ANALOGY

“Children are living jewels dropped unsustained from heaven.” - Robert Pollok

Preschool is the most important period in a child’s emotional development. The foundations
for confidence and self-esteem are established during this time. The way children feel about
their rapidly blossoming abilities and the way they deal with more complex emotions have a
huge influence on their ability to cope with life’s stresses.

Since school hasn’t started yet, most of your preschooler’s learning will occur through play.
This will happen at home and at preschool or kindergarten with other children, where
children are encouraged to learn through play, art and storytelling.

Parent’s role changes dramatically during the preschooler years. The baby is a little person
ready to take on the world and their caregivers’ job is to show how.

One of the most important jobs during this time is helping the child to handle emotions and
develop social skills. These skills help the child to cope with emotional changes, keep going
in the face of frustration, have hope, control extreme emotional impulses, and feel
compassion and empathy. They are very important ingredients for success in life.

“Children are like wet cement. Whatever falls on them makes an impression.” -Dr. Haim
Ginott

Preschoolers easily believe the things they hear and see. They are gullible. They lack
knowledge and do not have the ability to rationalize and evaluate one’s truthfulness.

Despite their being gullible, preschoolers are equipped with sense enabling them to feel
emotions-fear, joy, love and anger. They respond to whatever behaviour and to whatever
emotion is reverberated to them, and like a cement, this makes impression to them, by which
if not corrected, would leave inscription in their hearts and in their minds throughout the
years.

The most important figures in a preschooler’s life are their parents. They inevitably believe
that their parents are the models they need to imitate. Child-rearing attitude of the parents are
the cognition that predisposes a preschooler to act positively or negatively.

Like wet cement, it becomes dry as time goes by. If negative beliefs or attitudes are not
corrected, they are going to apply them throughout their lives. This then will create defenses
and will affect their relationship as they grow up.

As Marilyn French said, “To nourish children and raise them against odds in any time, any
place, is more valuable than to fix bolts in cars or design nuclear weapons.”

According to Sigmund Freud’s psychosexual theory, psychological problems might have

their roots in how children were treated. Freud believed that most of our personality is
formed by early childhood, much of it so early that we don’t even have conscious memories.
For example, people who were toilet-trained strictly and at an early age grow up to be
intolerant of mess, disorder and anything that doesn’t go by the rules of how things are
supposed to be.

On the other hand, Erik Erikson’s psychosexual theory perceived that preschoolers initiate
pretend play with peers and accept responsibilities such as helping with household chores.
They also want to undertake many adult-like activities, sometimes overstepping the limits set
by parents. Sometimes these activities create conflicts with others, which create guilt. They
can resolve these crises by learning to balance initiative against the demands of others.

Jean Piaget’s Cognitive Development Theory described development in terms of sequential

changes in how children think. Preschoolers master independently acquired skills. They are
able to form mental representations of objects and imagine actions related to them. Their
thought is egocentric.

John Bowlby proposed an attachment theory believes that early relationships with caregivers
play a major role in child development and continue to influence social relationships
throughout life. With this kind of attachment, preschoolers wouldn’t have any problem in
interacting with other people.

“The pleasure of learning and knowing, and of understanding, is one of the most important
and basic feelings that every child expects from the experiences he confronts alone, with
other children or with adults. It is a crucial feeling which must be reinforced so that the
pleasure survives even when reality may prove that learning, knowing and understanding
involve difficulty and effort.” -Loris Malaguzzi