Gütersloh (dpa / lnw) – With the return of all children to the North Rhine-Westphalian daycare centers from this Monday, from the perspective of an expert, the educators will face major challenges. “In this very stressful time for families and children, after many weeks of isolation, it means a great requirement for the specialists in the daycare centers to be sensitive and holistic about what each individual child needs in order to be able to arrive safely at the facilities again”, said the head of early childhood education at the Bertelsmann Stiftung Kathrin Bock-Famulla of the German press agency. However, she feared that in the personnel situation, which was again exacerbated by the Corona crisis, the capacities for these educational tasks would be too small.
Even before the pandemic, studies showed that many educators complained that they were unable to pay enough attention to education and individual support because there was not enough time. Accordingly, many find the balancing act between the demands on their own work and reality stressful. “It is therefore not just about the risk of infection from Corona, we also have to look at the psychological stress on the skilled workers,” said Bock-Famulla. The reduction in the care time offered is therefore a “wise step by the ministry” to give the porters some breathing space in their personnel planning.
In the lockdown since mid-December, the daycare centers were open to all children whose parents were unable to organize care at home. But there was an urgent appeal to leave small children at home if possible. On average, according to information from the Ministry of Family Affairs, around two thirds had done without a day care center or day care center. From Monday, however, all children in almost all cities and districts in North Rhine-Westphalia are expressly invited to come back. However, there is initially a nationwide flat-rate reduction of ten hours of care and fixed groups. How the children return to the facilities after many weeks at home depends heavily on the families’ resources in recent months – these are often burdened by factors such as home office or concerns about the pandemic. It can be assumed that a clearly isolated life with fewer contacts will also have an impact on the children and their social development. “If children are now in a larger group, the specialists will also have to look at how things are with their social skills among their peers,” says the educationalist.
It is also possible that there may be delays in motor development if life at home was limited to limited living space, for example, or in language skills if German was not spoken at home. “In any case, the specialists will pay a lot of attention to how stable the children are emotionally. Are they scared? What experiences have they had and perhaps new trust must first be built in order to make early childhood educational processes possible at all,” said Bock- Famulla.
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210220-99-518893 / 2
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