Early years of children’s life are very critical because they undergo a robust natural development process that encompasses all domains including physical, cognitive, social, emotional, psychosexual, spiritual and moral development. Thus, all children are born with an innate potential to learn and develop if properly nurtured, much like intuition, which is present at birth, can unfold to its innate potential over the first 8 years of life through proper care and attention. This critical feature of human development makes early years of life very sensitive for the entire life time. In the absence of an enabling environment for young children, their innate potential starts withering away, and is eventually lost.

In present times, apart from the role of parents, the teachers’ role has also become critical in the nurturing of children due to the prevailing fashion of early schooling. However, many a time, teachers do not have even the basic understanding of the innate potential children possess and its natural development process. This lack of understanding and ignorance leads to a creation of an environment which is extremely harmful for the nurturing of children. One of the critical things which teachers can do to facilitate the nurturing of children is to STOP their anti-nurturing practices.

This article highlights some of the key current practices of teachers which need to be stopped. It also maps out essential steps for teachers to become good facilitators.

STOP underestimating children; START acknowledging their potential
The first thing that teachers need to do is to stop underestimating the potential and skills of children. Many teachers believe that children are like empty vessels and do not possess any of their own thoughts, ideas, emotions, skills or observations. Although teachers articulate that children have prior knowledge and skills, the teaching practices reflect this very flawed assumption.

Our careful observations of young children show that each child is born with amazing innate capabilities to learn, explore, observe, feel and respond. Recent findings of Cognitive Neuroscience have also proved that "Babies are not 'blank slates' at birth. They come into the world with all kinds of mental skills and predispositions, abilities suited to the critical needs of early life.” First of all teachers have to change their beliefs about children and need to acknowledge their natural potential to learn and grow. This change in understanding will be essential to bring a change in their practices which will consider children as the active architects of their own learning and growth process.