Children’s Week (24 October to 1 November) is an annual event that celebrates and highlights children’s rights and achievements, including the right to enjoy childhood. This years’ theme focuses on Article 15 from the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child:
“Children have the right to meet together and to join groups and organisations, as long as this does not stop other people from enjoying their rights.”
What we can learn about this year’s theme
This year’s theme has a two-fold focus – the right of children to have the ability to choose who they wish to play with, and the obligation for children to be mindful of the impact of their actions on others.
Learning about others
Children in the early years are connecting with each other even before they are verbal. Children’s Week provides the opportunity to focus on the early mechanics of friendship, including to share stories, talk about and artistically represent what makes a friendship.
Children learn to play together throughout the early years and may need assistance to join friendship groups.
Sometimes play can cause discomfort or exclusion of other children. Understanding other children’s emotions is a skill that is practised and learned during and after early childhood.
Here are some tips for strengthening your child's emotional wellbeing and regulation at home:
Make different faces showing emotions and have your child guess what you might be feeling
Help your child to name their own emotions throughout the day
Read stories and ask your child to guess the emotions of the characters. Ask questions like “What are they feeling?” “How do you know what they are feeling?” “Can you make a similar face?”.
Make up funny songs that have emotions matched to the lyrics
Understanding rights
A simple way of starting might be to talk about what a right is – this summary from Children’s Rights Queensland could be used to start a conversation:
Every child is special and should have a safe, happy and healthy upbringing. The United Nations, along with countries around the world developed a set of rights aimed at ensuring every child can reach their full potential. This document is known as ‘The Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC)'.
What do children think a right is?
How many can they suggest, draw or make?
Celebrating together
Celebrating the rights of children is always important – the right of children to meet has been challenged this year due to limits on movement with COVID-19. Children’s Week provides the opportunity to celebrate the rights of children, including the importance of children playing and learning together.
At DMW, we've had to think outside the box and introduced our Staying Connected Program earlier this year to keep connections strong during social distancing and isolation! This program will continue into the final months of the year, with some very special events planned for our children over Christmas. Stay tuned!