The impatience of childhood
Professor Cathy Nutbrown
Monday, March 23, 2015
'Are we nearly there yet?' 'How many sleeps before my birthday?'
'When's mum coming back?'
For many young children, waiting is difficult. They want it NOW! Babies cry when they are hungry and the fact that a feed is two minutes away doesn't halt the screams.
Some years ago, I was working with a group of colleagues to consider what the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child meant in early years practice. It felt to me that one of the main responsibilities of an educator in upholding children's rights in early childhood education settings was to allow children time - often difficult to do when other routines and priorities conflict.
Allowing children time is essential for their learning and well-being. Yet how many times in a day are children told to 'hurry up'?
But children have their own pace. They have to take their time. As they stop to study a beetle crawling in the grass, or listen to leaves rustling in the trees, or watch snow fall, they have their own rhythm in the world. Sometimes they have to work quite hard not to be interrupted by adult busyness.
None of us likes to feel hurried. And little children need opportunities to take things gently through their day, to go slowly if they need to and to pause and ponder.
Understanding childhood is an important task for any early years practitioner, and developing the skills of patience and understanding needed to appreciate the different paces of children takes time. Children often create their own rhythm through the day, and we need to try to follow them.
But while we must be patient with children's childhoods, we need to be impatient for their childhoods. We need to be impatient about the quality of provision available to children and their families, about developing policy that fits children's needs and capabilities, about proper recognition for those who work with them.
As Nobel Laureate Gabriela Mistral wrote:
Many things can wait.
Children cannot.
Right now their bones are being formed, their blood is being made, and their senses are being developed.
To them we cannot answer, 'Tomorrow.'
Their name is today.
