Honesty. Integrity. Personality.
Guiding critical first steps toward honesty, integrity, and personality is an important responsibility. A child’s precious first steps toward these virtues are a primary focus of the Funtastic Initiative, and it begins by nurturing and inspiring their first steps onto the path to understanding honesty, integrity, and the value of friendship.
Our First Steps Initiative
Inspiring vs. Teaching
The Funtastic initiative understands we must guide and inspire. At a young age, children learn differently. Young children learn through inspiration and discovery. They can learn and adopt the concept of honesty very early, as well as the value of positive social skills.
Children ages two to five are at the most critical age in relation to the influence of learning good or bad behaviors. What they adopt early will often follow them for a lifetime putting them on a good path or a potentially harmful one. We believe that the instantaneous reward a child often gets from telling a lie is a formidable challenge we have as educators and parents. It is the most influential dynamic in the development of ethics, honesty, integrity, and character. At these early ages, children can subconsciously embark on a path of high integrity putting high value on their honesty and integrity, or a path of selfishness with little regard for a lie’s impact on others. Compassion and empathy are also virtues that heavily influence their finding value in personal integrity and character.
At Funtastic Learning Academy, our mission is keenly focused on continually supporting these basic virtues in every part of our program and curriculum. We understand how they learn and work hard to inspire discovery on their own terms. Teaching at this delicate age is often just an illusion. Our goal is to guide and inspire. We nurture their nature, and every staff member provides regular lessons on all elements of the Funtastic Initiative.
Honesty. Integrity. Personality.
Honesty. Integrity. Personality.
Honesty
The most fundamentally important value a child must develop is honesty.
It is the foundation of character and integrity. These very early years are vital to their adopting honesty in their choices and taking the first steps to the path of high integrity. Lying is developmentally normal although it is also a problematic behavior. Moreover, telling lies is a major developmental milestone associated with the theory of mind and lie-telling is ubiquitous across cultures. It generally emerges at a young age during the preschool years and develops rapidly with age. Deliberate lying behavior in children is, in part, influenced by how they perceive the negative consequences of disclosing the truth versus the positive outcome of telling the truth. They lie for many other reasons, even for altruistic reasons as well. Inspiring positive and deliberate first steps is our promise.
The Funtastic Initiative is deeply committed to supporting and encouraging behaviors aligning with making honesty the only choice. At a very young age, all children experiment with bad behaviors, while testing the boundaries. While a younger child may conjure up an elaborate tale about how she couldn’t possibly have kicked a younger sibling or to avoid scolding, they are forming lifelong lessons on the benefit or consequence of an untruth. We understand at this early stage, interaction with caretakers and teachers, as well as other children, will be influential in choosing their first steps onto the right path.
Character & Integrity
Will a child be humble or boastful? Will he or she be helpful or selfish? How about finding value in keeping his or her word?
Being a gracious winner or sore loser are also character traits that begin to define a child even from a very young age. Of course, character is a vital trait that helps children make and keep their friends, as well as be liked and appreciated. This vital component of personality is a key virtue that we feel must be encouraged early and continually. This may seem like a high standard of expectation or influence, but the truth is that children at these young ages are easily influenced and adopt what they learn much more easily.
We understand their needs and work to guide these first steps onto the right path. Our constant attention to each child and their individual journey is our first commitment to parents.
Personality/Social Skills
“Personality meets possibility”
Good social skills and an amiable and pleasant personality are vital first steps both in life and education. Young children with strong social skills are not only more likely to be accepted by their peers, they are more likely to excel academically and less likely to develop behavior problems. Preschool social skills depend heavily on several core competencies. They include self-control, empathy, and verbal ability. While they include basic etiquette – like saying please and thank you - the most crucial skills are psychological.
The Funtastic Initiative focuses a great deal on orchestrating and encouraging interactions that are positive experiences. Interactions serve a variety of important roles for preschoolers. Throughout the day, as they watch, imitate, model, and interact with each other, preschoolers learn to share, solve problems and collaborate. They also build friendships that promote positive social and emotional development. We continually provide lessons and opportunities to encourage being socially adept while discouraging a tendency toward isolation.
Our Parent Pledge
