NURTURING CARE

When parents/caregivers offer a nurturing environment with repeated positive interactions, they help children form secure attachments. This will help the children feel confident when responding to challenges, big and small. Receiving nurturing care contributes to all aspects of a child’s development, including language, social and emotional well-being. Babies and young children benefit from care that is consistent, reliable and immediate. It teaches them to trust that adults will interact with them in ways that are comforting, encouraging and fun. 
Care routines—changing a diaper, going to the toilet, eating, washing hands, dressing and undressing, sleeping and preparing to go outside or transitioning between activities—are a natural part of the day. Parents/caregivers can use care routines as opportunities to strengthen the nurturing relationship they have with a child. Routines make up a predictable and repetitive part of each day, offering stability in a child’s life. How parents/caregivers meet the basic needs of babies and children affects their learning. 
As children become more independent, they will still seek out comfort from parents/caregivers. Secure attachment starts early in life—before birth—and continues to deepen, alongside growing independence, during the second year. Children like to explore and practise new skills, such as walking, while staying connected with parents/caregivers through touching and gazes. As children approach new experiences with curiosity, wonder and excitement, they need the security of knowing they can turn to a nurturing caregiver for reassurance and care. 
In their second year of life, children are active, curious explorers who need nurturing care from their parents/caregivers. They become more independent as they learn to talk, move on their own and explore their world. They learn to make decisions and do things for themselves. Food preferences emerge, napping schedules change, and they start to be aware of their toileting needs. Children gain more and more autonomy over their bodies and learn to manage their emotions, behaviours and ideas.
A child craves independence as they get older and increasingly wants to do things on their own. Parents/caregivers can support this by trusting in a child’s competence and respecting the time and effort they put into a task. Providing them with support and space to be successful enables them to develop the skills and confidence to move on to more difficult tasks. Between the ages of 24 and 48 months, a child gradually learns to take on parts of their own self-care routine and to assume responsibilities around the house. It’s important for parents/caregivers to recognise what the child is ready to do and what they still need help with. 
 
As a child becomes more independent, they also become more confident in expressing their opinions and preferences. At times, parents/caregivers will need to step in to provide the child with guidance. Parents/caregivers can provide indirect guidance in the way they set up the child’s environment, schedule and boundaries, and in the way they address difficult behaviours that arise. Parents/caregivers will want to remember that connection is a child’s ultimate motivator. Paying attention to when and how they connect with the child can provide insight into how to encourage positive behaviours and discourage unwanted ones. 
 
A child’s self-perception begins to develop in the preschool years as they begin to understand more about who they are in relation to others. Their identity begins to take shape through their experiences and interactions with others and they begin to develop empathy and concern for the well-being of others. Positive experiences and interactions with a trusted parent/caregiver support a secure attachment, which increases their self-esteem and the ability to regulate their emotions. To help a child regulate their emotions, parents/caregivers can label the emotions the child is feeling. Other people’s emotions can also be named. The Toolbox cards in this section offer suggestions about how to do this. 

You have a unique opportunity to increase learning opportunities in a young child’s daily environment by showing parents/caregivers Nurturing Care activities and implementing them in the home or in a group setting. Parents/caregivers naturally promote the child’s learning—even without being consciously aware of it—when they respond sensitively during daily care routines. Nurturing Care activities build on the good things parents/caregivers are already doing.