Özet:

It is necessary that teachers, experts, researchers, children, who work with young children, are aware of their rights and respect their rights. This means that effective communication between adults and children can be established and the development of children can be supported. This study has studied the impact of children’s development program students, who often work with young children when graduated, the levels of child love, the levels of child participation awareness. The research work group consisted of 515 students, including 271 first class and 244 second class, who continue to study in the Pamukkale University's three vocational high schools, children's development program. Nearly half of the students in the study group are graduates from the child development department of professional high schools. The study used the Child Love Scale to measure the children’s levels of love, while the Child Participation Awareness Scale to measure the children’s levels of awareness. Child participation consciousness scale consists of five sub-scales, including participation decoration, respect for the child's opinion in participation, compulsion in participation, non-discrimination in participation and physiological needs in participation. According to the results of the research conducted in the relational scan model, the child’s level of love, three of the five child’s participation awareness dimensions (respect of the child’s opinion, non-competence monitoring and physiological needs in participation) are not processed in a meaningful way, while two (decaration in participation and compulsion in participation) are not processed. Research finds that loving a child can bring about the right to participate. In other words, child love can be called a variable that can allow children to take care of their participation rights. In the context of the study, it can also be said that loving children is an important condition to be a democratic and successful teacher.