Stephenson On-Site

We hold these ideas to be true:

Children have personal dignity and must be treated with respect.
Children are entitled to a strong, positive, self-concept.
Children need to learn critical thinking skills to effectively deal with our ever-changing world.
Children have the right to access information that will affect them, and the choices they make.
Children develop in predictable stages, although at different rates.
Each child must be allowed to explore activities at presumably earlier levels, in order to complete any developmental tasks that may have been missed. Much “failure to thrive” academically can be traced back to a child’s need to operate at a developmental level he or she may not have reached yet.
A child’s sense of security, positive self-concept, and emotional well-being is strongly linked to the family and its historical and current state of function or dysfunction.
Children have the ability to make good choices.
Children need both consistency and variety.
Children need to be allowed to make decisions and choices that will affect them in real, substantial ways.
Children need to be allowed to experience the consequences of their choices, excluding consequences that will cause great harm to their safety or development.
It is a child’s job to learn and grow on all developmental levels: physical, emotional, intellectual, social, creative, and spiritual.
Children have the right to their own personal space.
Children have the right to be safe and to feel safe.
Children have the right to say “no” and to place boundaries and limits on others interacting with them.
Children have the right to have fun and to experience joy.
Children have the right to their feelings, which must not be denied nor invalidated.
Children have the right to express their feelings appropriately; learning the appropriate way to verbalize, explain, and express feelings is an ongoing process that must be taught by and modeled by adults.

HOW WE IMPLEMENT THE PHILOSOPHY

At Stephenson Children’s Care Association, our goal is happy, well-functioning children who want to be at childcare because they have fun and enjoy the way they are treated. In essence, the program is a family, with adults setting the outer boundaries and maintaining safety, and children exploring within those boundaries while gaining knowledge from direct experiences. We empower the children to make many of the decisions that shape our program. Students help with the planning of all aspects of the program, from basics like choices for activities or snacks, to fundamental elements of the program like additions or deletions to the rights and responsibilities list. The result is that the children feel a sense of ownership of the program, similar to their responsibility to their family.