Talk and Play Family Education Perspective

Underlying Ideas Of Parent Education

Early childhood period is the most important time for a child’s development. In early years of a child, the responsibility of caring, training and support lies upon the family. Children thus should be supported at home by family as well as the school. Parenting, caring, loving, protecting and educating children seem to be still important in almost every part of the world; from modern societies to small communities and from the very early humans. However, the concept of childhood and children has emerged in the last few centuries. The idea that the child is different from adults and need to have appropriate education which is organized according to developmental characteristics of children have arisen (Karpowitz, 1980; Elkind, 2001). Leading thinkers who wisely pondered about the nature of human beings, have also put emphasis on the characteristics of early childhood. Comenius, Locke, and Rousseau thought that childhood experiences and the environment of childhood are influential (Aytaç, 1972; Dokecki & Moroney, 1983; Oktay, 1999; Meisel & Shonkoff, 2000; Ural & Ramazan, 2007). These effects may shape the characteristics of adulthood after childhood. Comenius says that human beings come to the world as “good” and the main aim of education should be to develop this natural structure of human beings, while Locke says that the child comes to the world as “Tabula Rasa” and child will gain adult characteristics under the influence of environmental conditions. Locke states that the purpose of the education is that the child gains good experience in a good environment (Morrison, 1998). Rousseau was impressed by Comenius's view that states the importance and innocence of the first year of childhood should be guided by the adult and stated that the child came into the world with innate “good” characteristics, but the environment child lives in is also important. He argued that the education of the child should be done in accordance with nature, paying attention to the child's mind and emotions (Aytaç, 1972).