Is Your Environment Child Friendly?

Is Your Environment Child Friendly?

Whether it’s a classroom or a living room a child friendly environment will help you and the child have a more pleasant day. As a rule it is better to say ‘yes’ more often than ‘no’ when working with children. More guidance and less punishment.

But what does that look like?

Consider who will be using the area and make it functional and comfortable for everyone. Small children are constantly exploring and engaging in their environment and will test the limits of every environment to learn what they can do. An environment is not child friendly if statements like: “don’t touch that,” “don’t eat that,” and “don’t destroy that,” are constantly being heard.

Two little rules can make an environment more child friendly.

1. If you don’t want a child to touch it, eat it, or destroy it put it up high or put it away.

2. If you don’t want a child to go up, out, or onto something; you need to block it,

rearrange it, or remove it.

But how will children learn not to touch fragile things if all the items in a room are child safe?

A child’s safety is more important than having Aunt Mabel’s favorite vase on display or keeping dangerous items close at hand. Children often mimic the adults they see; so if they see care being taken when an adult handles an item, they will learn to  carefully take care of their own toys and possessions. Eventually as they grow that child will learn to care for someone else’s possessions as well and soon you will be able to gauge when it is safe to put pretty things on the coffee table.

When my children were small I taught them to respect my pretty things by buying sturdy items from the Five and Dime (Dollar Store). They were guided in handling them gently and I didn’t have to worry about whether the item was damaged or destroyed. Our days were much happier when I didn’t have to worry or fuss at them about “stuff.”

*****Drano, Windex, and other cleaning agents need to be tucked safely away out of the reach of curious children. Many adults may be taking prescription medication that appear to an adventurous child as something good to eat; be sure to keep all medication in a locked drawer or in a location inaccessible to them.