How and why you need to protect your voice

How and why you need to protect your voice

Early childhood educators know that they must be mindful of taking care of their back, among other things when they pick children up. Physical and professional exhaustion also represent risks associated with the profession. However, there is another danger early childhood educators must be weary of: vocal problems.

Unfortunately, we often consider them only once problems arise. Having experienced vocal strain myself, I can affirm that losing your voice when you have 6 children to care for is very difficult! It is a well-known fact that teachers frequently lose their voice. That is why we see more and more teachers using microphones to avoid straining their voice.

Just like teachers, early childhood educators speak incessantly throughout the day. What’s more, mask wearing puts them even more at risk of damaging their vocal cords. After all, they must repeat even more than they usually do since their messages can be more difficult to decipher when children cannot see their mouth. What’s more, they must speak more loudly because masks muffle their voice somewhat.

In my case, overuse of my voice led to nodules on my vocal cords. I was lucky to avoid an operation, but my condition required numerous speech therapy sessions and months of vocal exercises.

To avoid going through that, here are a few strategies you could adopt:

• Use different gestures, among other things to attract children’s attention and avoid having to raise your voice.
• Limit unnecessary noises in your daycare to avoid having to speak over the sound produced by, for example, music or different toys.
• Exaggerate your facial expressions to help children decode your messages without having to use as many words. For example, children will learn to recognize your approval or disapproval by looking at your eyes.
• Get into the habit of getting close to children when you wish to speak to them. Get down on one knee so that you are at their level and don’t have to speak so loudly. Often, we tend to speak to children from the opposite side of the room which requires us to almost shout out what we want to say.
• Try to speak more slowly and pronounce the words you use as clearly as possible to limit the number of times you must repeat yourself.
• Display numerous pictograms on your daycare walls and in various areas. You can point to the pictograms to remind children of different rules and routines, sometimes without saying a word.

Never forget that your voice represents a very important tool in regard to your early childhood educator role. After all, your voice allows you to speak, sing, and teach daily! Take care of it!

Patricia-Ann Morrison