Early Childhood is a stage of development from 3 to 8 years old. These early years are the most crucial and critical for a child’s overall development. The experiences that the child goes through during this phase have a long-term effect on the course of his life. According to pedagogues, children are born as a blank table or “Tabula Rasa” (concept given by Locke) they start their life from the neutral. The child’s mind is so malleable that parents and immediate caregivers can mold it in any way. This is the stage in which basic physical and social development occurs and cognitive development begins. The child learns socialization, logical thinking and the concept of friendship and gradually moves towards higher cognitive development. He has developed gross motor skills and excellence in fine motor skills is in progress.
According to the developmental theorist, the human life span is divided into different stages of development, each theorist has its own way of classification. Erick Erickson and Jean Piaget were the two most widely accepted Human Life Span developmental theorists. Erick Erickson identifies stages according to the emotional development of the child, according to his theory early childhood is divided into two of its stages-1) Will (autonomy Vs Shame and Doubt-2-4 years) 2) Purpose (initiative Vs Guilt- 45 years). While Piaget identifies the duration of life according to cognitive development in 3 stages of development: previous operational, concrete operational and formal operational. He identifies Preoperational (2-7 years) as the stage of early childhood.
If we delve into any of the theorists mentioned or others, there is one thing in common, they all identify early childhood as a crucial stage in which a platform for future growth and general development is prepared. This stage is like the foundation of a building, if the foundation is laid correctly, the strength of the building can withstand all the outrage, even the design of the building depends on the foundation. In the same way, the environment that we provide to the child will have a great impact on the type of person that he will be in the future. That is why most child psychologists and parent counselors repeatedly suggest parents to provide their child with an exploratory environment where she can learn and discover new things. The main reason behind the expansion of the play schools market is the concept that “this is the stage where the child’s comprehension ability is at its peak. The child can learn as many skills/language as they are exposed to.” Play-Way techniques are used to teach these skills to children.To explain this phenomenon we can consider our case, many times we forget the work we had done in the last few days and even find it difficult to remember exactly our graduation syllabus , but we can even recite our nursery rhymes, alphabet songs and number songs in this movement too – this is what we call play form technique (do learning through songs etc), our nursery teachers have used this at the best possible time, which is the stage of early childhood where our power of memorization was at its highest peak. During that time h we had learned everything simply by imitating, repeating our teachers, parents and immediate environment. Also, if a psychiatric problem or cognitive, developmental and physical development delay is identified in early childhood, the chances of coping are greater than at any other stage of development. But it can also be the other way around if a child faces some trauma/abuse at this stage, then the aftermath is more serious and can have a strong negative impact on her overall growth.
UNICEF also identifies the need to provide a healthy and safe environment for children. In 2014, UNICEF staff and their government counterparts participated in the Forum on Investing in Young Children and a panel discussion on neuroscience and early childhood development (ECD) (UNICEF). These were excellent opportunities for capacity enhancement and promotion platform to increase investments in ECCE. The India Country Office organized the ECD South Asia meeting which brought together 6 countries in South Asia to discuss ECD priorities and programming. The events gave a major boost to the growing momentum of ECD in the South Asian (UNICEF) region. Even the main flagship programs of the government Midday Meal, Right to Education, Indradhanush Mission, etc. everything is focused on providing a safe, healthy, nurturing and exploratory environment for children. Through Mid Day Meal, the government aims to provide good quality and nutritious meals to all children, and through the right to education, efforts are made so that all children have the opportunity to study. Both schemes can serve children older than 6-7 years. But through Aaganwadi special provisions were made to meet the needs of young people, education through interesting means and healthy and nutritious food for their physical growth in their immediate environment.
“Interventions in early childhood have been shown to have long-term effects on future social adjustment and economic success, and can even be passed on to subsequent generations” (UNICEF), which means that the interventions we do today will constitute the background of the future to want. If we want a developed nation in the future, we first have to provide a safe, healthy and exploratory environment for our children. If India wants to progress as a nation, our government should start to focus more on early childhood development programs.

References
1) http://mhk-rad.blogspot.com/2012/07/comparing-and-contrasting-jean-
piaget.HTML
2) http://umich.edu/~ece/student_projects/childrens_lit/Educationalist_Theory.html
3) https://www.unicef.org/early-childhood-development