Educating a Healthy Lifestyle using the ‘Children-Friendly’ Approach in Early Childhood Education

Abstract

This paper reports the partial findings of a study on a health program that aims to explore the changes in lifestyle of children before and after the implementation of the health program. This health program involved 40 parents and 40 children from the ages of 3-6 years, which was implemented for 32 weeks in kindergartens that use the ‘children friendly’ approach. This approach refers to a concept that prepares learning notes and activities that comprises special features, which are well liked and suitable for children. It also facilitates the learning process without any coercion involved. Data related to the number of television viewing hours among the children were gathered from reports given by parents during the program. The data were then analysed using the SPSS software. The findings of the study show that educating a healthy lifestyle by using the ‘children friendly’ approach had contributed towards decreasing the number of television viewing hours among children as seen before and after the health program was introduced. Hence, it can be concluded that the research findings support the educating of a healthy lifestyle using the ‘children friendly’ approach in early children education. This effort focuses on engendering children to cultivate a healthy lifestyle, which then enables them to obtain learning experience that satiates the instinct and emotions of children to carry on learning and practicing health conscious behaviour.

Keywords: children friendly, early child education, healthy life style.