The Importance of Not Being Subjective whilst Working with Children

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This essay will explain the importance of not being subjective whilst working with children. According to Collins’ English Dictionary, subjective means that you are ‘relating to or emanating from a person’s emotions or prejudices’. In brief, this means that you are reliant on your own personal feelings therefore resulting to you judging that child for not displaying the behaviour that you would expect. The opposite of subjective is objective which, according to The Oxford Dictionary, means that a ‘person or the judgement should not be influence by personal feelings or opinions in considering and representing facts’ therefore, observations should be unbiased (‘being not biased or prejudice; fair or impartial’ – The Free Dictionary Online). You should treat every child fairly and in a non-judgemental manner (‘not judging on the basis on one’s personal standards or opinions’ – Dictionary Reference Online). You should not judge the child on their previous behaviour; instead you should treat each day as a new day by only recording how you see the child behaving on that specific day by simply recording what you see as accurately as possible.
To reduce being bias within an activity, make sure that you have chosen a selection of genders and cultures whilst organising a group activity. By doing this shows that you consider those from cultural backgrounds and both genders. Gender bias is still well-known in childcare settings however, it can be reduced. To reduce gender bias you can allow the children to have a free choice of activities to participate in during free play so that they have the opportunity to express themselves freely. All childcare settings should have a variety of toys for the children to use so they are able to play with ...

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...ces should an observation on a child continue to be carried out after a withdrawal.
Confidentiality needs to be in place at all times whilst observing children. You should never reveal a child’s personal details to anyone else, it should be kept private. This is part of The Data Protection Act, which has been formed to protect all personal data of UK residents. A child’s personal data should be stored in a named file and locked away in a private filling cabinet. When writing your observations, no child or practitioners names should be mentioned. The child of focus should be addressed as TC (target child) throughout the observation. If other children happen to join in with any activities that the target child is participating in then they should be addressed as C1, C2 etc. All practitioners will be referred to in the same many however, with an ‘A’ instead of a ‘C’.

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