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"All knowledge is of itself of some value.  There is nothing so minute or inconsiderable, that I would not rather know it than not." - Samuel Johnson in Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson

Nurturing Peaceful Children

"Nurturing Peaceful Children To Create a Caring World:  The Role of Families and Communities" is the focus of an article by Kevin Swick and Nancy Freeman, in the Fall 2004 issue of Childhood Education, the journal of World Forum Alliance member, the Association for Childhood Education International (www.acei.org).  In this article, Swick and Freeman offer these insights on the role of early childhood programs:

"Quality child care that nurtures the creation of healthy attachments between children and caregivers is characterized by appropriate ratios and group size, low staff turnover and, most critically, staffing patterns that facilitate primary caregiving and continuity of care.  Primary caregiving creates a circle of intimacy linking children, their caregivers, and their parents.  It creates a framework for consistency because, under ordinary circumstances, the same caregiver greets each child and his/her parent upon their arrival, tends to the child's needs throughout the day, and is there upon the parent's return to personally share the day's happenings.  One strategy to ensure continuity of care is looping, a staffing pattern that keeps children and caregivers together over long periods of time (preferably for several years), which supports and enhances intimate caring relationships.  These characteristics of quality give caregivers opportunities to nurture and support the children in their care....

"These two characteristics of quality care, nurturance and support, provide the stability and predictability that contribute to the development of children's caring competencies.  Not unlike a healthy and nurturing family, and sometimes to compensate for homes taht are not peaceful and predictable, child care settings can build into children's routines those experiences that protect them from the long-lasting effects of exposure to violence.  They can:

*  Provide opportunities for children and caregivers to create strong emotional attachments

*  Give children opportunities to show empathy and caring

*  Help children express their strong emotions in healthy and acceptable ways

*  Enhance children's capacity for higher level thinking.

"Just like parents can, child care providers can make a difference by:
*  Providing children experiences with caring relationships based on mutual trust, empathy, and responsiveness to others

*  Modeling kindness, peacefulness, and caring, and bringing children's attention to examples of these kinds of pro-social skills

*  Validating children's efforts to care for and about other members of their classroom communities."

For a curriculum based on peace education principles, check out the Exchange book, Hearing Everyone's Voice: Educating Children for Peace and Democratic Society at: http://mail.ccie.com/go/eed/0449

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