Ten Child and Youth Care Commandments
Mia Kellmer Pringle
- Give continuous, consistent, loving care –
it’s as essential for the mind's health as food is for the body.
- Give generously of your time and
understanding – playing with and reading to your child matters more than
a tidy, smooth-running home.
- Provide new experiences and bathe
your child in language from birth onwards – they enrich his growing
mind.
- Encourage him to play in every way both by
himself and with other children – exploring, imitating, constructing,
pretending, creating.
- Give more praise for effort than for
achievement.
- Give him ever-increasing responsibility – like all skills, it needs to be practised.
- Remember that every child is unique – so
suitable handling for one may not be right for another.
- Make the way you show disapproval fit your
child's temperament, age and understanding.
- 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.
- 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
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