Ice Breaker: Perceptions of Children in Care
Cultural identity may link a child to a certain national or cultural ethnic group. A child may associate his or her identity with gender, family background, and the group in the care. A child may also associate with culture, religion, or language. After having an understanding of the identity, a child likes that his or her cultural heritage is appreciated. It is also the responsibility of parents to show confidence and a positive attitude about their own cultural identity. After acceptance of their culture, the identity of children grows stronger. In care, children realise their cultural identity through the eyes of employees working in the care. Given the importance of cultural identity, promotion of their cultural identity is important. Children have perceptions for a broader understanding of their language, values, and cultural background.
Background and Statistics:
There is evidence from research that children can realise the difference in cultural background as young as three years. They become aware of differences in identities through the colour of skin and social interaction when they are just 2 or 3 years of age. It means that cultural identity is part of awareness and observation of children, and they observe this reality. It is possible that children may refuse to play with children of certain backgrounds because of differences in culture when they are four to five years of age (Bahne, 2018). The importance of cultural identity for children described above and the ability to recognise difference by children set the foundation that promoting the cultural identity of children in care is crucial.
Working with Children in Care:
A child in care finds its first institution in his life, and its environment affects his personality directly. The environment of care is also useful in supporting and promoting the sense of autonomy and identity of children. Cultural educational pedagogies find that education helps children adapt to fulfil their needs. In the case of multicultural early childhood education, a child gets self-consciousness and experiences on ethnic, cultural, and linguistic aspects of their life. Personality development starts in preschool stage in care where they should help understand their own culture. Along with it, they also need to embrace other cultures. Abolishing racism and discrimination may start from their period in care. The recognition of cultural identity should go beyond other cultures in the care so that they can embrace the reality of diversity and multicultural society later in their life. Working with children involves various elements in the culture wheel from food and drink to tools and objects. There is importance of knowledge and stories and acceptance for greater community after care (Cooper, 2014).
Case Study and Discussion:
The cultural identity of children in care is the case study. The importance of cultural identity and multicultural identities has been established. Now, the promotion of cultural identity of children in care is going to be focused. Promotion is necessary because it increases children’s capacity to have stronger relationships with their families. The quality of care enhances, and education gets strong foundations in the coming period. A caregiver in care has to be responsive culturally, and it would add trust and the ability to seek support among children. Culture and identity are side by side, and they may not separate from each other. If children get culturally responsive environment in care, it leads to shortening gap between them and their parents. They can relate more to their parents because they get an equal environment in care and at home. The case study would take the case of children in the light of importance for cultural identity.
Relationship Analysis:
The case study is, in fact, about the relationship between children and employees in care. In the end, it is to emphasise that promotion of cultural identity in care has many more benefits through the relationship. It helps develop relationships with families, and care experiences get new heights. Every child in care gets support, which adds to their communication and language support activities. Understanding one’s own cultures leads to understanding other cultures. Lack of recognition of cultural identity may lead to complexity in children, and they may reject the existence of other cultural backgrounds. A child may not leave his culture, and its ability to interact with the world is through words learnt through cultural identity. Therefore, it is highly relevant for care to promote cultural identity among children. It happens by building relationships between children and employees in care.
Conclusion:
It is to conclude that the case of children in care is vital to understand in the light of cultural identity. It is very important and relevant for their personality development and learning endeavours. Understanding their cultural identity would help the process of learning and knowledge of children.
References
Bahne, R. (2018) How to support a child’s cultural identity? [Online], Available: https://www.theseus.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/143556/Thesis%20Rita%20Bahne%2004042018%201.pdf?sequence=1 [20 October 2019].
Cooper, V. (2014) Children’s developing identity, [Online], Available: http://oro.open.ac.uk/39730/3/Children%2527s%20dev%20identity%2014.03.14.pdf [20 October 2019].
