonious societies and robust economies. The many wonderful ways in which early childhood education aids development can be seen all around the world.
Early childhood education can do wonders for your child’s holistic development. It is so much more than just a space for a playground. It provides many cognitive, emotional, social, academic, and health benefits that help them reach their full potential and help them right from their childhood and throughout their lives.
Apart from the surface childcare education benefits, ECE also helps young minds indulge in the creative process of building a strong foundation of experiences in the crucial initial five years of life that helps each of them to do their best and excel in all areas of life.