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Foundational Texts in Child and Youth Care

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Ten Child and Youth Care Commandments

Mia Kellmer Pringle
  1. Give continuous, consistent, loving care – it’s as essential for the mind's health as food is for the body.
  2. Give generously of your time and understanding – playing with and reading to your child matters more than a tidy, smooth-running home.
  3. Provide new experiences and bathe your child in language from birth onwards – they enrich his growing mind.
  4. Encourage him to play in every way both by himself and with other children – exploring, imitating, constructing, pretending, creating.
  5. Give more praise for effort than for achievement.
  6. Give him ever-increasing responsibility – like all skills, it needs to be practised.
  7. Remember that every child is unique – so suitable hand­ling for one may not be right for another.
  8. Make the way you show disapproval fit your child's temperament, age and understanding.
  9. Never threaten that you will stop loving him or give him away; you may reject his behaviour but never suggest that you might reject him.
  10. Don't expect gratitude; your child did not ask to be born – the choice was yours.

Pringle, Mia Kellmer (1977) The Needs of Children. London: Hutchinson

The International Child and Youth Care Network
THE INTERNATIONAL CHILD AND YOUTH CARE NETWORK (CYC-Net)

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