From 8 to 12 April, the 2026 World Early Childhood Conference took place under the title «Kindness – Strength – Love: Seeds for Healthy Development». The conference organisers, the Pedagogical Section and IASWECE, were delighted to welcome around a thousand participants from all over the world to the Goetheanum. You can watch the presentations by all the speakers on Goetheanum.TV.
Young children need our kindness, our inner strength and our love. The more we cultivate these virtues, the better the child will fare. Living and working with young children can be a huge challenge, but it is also a huge opportunity to turn our attention to these qualities, which do not easily flourish in today’s world.
How can I nurture these qualities in myself? How can we support one another in this at the nursery and amongst colleagues? What do we do in our day-to-day educational practice to ensure that the children can develop these qualities later on? These are the questions the speakers explored in their presentations.
Want to watch the short trailers? Click on the images:
Coming:
Li Zhang und Clara Aerts: «Steadfastness and Gratitude: Finding a Weaving Balance Between Being Highly Centred and Deeply Connected»
Kathy MacFarlane: «Transforming the Contrast between the World and the Individual into a Harmonious Relationship»
Peter Selg: «Imitation: the Ability to Learn and Love from the Prenatal Stage»
Anita Isla: «Creating Lively and Meaningful Spaces for Children and Adults in Difficult Times»