Who was Emmi Pikler? Discover its history and methodology

Dealing with children in early childhood, as well as their development and education, is something that requires a lot of responsibility and dedication. Staying informed about pedagogical methods is part of this process.

Emmi Pikler names one of the main approaches related to education, especially with regard to stimulating the healthy development of children.

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In this article you will learn who Emmi Pikler was and the reasons why her contributions are often adopted by parents and schools. Just keep reading!

The Story of Emmi Pickler

Emilie Madeleine Reich was born on January 9, 1902 in Vienna, Austria. However, she moved to Budapest as a child with her parents, a craftsman and a teacher. At the age of 12 her mother passed away and she was raised only by her father.

Emmi Reich is trained in medicine in her hometown at the Children's Hospital of the University of Vienna, she takes her husband's last name and becomes Emmi Pikler after her marriage to the professor and mathematical. Together, they raised their first daughter with the principles of development with freedom and respect for time and limits, which later came to base the Pikler approach.

Her training at the children's hospital led by Hans Salzer leads to her qualification as a pediatrician. And for the rest of her life, the doctor made her expertise count.

Emmi lived during the backdrop of World War II and had to deal with her husband's arrest for his Jewishness. This greatly affected her life as she needed the help of the family that she provided services as a doctor to survive. But, at the end of the war, she returned to her work for malnourished, orphaned and abandoned children, running the Lóczy orphanage until 1979 and dying 5 years later.

Throughout the journey, Emmi Pikler has been fully dedicated to working with children's development, producing materials writings, lectures on the area he dominated, but also the publication of books, so that he became a reference in these scopes.

See below one of the greatest examples of this success.

The Pikler Approach

The Pikler Approach emerges from Emmi Pikler's long and ongoing life's work. As we mentioned, the foundation of the methodology comes from the practice when she and her husband raise their daughter with freedom of movement and development in the first years of life, so that the child creates his own rhythm while the parents understand and respect he.
Emmi writes her first book where she reports this experience to other parents. It was published in 1940 and is still used today as a basis for applying her approach. After that, other publications came and continued to tell about his experiences.

It was in the mid-1990s that the approach became even more widespread and practiced. It worked perfectly for those who understood that the approach:

Requires the establishment of a bond of trust between the responsible adult and/or caregiver and the baby;
It is effective because the child feels safe and comfortable with the responsible adult and/or caregiver to exercise free play and thus develop;

Requires conversation with the baby to encourage bonding and understanding between both parties;

It eliminates actions that “hurry” the baby as this interferes with him creating and following his own pace, that is, the ideal pace for his development. This includes, for example, putting him in positions he won't put himself in.

Did you like to know about Emmi Pikler? In our blog you will find up-to-date information about it and other related topics. Check out!

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