Parents are immensely powerful and influential over their children beginning with conception. They are, in subtle and gross ways the child’s Role Models and through natural process arefixed in place emotionally, mentally and physically to their creation. By taking care of themselves the parents contribute to what is to become (hopefully) a healthy child that becomes essentially what their parents are.
Although I stretch the meaning of Role Model which we normally associate with those we select to model after. Here I intend this to cover the people directly involved with the child until the child leaves the nest. During this time period (approximately 3 years) the immediate family (mother, father, siblings) play a vital role in whom and what the child becomes. I have, in previous papers used the symbolic “kitchen table” as the site where most of the role model’s power and influence is exercised, but of course I mean the home and its permanent residents.
By the time the child leaves the nest the child is generally formed and influenced, even if not fully conscious of the attributes and attitudes they carry with them. The “kitchen table” is a powerful teaching environment thanks to their role models and if the child sees this new world from only their “kitchen table” role models they are severely limited in what they know and believe.
But pre-school offers the potential for a whole new world and people experiences. The relationships that take place and the new and different role models will influence how they experience their immediate world, classmates and adults. The opportunities are profound and must be taken advantage of. Here is when the Teacheris also LeaderandRole Model. These roles that teachers ARE(not play) needs to have a “world view,” respect and regard for a child’s uniqueness, listens, understands, empowers and cares for them. The teacher accepts and uses subject matter as only a part of the education experienceand that relationships and dialogue counts for so much more. The ideal Role Model knows we are each more than a self—-we are family. Sy
