What’s not to love about children in early learning and childcare? The things they say, the ways they surprise us, seeing them discover the world and themselves.
And they are small, easily hurt in body and feelings. They look to us with trust and a certainty we will look after them and look out for them.
Why not love?
Yet should we talk about “love”? There are at least four reasons why not. I don’t buy them, but let’s give them a fair hearing.
- Firstly, we are not their parents or family. We are professionals offering a service to them. Perhaps the language of love is inappropriate, and crosses boundaries.
- Secondly, they are with us to be cared for, but ultimately to learn and develop. Nurture is important, yes, but it is a means to an end – to get them ready for school, and all that this means.
- Thirdly, not everyone is comfortable talking about “love”. We in the English-speaking world can be a bit reserved about emotions. “Care” is fine, that’s a set of tasks. “Love” – beyond the comfort zone!
- Lastly, love itself means many things, and we are all now well aware of how adults can use emotional connections to manipulate and abuse children. The connections of love and sexuality – is it just not appropriate?
Actually – love!
As always when we adults have a dilemma about what to do about children, the easy way to solve it is to turn it inside out. What does “love” mean for a small child, what does it look like to them?
Best thing to do is to go and ask them. They might come up with things like:
Kind to me
Smiles at me and my mum or dad
Helps me when I’m sad
Look after me
Play with me
Talks to me
Laughs with me
Likes what I do
Explains things to me
Finds interesting things to do
And so on …
Does that sound to you like the core business of early learning and childcare? What we do every day? It does to me.
So from the child’s eye view, of course we love them – whether we feel it or not, it is what we do. And that’s good enough for me to say I love them too.
Want to know more about this? Tamsin Grimmer has written a whole book about loving pedagogy, and has some film and posters on her site here. It’s well worth a look.