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The Relationship Between Parental Role And Early Childhood Education And Its’ Development
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CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background to the Study
The
quality of life for a child and the contributions the child makes to the
society as an adult can be traced back to the first few years of life.
From birth until about five years old, a child undergoes tremendous
growth and change. If this period of life includes support for growth in
cognition, language, motor skills, adaptive skills and social-emotional
functioning, the child is more likely to succeed in school and later
contribute meaningfully to the society. A good early childhood care and
education provides the intervention programmes that support children’s
survival growth, development and learning including health, nutrition
and hygiene, cognitive, social, physical and emotional development from
birth to entry into primary school in formal, informal and non-formal
settings, United Nations Educational and Scientific Cultural
Organization (UNESCO, 2007).
Anyakogu (2010), states that the primary
location for early childhood education and development is the home.
This is because, the home is the first contact the child had in order to
interact effectively with both parents and siblings. The home is a
place, where learning begins for the child. A place the child learns how
to respect parents and to
imitate and recognize people around him.
Traditionally, the responsibility for child care in Nigeria as elsewhere
in Africa rests on the extended family and the wider community. These
members of the society contribute to the upbringing of the child,
providing him or her with a wide range of stimulating interactions that
will affect the child’s development positively, especially in
psycho-social terms.
In recent decades, rapid urbanization has
increasingly eroded this traditional pattern of the child care. Hodges
(2009) observed that “’for the approximately one third of families who
now live in the cities, the mutual support that was a prominent nature
of rural life has given way to situation where each household is to a
large extent responsible on its own for the care of childrenâ€. Living in
cities implies that many mothers are engaged outside the home or
otherwise for most part of the day and this has implication for child
upbringing in the family (Adeleke, 2009).
This is because, many
parents’ love and burning desires for paid job and monetary reward, in
order to make the family more comfortable and to meet up with the
payment of other home bills, have taken over parents’ love and care for
their children. This has caused many parents to leave their children at
the hand of immature house-helps and nannies, hence poor growth and
development of the child in the society and the school.
Parental
roles in early childhood development are varied. The quality of care
given to young children affects their development. Parents and in
particular mothers, are responsible for feeding, hygiene in the house as
well as the response to illness in young children. For babies, mothers
breast milk offer the best and most complete food. Breast milk provides
babies with antibodies, which help to keep off the risk of illness
(Leon, 2011). Parents especially mothers who are engaged in routine
jobs, do not have time to feed the baby with adequate breast milk. Also,
due to education and civilization, most mothers believe that breast
feeding the baby will affect their breasts and thereby making them to
look older than their ages, they fail to breast feed their babies within
the required period. This has caused most children to have poor growth
and social development, and by extension, poor academic achievement in
school.
Monde (2012) claims that the early introduction of other
liquids and solids if prepared in unhygienic conditions increases the
likelihood of infection, often resulting in potentially life threatening
conditions like diarrhea. Exclusive breast feeding in the first six
months of life is enough to support the growth and development of babies
and this should be complemented with high quality foods until about 24
months of age to sustain the rate of growth. Adequate care and nutrition
lays a solid foundation for proper early childhood development. This is
because proper nutrition aids brain growth necessary for intellectual,
cognitive as well as psycho-motor development in the child.
The home
serves as the take-off point of this development. The child who is
usually helpless depends on maternal stimulation for the development of
proper physical and physiological functioning. This includes toileting,
feeding and bathing (Ayo, 2010). Toileting and feeding training for the
baby in the early life of the child is very crucial and necessary for
the child’s later years of life. For example, within the ages of 2 to 3
years some children are able to feed themselves rightly with the use of
the spoon without assistance while some cannot do that. Some children
know when they are pressed to use the toilet before they wet up their
clothes. This can only be made possible if parents, especially mothers
are available and have time to take their responsibilities at this
crucial time of the child’s development and growth.
The mother is the
first important person in a baby’s world. How she behaves to the child
is crucial in establishing a feeling of comfort and security. According
to Esu (2010), “insufficiency of maternal care is detrimental to
development during the early years as the child grows. It is the
responsibility of both parents to lead children through the early years,
providing them with adequate nutrition, stimulation, good values, and
good health habits. It is also a parental role to teach children the
language of their immediate environment. They should help children to
communicate with the family and with their peers (Amadi and Amadi,
2009). This is because, if children are taught how to communicate with
family members and peers at the early age or stage, it help them to
acquire or learn good behaviours and positive social adjustment in the
society and at school even when they grow up as adolescents and adults.
For instance, they would learn how to respect the older members of the
society in terms of greeting, making requests and so on. They also learn
how to express themselves so as to acquire knowledge further from
others in the community.
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ABSRACT - [ Total Page(s): 1 ]The study examined the relationship between parental roles and early childhood education and its development. A detailedliterature was reviewed in relevant subheadings. The descriptive research design was used in order to assess the opinions of the respondents using the questionnaire and the sampling technique. A total of 300 (Three Hundred) respondents (made up of 150 males and 150 females) were selected and used in this study as the sample of the study which represented the entire population ... Continue reading---
