Children, Learning, Nursery schools and Parents
A child (plural: children) is a human between the stages of birth and puberty. The legal definition of "child" generally refers to a minor, otherwise known as a person younger than the age of majority. "Child" may also describe a relationship with a parent or authority figure, or signify group membership in a clan, tribe, or religion; it can also signify being strongly affected by a specific time, place, or circumstance, as in "a child of nature" or "a child of the Sixties."
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child defines a child as "a human being below the age of 18 years unless under the law applicable to the child, majority is attained earlier." Ratified by 192 of 194 member countries. Biologically, a child is anyone in the developmental stage of childhood, between infancy and adulthood.
The age at which children are considered responsible for their own actions (e.g., marriage, voting, etc.) has also changed over time, and this is reflected in the courts. Learning is acquiring new knowledge, behaviors, skills, values, preferences or understanding, and may involve synthesizing different types of information. The ability to learn is possessed by humans, animals and some machines. Progress over time tends to follow learning curves.
Human learning may occur as part of education, personal development, or training. It may be goal-oriented and may be aided by motivation. The study of how learning occurs is part of neuropsychology, educational psychology, learning theory, and pedagogy.
Learning may occur as a result of habituation or classical conditioning, seen in many animal species, or as a result of more complex activities such as play, seen only in relatively intelligent animals. Learning may occur consciously or without conscious awareness. There is evidence for human behavioral learning prenatally, in which habituation has been observed as early as 32 weeks into gestation, indicating that the central nervous system is developed. A nursery school is a school for children between the ages of three and five years, staffed by qualified teachers and other professionals who encourage and supervise educational play rather than simply providing childcare. It is a pre-school education institution; part of early childhood education.
The curriculum goals of a nursery school are more specific than for childcare, but less strenuous than for primary school. For example, the Scottish Early Years Framework and the Curriculum for Excellence define expected outcomes even at this age. In some areas, the provision of nursery school services is on a user pays or limited basis while other governments fund nursery school services.
The preschool education institution is more commonly known as kindergarten (children's garden), a name given by the german Friedrich Fröbel who created the first institution in Germany, in 1837. The other common names for nursery school are pre-school, playschool, playgroup and nursery.