What All Children Need

I AM a visitor in your beautiful country, working on a project which investigates services provided to orphan and vulnerable children aged 0-8 years.

In this capacity I have been visiting homes and orphanages where these children spend their days. I must say that I have come to note some facts.Firstly I believe that for the most part children in Namibia are loved and cared for in the best way that situations allow.However I do not think that many people realize that early experiences set the foundation for a child’s behavior, development, attitudes, and psychosocial and physical health for the rest of his or her life.Children from birth onward need active interaction with their environment.They need to be talked to and sung to.They need to have interesting things to look at and someone to put into words the things that they are seeing.Playing with sand and water, with pots and pans, making pictures – with a stick in the sand, with some chalk on a slate or with a crayon and paper – are important activities which are the precursors of reading and writing (even when the picture looks like tiny dots or scribbles).Playing with different sizes of sticks or stones and making designs or sorting pieces of fabric represent pre-mathematics.Giving children pots or plastic dishes to stack – flour mixed with water to shape, a ball of grass to throw are all educational‚ activities for children from age one onward.Children also need to use large muscles – to run, climb, push and pull things.They need to engage in imaginative play – that is pretending to be a mother or father or truck driver or doctor.This pretend play helps them to learn how to behave in socially acceptable ways.Doing ‘real’ work‚ such as helping with household chores also provides important learning experiences, but children should not be given responsibilities at too young an age.This creates anxiety which can lead to depression in later life.While many children are lacking in sustainable nutrition, shelter and health services and while many organizations and individuals are working hard to provide these, I hope all remember that feeding‚ the brain with stimulating and interesting activities is also a fundamental need and right for young children.If every community had an (affordable) creche where children before school age could engage in these learning activities, even if only for a few hours per day, I believe that we would see some radical improvements in educational and social attainments and, in the long run, in national economic development.Jacqueline Hayden WindhoekI must say that I have come to note some facts.Firstly I believe that for the most part children in Namibia are loved and cared for in the best way that situations allow.However I do not think that many people realize that early experiences set the foundation for a child’s behavior, development, attitudes, and psychosocial and physical health for the rest of his or her life.Children from birth onward need active interaction with their environment.They need to be talked to and sung to.They need to have interesting things to look at and someone to put into words the things that they are seeing.Playing with sand and water, with pots and pans, making pictures – with a stick in the sand, with some chalk on a slate or with a crayon and paper – are important activities which are the precursors of reading and writing (even when the picture looks like tiny dots or scribbles).Playing with different sizes of sticks or stones and making designs or sorting pieces of fabric represent pre-mathematics.Giving children pots or plastic dishes to stack – flour mixed with water to shape, a ball of grass to throw are all educational‚ activities for children from age one onward.Children also need to use large muscles – to run, climb, push and pull things.They need to engage in imaginative play – that is pretending to be a mother or father or truck driver or doctor.This pretend play helps them to learn how to behave in socially acceptable ways.Doing ‘real’ work‚ such as helping with household chores also provides important learning experiences, but children should not be given responsibilities at too young an age.This creates anxiety which can lead to depression in later life.While many children are lacking in sustainable nutrition, shelter and health services and while many organizations and individuals are working hard to provide these, I hope all remember that feeding‚ the brain with stimulating and interesting activities is also a fundamental need and right for young children.If every community had an (affordable) creche where children before school age could engage in these learning activities, even if only for a few hours per day, I believe that we would see some radical improvements in educational and social attainments and, in the long run, in national economic development.Jacqueline Hayden Windhoek