The Tool Of Change: How To Achieve Personal Growth?
In a developed world without ethical bases, education becomes the best tool for future change Today’s society has planted principles of growth that create challenges and difficulties for people, as they must follow this hasty pace of development, so as not to be left behind and be able to fit into a place for their own progress.
Therefore, in order to follow the world and its respected society, people who wish to belong to certain sectors or possess certain comforts coming from social acceptance, must have skills and knowledge that allow them to adapt to constant change.
Now, education; As cliché as it may seem, it is the best instrument a person can use in life. Furthermore, education covers many areas in terms of a person’s development, it goes beyond school learning or the amount of knowledge about a specific area that they can memorize.
Teaching begins with the first relationships that a child creates and the impressions that these generate Specifically, it is the first years of life (from birth to three years) that count most for the healthy development of a person, since at this stage they are provided with tools and experiences that, in the future, will allow them to function interacting with their environment. (What Is Early Childhood Development? A Guide to Brain Development, 2022).
As a result, growth, whether of an individual or a community, is generally based on learning, individual or collective; However, the way it is presented and handled will have the same impact. Therefore, as mentioned above, education involves a lot of life, it encompasses learning, experiences, knowledge, values, the way of relating, ideals, judgments, among many other aspects of importance in development. human.
Therefore, this article seeks to raise the importance of education in the first years of life and its repercussions on the future of children; as well as a viable form of parenting that has gained strength in recent years: Respectful parenting. According to the guide “What is early childhood development? A Guide to Science” from the Harvard University Center for Child Development, The healthy development of infants from before birth to the first three years of life is of utmost importance since it provides them with the basis to confront all the challenging social problems that society faces today.
Likewise, they highlight the path that research in neurology, molecular biology, behavior and human development has shown; That is, life experiences in the early years shape the architecture of the brain and shape personality, as well as the child’s way of learning and perception; They also affect their behavior, way of relating to others, and their mental and physical health.
Due to the way in which the brain generates new connections and takes shape (develops), the brain is, biologically, prepared to mold itself based on the experiences that the child has; hence, First, simple neural connections are formed that will be responsible for basic skills, and complex circuits are built on top of those basic ones as more complex skills develop (Center, 2011).
The role of father figures
The experiences that count the most and impact the child the most are those they have with adults. The way they relate, mainly, with their parents or authority figures determines, to a large extent, the way in which they perceive relationships and lays the foundations for their future relationships with their environment. Therefore, the brain must be understood as a whole that encompasses the cognitive, emotional and social.
It is essential to understand that, given the biology of the brain, the first impressions that the child perceives remain marked and will be the bases for their future ; Therefore, if a child learns about values, education, respect, emotional intelligence, assertive communication and empathy from what he perceives in his relationship with adults and his experiences with other children, then he has already gained a large part of the solutions of his future problems.
Consequently, the best tool for change is education; As mentioned above, it encompasses many aspects that shape a person in every sense. Mainly, it becomes an option due to the scientific support it has, the way in which the brain is molded from childhood makes a difference.
An education enriched with experiences that strengthen the comprehensive development of children guarantees an adulthood with emotional maturity, social and cognitive intelligence As for what a good education really is, it must focus on various areas of development, it must be based on respect and self-knowledge without falling into conditioning.
To better understand the latter, it is necessary to briefly explain the learning theories developed by various psychologists and specialists, who developed theories about human learning. First of all, there is the theory of behaviorism, which, despite having been developed at the beginning of the 20th century by I. Petrovich and J. Watson, is still relevant. This theory proposes that the basis of learning is based on a conditioned stimulus-response reflex; Behaviorists define learning as the acquisition of new behaviors or behaviors, they argue the existence of classical conditioning, instrumental conditioning and reinforcement theory.
A clear example of behaviorism is pets, who learn through conditioning (they get a reward in exchange for following orders) and reinforcement, whether positive or negative. Secondly, there is constructivism, its precursors: J. Piaget and L. Vygotsky were based on the idea that the human being is a constructor of reality and learns through what his mind is capable of constructing and therefore learn. In this theory, learning is based on the assimilation and accommodation of reality, they defend that learning occurs through a teacher-student relationship that is two-way
Likewise, there is the theory of cognitivism, its main precursor was Leon Vygotsky and it is based on understanding how the mind processes, interprets and stores information. Basically, it defends that learning is given by what any individual perceives from the environment (through observation or explanation), what he processes through assimilation (practice or interpretation) and in the storage of information (short or long term memory). ) to be able to use it through practice.
Finally, there are social learning and the theory of multiple intelligences; where the first defends that Human learning is a continuous process that is shaped through the observation and reproduction of the behaviors of other important people in their social environment The second defends that there are multiple types of intelligence and that intelligence itself is a multifaceted and diverse ability, so each person is different and has different abilities that differentiate them from others. Therefore, it is vital to remember that in the first stage of development of every human being, it is important to set an example and take care of all behavior towards the child.
Possibly it is the way of learning that has the most impact on a person, the multiple theories on this confirm this. Therefore, some may be more useful depending on the context, for example, schools use behaviorism more, seeking to have more control, due to the number of people they have under their supervision; On the other hand, constructivism offers a vision of learning without the control that is exercised by conditioning the student for his development.
As parents or psychologists, it is essential to find the best way of learning for children Considering the importance of the first years of life, the healthiest thing is to fill them with experiences and examples that allow them to learn about values, relationships, their emotions, communication and the best way to interact with their environment.
What is respectful parenting?
The education provided to children must be full of respect and love, to free them from unnecessary stress that will only impact their mental and physical health in the future. Furthermore, providing them with tools for their future in which they must develop without the presence of their parents at all times is what will make the change in our societies. Prepared and stable people from childhood can interact with each other with respect and camaraderie to find solutions to social, economic or political problems that meet the interests of all.
Thus, respectful parenting comes in to fulfill a high-reaching role; As already mentioned, learning and the way it is presented to children is most relevant. Hence, It must always be based on respect, empathy, patience and love, without losing the educational and, to a certain extent, authoritarian approach that must be taken when raising a child
For respectful parenting there are no magic recipes or a list of things to do with the infant, as it is a doctrine, a way of guiding the child through a series of learnings and experiences that every person lives and forges their mind. On this path to educate children, the person who is the example for the child, generally the parents, must be consistent with what they teach and how they act with other people, since children are very observant and learn more from example. the example sweeps away.
To educate you also have to learn about the world of children, even if you have already gone through that stage, it is necessary to understand the emotions and thoughts that children can have, it can be frustrating and exhausting, But empathizing with the mess of emotions that someone feels when growing up is the most important thing to form a supportive bond that shows children that they have someone to trust to overcome their problems in a better way.
Finally, the experiences and ways of learning that children have from a very young age make a difference in the future, teaching them about the world, emotions, love and respect, empathy and all the differences that may exist is not anticipating them is teaching them about what awaits them, in order to provide them with tools to handle it in the best way. Although the above is important, so is the way of providing all the information to children; the experiences they obtain as children must be in accordance with their age and ability to understand.
The mental and physical health of children should always be prioritized, taking into account all the repercussions that a bad childhood can have not only on the person themselves but on their environment and society Hence, the tool of change is education that is planted with the appropriate foundations to provide the world with people prepared to seek a better future for all.
