Teacher-Child Interaction

Infants and toddlers are explorers. Their interactions with trusted adults at home and away from home provide the emotional fuel these very young children need to puzzle out the mysteries of the social and physical world. Carepointe utilizes a range of strategies to create supportive interactions with infants and toddlers.  

Although we use the phrase “teacher” or “caregiver” throughout our program, the reality is that our staff is both – caregivers and teachers – providing both nurture and education for your child.

Because trusting relationships are crucial, our director strives to ensure that your child has the same primary care giving teacher throughout your child’s experience. So, while many teachers may be involved in a classroom setting, only one teacher is the "primary" for your child.  Other teachers provide a stable team for your child providing a strong continuity of care for your child.   

Our care giving teachers strive to form positive, reciprocal relationships with children --- relationships in which encouragement is the key. They cuddle, hold, play, and talk with children in a warm, unhurried, give-and-take manner. They establish a psychologically safe environment, where children's initiatives are regarded as purposeful rather than naughty or bothersome for adults.  Of course, if a child is initiating an activity that may be harmful, our teachers provide correct and redirection.  

Guided by practical theories of child development, our teachers attempt to see things from the child's point of view, encourage rather than thwart a child's efforts and communications, take cues from each child rather than impose their own ideas, and assume a problem-solving approach to each child's interpersonal conflicts rather than punish children or solve their problems for them.  

Very young children are just formulating a sense of themselves and an understanding of what the rest of the world is all about. Their interactions with parents and caregivers significantly influence the life-long conclusions children draw from their experiences. If parents' and caregivers' interactions are supportive, this shapes each child's perceptions of themselves as capable, trusted, and trustworthy human beings.