According to Wikipedia, early childhood education is a branch of education theory that relates to the teaching of children (formally and informally) from birth to up to age eight. The benefits of early childhood education for children are almost countless as well as being long lasting.
I have four children aged 9, 7, 5 and 4. I have and am currently incorporating formal and informal early education in all of their early years and have already seen the benefits for myself.
As an online educator I have also worked with children who had some form of early childhood education versus not and almost always the children who have had some form of early childhood education perform better than those who did not.
Early childhood education helps to mold the minds of young children in their formative years. This form of education sets the stage for your child’s education journey. If you’re like me, I know you want the very best for your child. One of the best things that we can do for our children is to start their early childhood education as soon as possible.
7 Benefits of Early Childhood Education for Children
1. Routines
The first benefit of early childhood education for children on our list is getting your child accustomed to routines. Children will have to follow some form of routine throughout life so it is imperative that they begin to learn routines from the start.
Routines help children feel safe, they set expectations, they help take pressure off from parents (hooray!), and they also help children develop healthy habits.
To start, you can implement some of my favorite routines which include: morning and night. By starting with these you are setting boundaries, expectations and responsibilities.
Starting with these will help your child ease into more of the daily routines that come along with early childhood education. Routines are awesome in an early education system in or outside of the home.
2. Love for Learning
Early childhood education stimulates a love for learning in children. Discovery is a part of every young child and when you unlock this gift for them you are introducing them into an entirely new realm.
Once children begin learning new things, their curiosity is peaked and then they begin to wonder and ask more questions. They will want to know more and more.
Early childhood education has proven time and time again to help children discover that learning is a wonderful gift and that the world has so much to explore.
3. Patience
Patience is a virtue that we all need to learn to have and sometimes struggle with. Let’s face it, it’s hard to wait! If we can instill patience in our little ones earlier in life, the chances of them having a lot of difficulty with it later decreases tremendously.
Early childhood education helps teach children to have patience with themselves and others. If you choose to do an outside early education program your child will learn to have patience with their peers. Early childhood education routines at home can help children have more patience with their siblings, themselves and even their parents.
Learning patience is a process and is found to be more difficult with children. The earlier we start helping our children learn patience the better off they will be later in life.
4. Confidence
During the early years when children are exploring new ideas and skills their self-esteem is boosted each time they accomplish a task. With early childhood education each new day brings on a new challenge for children. As they tackle these challenges they are learning their routines, patience as well as building self confidence as they learn that they can do hard things.
Building self-confidence at an early age is so important for children. This part of early childhood education can have very long lasting positive effects if children are learning in a positive environment. The earlier a child can build a healthy balance of self confidence and self-esteem the healthier their emotional and mental states will be.
5. Concentration
How many times have you seen kids jump from one activity to another or even spending less than a minute with one toy? Although this is natural with young children, having a solid early childhood education can help increase a child’s concentration ability.
The use of structure and routines in early childhood education helps gear children in the direction of spending more time on one particular activity. They learn to spend an allotted amount of time to be able to complete a task, an assignment or lesson.
This helps children to not hop from one thing to the next, but to complete what they started. You will notice the confidence levels increasing in children as they are able to actually accomplish these tasks and activities.
6. Motivation
The next benefit of early childhood education is motivation. As children learn routines, they will learn more about timing and patience. While increasing their concentration skills by being focused on completing tasks and assignments they are also building self -confidence and a love for learning. What does all of this lead to?
All of this leads to motivation to want to do and learn even more. A positive early childhood learning environment is motivating for children in so many ways.
They will see that there are other people besides mom and dad who believe in them. This will also help them believe in themselves more and not just because other people are telling them to. It will be because they can see for themselves that they can do so many things. I THINK I CAN! I THINK I CAN!
7. Resiliency
The last benefit of our list of early childhood education is resiliency. Early childhood education plays a very important role in helping children develop resiliency. As children learn that they are important and that they have the capability to do great things resiliency will begin to grow.
Resiliency grows by being able to face challenges and solve problems. A solid early childhood education gives children the opportunity to see that they can do those things.
When children have a grounded early childhood education and a loving and supporting community working together they will inevitably be able to conquer whatever maybe thrown at them.
Conclusion
In conclusion, a firm early childhood education has many long-lasting benefits. Not only does early childhood education help children develop attributes such as a love for learning, motivation, patience, high self esteem and resiliency. It has been proven to help in many other ways.
According to a CDC Study, early childhood education helps with self-regulation, academic achievements and decreased grade retention. In addition to these, this study also showed that those who participated in early childhood education programs had better jobs and higher earnings during employment.
So now, I would like to ask you to think where you are along this journey. What are some areas you are doing well in? Or what are some areas where there can be improvement? Would you like to enroll your child in a program outside of the home if they are toddler/preschool age?
Please let me know in the comments! I am here for you and want to to help you along this journey!
I like how you pointed out that early childhood education can help children develop a love for learning. With that in mind, it seems like you would want to find a learning center that has teachers that make learning fun. You would want to find a learning center that has teachers that love what they are doing.
Thanks so much Henry! I agree with you. If finding a learning center is the route that one wants to take. I totally agree!