OUR SCHOOL

About Us

Children First is a non-profit organization that keeps the child in mind when implementing our goals and philosophy. As our name states, the children are “First.” We feel children have the right to safe, creative and enjoyable child care, just as parents have the right to quality, affordable, and accessible child care arrangements. Our philosophy promotes the whole child, by helping him or her develop and grow cognitively, socially, emotionally, physically, and creatively through organized developmental activities.

Underlying our program are four basic goals:

To provide a warm, accepting and understanding atmosphere in which children develop confidence and a positive self-image.
To encourage and promote independence by allowing the children to make their own choices and help them become responsible for their actions.
To provide opportunities that enable children to socialize in a group atmosphere, interact with peers as well as adults, and learn to resolve conflicts and handle challenges.
To provide a stimulating environment where children can learn by doing, develop their own interests and discover the joy of learning about themselves.

Our curriculum is designed to serve as a visually, conceptual framework to identify what learning activities occur with the children during the day and the rationale for the learning methods chosen for our program.

In keeping with guidelines developed by the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC), Creative Curriculum (CC), Ohio’s Infant and Toddler Program Standards and Goals, and the Ohio Early Learning Development Standards the curriculum is designed to meet, in age appropriate and individually appropriate ways, the needs of the whole child.

Our curriculum is based and developed on the four significant areas of a child’s development:

Social/Emotional
Physical
Cognitive
Language

Three Essential Ingredients for School Success

Willingness To Learn
- Without willingness, each interaction becomes a power struggle instead of a learning opportunity. The School Family brings all children and adults, especially the most difficult, to a place of willingness through a sense of belonging.
Impulse Control
- Connection with others wires the brain for impulse control. Disconnected children are disruptive and prone to aggressive, shutting down, or bullying behaviors. The School Family uses connection to encourage impulse control while teaching self-regulation skills in context.
Attention
- Our attentional system is sensitive to stress and becomes engaged with positive emotions. The School Family reduces stress while creating an atmosphere of caring, encouragement and meaningful contributions.

Conscious Discipline is a social-emotional learning program. Designed by Dr. Becky Bailey, the program supports first teaching ourselves about self-control and self-regulation, and then teaching children. It helps us see how we respond to upset and understand our emotions, and how to regulate ourselves when we are triggered. In short, it teaches us how to be conscious as adults of what we are saying to children, and what behaviors we are modeling.

What is really wonderful is that it is an inside-out program – it teaches adults to manage their own upset, sadness, happiness, anger. Then, in turn, it teaches us how we can teach children the same thing. Then they too can manage their own upset when triggered and understand their own feelings.

Sometimes when we’re triggered or angry, we are in an emotional state. We may not even be fully conscious of it, but because of that state, we may yell aggressively or say something we regret. As a result, we are modeling to children that these negative behaviors are the appropriate response.

A higher level of understanding

Conscious Discipline is based on brain research. It is based on the brain state and being able to move from an unconscious brain state to a more aware state.

Once we become more conscious, we can be at a higher level of understanding. When we react in an upset brain state, we do so unconsciously. We want to be in a higher functioning brain state so we can be solution driven, and we can respond rather than just react.

I Love You Rituals

I Love You Rituals are playful, one-on-one interactions that build loving bonds while increasing attention span, decreasing power struggles and promoting language and literacy at school or at home.

Social-emotional learning

Other Activities

Field Trips

Weekly trips are offered for all ages in the surrounding area with parent permission.

Extracurricular Classes

Extracurricular classes, such as Tap and Tumble, are offered for an additional fee.

Security

Children First places the security of its children, families and teachers as its utmost priority. The building is secured with staff members who check personal belongings and/or ensures tenants have the appropriate identification.

Our Center is equipped with a secured keypad entry system which requires an identification code for entry.