leahandthefirstyears

Have you ever worried about this? I have seen lots of negative conversations lately happening in many places about early childhood care and education and it breaks my heart.

The early years care from teachers ALWAYS should have the heart at the centre. I know for myself it was and is still a privilege to be trusted to care, educate and love another families young child.

Relationships are the centre of it all. Teachers are part of your village. The modern village can look like many different things and I hope you find somewhere you feel safe and secure.

What might it be like for a child starting an early learning environment or school?

Scroll on through to see a little insight 💖

Guys!! I have such cool news, a little while ago I was approach by to be a guest on their podcast. I was SO excited to be asked.

Raising Wildings is one my favourite podcasts about childhood, education and all things children and children whenever I listen I always come away feeling inspired.

I feel so privileged to have been a guest on the show and we jam packed so many different topics into this world episode.

Some of the topics are:

👉🏽About the brain and brain development in the early years
👉🏽Why the relationship between teachers and the children and their family is so crucial to building a sense of belonging
👉🏽How exploration is the key is learning and empowerment 
👉🏽That independent play is often the goal and what our expectations should be around this
👉🏽About schemas and how understanding them helps you to remain connected with your child

+ SO MUCH MORE 🤩

Have a listen and let me know what you think! 🤙🏽

Circle of Security Parenting is an amazing attachment focused, evidence based course to help you support your child/children and to understand what they really need.

I still have spaces available in the next group course which could be you!

You will get guided through the 8 week course and each module by me. Over 8 hours of live content time and so much opportunity for questions and reflections.

I think this course is truly life changing as it has so much valuable information to help with any aged child.

Scroll through to find out all the details 👉🏽

If you’re interested and want to know more, feel free to comment any questions you have. Please email me at [email protected] to secure you spot but also DM on Insta with any other queries you have 🤍

I can’t wait for the journey to begin!

A few do’s and dont’s when starting in early childhood care with your child 💕💛

It’s a big change for them and for you as a parent too. I say these as a teacher myself and having been the loving hands on the other side.

If you have any questions do let me know below 🤍❣️

The power of validation from a child’s perspective 🤍

Share with a friend x

Is your child saying no?

Being an early childhood teacher and working with children under the age of 6 so many years means I have a whole lot of experiences with this. So here is the low down on toddlers starting to express themselves!

Share with a friend, save for later and let me know what you think! 🤍✨

A sensory diet is a term created by 2 occupational therapists which groups different experiences together across a day to met someone’s sensory needs.

A sensory diet is used to describe the variety of sensory experiences which help child to learn about their body, create awareness of themselves in the world, to soothe and to help self regulate their emotions.

A rich and diverse sensory diet can be a helpful part to support lots of your child’s development and supports their overall physical, cognitive and emotional well being.

Some children love exploring all of their senses, some children may need more in a particular area while other children may be overwhelmed by too many smells or the texture of things. Just go with the flow and explore to see what may work for your child.

The great thing about a sensory diet is everyone needs different things and can be designed uniquely to your child’s personal sensory preferences and profile.

A sensory diet can be designed by an occupational therapist (OT) and if you want to know more about how this may help your child, reach out to your closest to help.

Get playing and exploring those senses ✨👏🏽

BIG NEWS ✨🤭

So you may or may not have noticed that I haven’t been active on this account the last few weeks…… there’s a big reason 💕

After a busy few years in New Zealand and then a long lockdown in Auckland my partner and I decided we wanted to head on a new adventure. After some long discussions we decided to move to the UK…

So whilst in heavy restrictions I did one of the hardest things and with lots of tears, I handed in my resignation to the job I have loved so long.

After many farewells, lots of emotions and a tad bit of crying, I packed up my life into a few suitcases and just landed in the UK 🇬🇧.

I’m so excited for a new chapter of my life, to catchup with old friends, gain new experiences and to continue my career in a new country.

I promise this page will be back with the same content as always very soon. Once I have settled in and found my new rhythm Leah and the First Years will be filled to the brim of new information, topics and insights just like before (and maybe with some new UK insights).

Thanks for sticking around even though I have given the page complete radio silence. I hope you stay around and join for new, exciting things to come!

Aroha nui,
Leah x

How do young children learn and is ECE a must in the first years?

This is a very complex answer with so many factors but summed up briefly by this….

“Children learn through every interaction they have with others, however, the greatest teacher is the child’s strong attachments – the ones who look after and care for them the most at home. We know children learn by playing with other children and exploring new relationships, but this doesn’t need to be fostered in an ECE environment.

If you choose to enrol your child in ECE, that’s wonderful, but please don’t feel like you’re not ‘enough’ for them because I promise that you are”.

Are we adding more fuel to children’s fire?

This is a simple image explaining the two ways a scenario can go depending on us as adults reaction.

Imagine this moment, a child about 2 and a half years old very upset that they csnt close their lunchbox properly. They try and get frustrated, try again, get angry, a teacher tells them to “calm down” and as they try for the third time, they then throw their lunchbox at one of the teachers.

The teacher then became distressed at what had happened, they were unable to control themselves, they yelled “I don’t get paid enough for this” and proceeds to tell the child off.

The child becomes more distressed that their behaviours has caused someone they loved, yell and storm away. The child became even more upset and starts yelling and then they run over to their friends block creations on the floor and hit them all over.

The poor child was already in a state of stress cause by the lunchbox, the reaction by the other teacher added fuel to the child’s fire and it got worse.

Did the child mean to throw the lunchbox? Maybe? But they did mean hit a teacher? I don’t believe so. Did the child have the ability to regulate their emotions? Definitely not.

If the teacher had been in an emotional safe space of calm themselves, this could have gone differently.

One of the biggest things we can do is adults is regulate our own emotions, when we are calm we can help children to get to that place too.

Guess what? That’s seriously hard. I know.

It’s not always possible and there is so much ‘work’ we have to put in as adults to get ourselves to be in a position to support young children.

Children need calm to help support them to move through emotions and come back to a state of safety.

No one is perfect and it’s not human to expect everyone to do this every time but being aware of how we can use our emotions to help children builds resiliency and emotional intelligence.

Early childhood teachers need you. ECE needs everyone to fight for it.

After my stories yesterday and sharing an article, it sparked so much conversation. I thought I would write this to bring awareness to this topic.

Early childhood education is the only non compulsory sector but for many families it’s a such part of their “parenting village”. The strain the current sector is in is taking on teachers. ECE is on the brink of dramatic devastation as so many quality teachers are leaving to find jobs elsewhere.

If you take one thing from my page it’s that the first years are so important. Children’s lives are being developed during this time and it’s important we get it right for them.

Please share this to your stories, talk about it to others, let your local MPs know, vote where you can to help the sector.

I would love to know from ECE teachers how the current system impacts you and from parents to know how much do you value ECE? Comment below!!!