FAMILIES MATTER

HEALTHY FAMILIES BUILD HEALTHY CHILDREN WHO ARE READY FOR SCHOOL — AND THE WORLD

Voluntary prekindergarten, like this class at Gonzalez United Methodist Child Enrichment Center in Escambia County, gives children the chance to learn and grow together, skills they will need to be successful in school.

BY Vicki Nall Pugh

EARLY LEARNING COALITION OF ESCAMBIA

Getting children ready for school, friends and life begins early.

You have what it takes to help your child physically, emotionally and mentally. Because your family is powerful.

Families are where a child learns the soft skills and hard skills they need for life. Soft skills are not about specific content knowledge. Instead, this skill set addresses how children deal with new environments, interactions and discoveries. Children’s regulation of their emotions and attitudes and dispositions toward learning are soft skills that, in turn, are critical building blocks for the hard skills that are content driven, such as math or reading.

Families can teach those things.

As children grow, their ability to establish relationships with peers and with adults influences how they view themselves and the world. Positive and adaptive social behaviors result from interacting with others who have different characteristics and backgrounds. With the help of supportive familiar adults, young children expand their capacities to recognize and express their own feelings, and to understand and respond to the emotions of others.

Family dynamics teach children how to identify positive and negative emotions, how to verbalize their needs appropriately, and how to interact with other children as well as adults.

When a responsive, familiar adult soothes a baby with a touch or soft voice, the baby learns that people can be trusted. When a preschooler tries to comfort a sad family member, he has been taught the soft skill of empathy and concern — a necessary skill for teamwork at school and in the workforce.

Helping your child develop creativity and inventiveness at any age — whether building a Lego tower or finding a new way to move oneself before learning how to walk — gives a child the self-confidence of persistence when something may be a bit difficult, skills needed in school as well as on a job.

Learning how to plan by making decisions on what she wants for breakfast not only gives a child ownership but also teaches her how to use past experiences to make decisions, which in turn builds more self-confidence.

Family life can be complicated and stressful, and everyone needs help sometimes. Resources can be expensive to buy and timeconsuming to find. Resources may be nonexistent in some households.

The Early Learning Coalition is a place where families can find help. The Child Care Resource and Referral (CCRR) Specialists at the ELC can provide connections that link families to quality childcare and community resources such as food, medical care, workforce support, housing assistance, creative financial assistance options, child development information and more.

For more information: ccrr@elcescambia.org or (850) 595-5915. Vicki Nall Pugh is the Director of Community Impact, Early Learning Coalition of Escambia County. To learn more about the tools they offer to help families and children, visit ElcEscambia.org.