When you introduce children to some of the people and places in their neighborhood, you help them develop a sense of community. And as children understand more about community, they begin to feel more secure, from the good feeling of "belonging" and knowing there are caring people outside their immediate families who help take care of their needs.

Valuing Work

When children learn about the different jobs people do, a whole new world opens up to them. Children begin to see that there are a wide variety of careers for people with different interests and talents. Children discover that they have choices about what they want to do when they grow up and that they have the opportunity to try new and exciting things.

Places Where People Work

Children also learn that places are important because of the meaningful things that people do there. You can help children understand more about the places in a community by taking them on field trips, engaging them in creative play or arts and crafts activities dealing with places and people. As children learn about the places where they and their families and friends spend time, you are helping them become more and more comfortable in the world around them.

Mister Rogers' Neighborhood

When we were thinking of a name for our television program, we decided to use the word neighborhood. Relationships are essential, and so we created a "television neighborhood," a place where neighbors care about each other, help each other learn all sorts of things, share in each other's joys, and try to help when things are difficult.

Besides caring neighbors, Mister Rogers' Neighborhood offers other things that children need from a real neighborhood: a sense of place, the good feeling of belonging, the security of a structured environment, positive attitudes about responsibility and work, the expression of each person's value -- no matter what he or she can or cannot do. In our telecasts, when we go from place to place, there are always transitions, and we try to make those transitions as smooth as possible, like when our Trolley takes us from our "real" neighborhood into the fantasy world of the Neighborhood of Make-Believe -- and back again.

Your Neighborhood

In many ways, your classroom or center is like a neighborhood. As you help children learn and grow in a consistent and caring atmosphere, you are strengthening them for whatever they will do as they make their real transitions to the "neighborhoods" of their future.

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