When a child comes into this world as a dependant, adults have a responsibility to support a child’s growth. Adults must provide children with a safe environment where their physical and psychological needs can be met, enabling them to grow into healthy secure beings.

This thesis explores the physical and psychological needs of a three year old child, and how they can be met in a childcare setting in order to promote successful mental development. In the following writings these needs will be explained. It will be examined how these needs can benefit a child in their development and how individuals can be motivated whilst looking at the UK childcare standards of the Statutory Framework for the Early Years Foundation Stage.

What are physical and psychological needs?

To understand how one can support a child’s mental growth, the physical and psychological needs of a child must be identified. As will be shown in the following writings, these needs are both of equal importance.

Physical needs are the basic rights and requirements that every human being needs to survive. Included in these needs are water, food, fresh air, shelter, a safe environment, rest, and a healthy diet, to name a few. Water and food are important for physical development as they strengthen a human’s immune system, and together with a healthy balanced diet promote physical growth and development of individuals. As a growing three year old child actively interacts with their environment these physical needs are important to assist them in learning on a day basis.

In a childcare setting, it is the duty of practitioner to guide a child through the importance of having a healthy diet, and encourage the child to make positive choices towards a healthy lifestyle. Even though the physical benefits of a healthy diet may seem complex to a three year old, a practitioner can simplify them when