Article Link: http://stage.exchangepress.com/article/seeing-children/5018438/
If we are not fully ourselves, truly in the present moment, we miss everything. When a child presents himself to you with his smile, if you are not really there �" thinking about the future or the past, or preoccupied with other problems �" then the child is not really there for you. The technique of being alive is to go back to yourself in order for the child to appear like a marvelous reality. Then you can see him smile and you can embrace him in your arms.�" Thich Nhat Hahn
The daily reality of working with a group of young children presents many demands for adults in early childhood programs. There are the ongoing chores of caretaking and cleaning up, planning and providing an engaging curriculum, communicating with families and coworkers, and the ever-growing pressures for outcomes, assessment, and documentation to prove that children are learning when they are with us. These pressures compete for our attention, making it difficult to keep the child at the center of our work. Most of us went to work with young children because we love their view of the world and wanted to share it with them. Yet, with all of these ...