Emotions in Childcare

Emotions in Childcare

Helping Children to recognise their own  emotions and that of others is a vital skill.

Parents and Early Childhood Educators have an essential role in developing these skills.






Ways of working with Emotions:

• Interactions with Children; 

• Talking: Engaging with children by listening to their expressions and responding to them in an appropriate manner. Children often look to adults to 'sort it out' or help them contain or gain control of themselves. Responding in a calm and reassuring way can help to model appropriate behaviour for the child. Talking to the child about their emotions can help them to name their emotions and so help them to communicate, both verbally and non-verbally. (Supporting Quiet Children http://www.talk4meaning.co.uk/ )
• Validating emotions: Helps the child to 'trust' their emotions as a normal response, gain understanding and exercise control.
•  Active observation: Observations of the child allow the Early Years Educator to identify areas of difficulty that may need to be addressed. Motivations for behaviour, key events that spark behaviour.
• Use of Language:Talking to children about their own and others emotions can help the child to understand themselves and what impact they have on others. ie. when I hit john it hurts him, when I smile others smile too. 
• Non-verbal body language recognition: Helping children to recognise the emotions of others by observation.  The game above can help children to identify the emotions of others by facial expression. 
• Developing Empathy: The supporting of this ability to 'feel' how others feel is essential for social development 
• Linking emotions to behaviour: identifying the link between thinking, feeling, behaviour (action) and consequence (result). This is also a process of meaning -making for the child.
• Dealing with uncomfortable emotions: Shame, Guilt, Embarrassment and Fear for example, can be difficult to deal with and careful responses from the Early Educator can help the child to  'normalise' them and find appropriate containment. Inappropriate responses, on the other hand, can inhibit and restrict the child's integration of their full range of emotions and prevent them from developing strategies for dealing with them.

• Ways of working with Emotions:

• Role playing using the body: What does a sad child do? How do they behave? Ask the children to show you. Example: children may show you these by putting their hands over their face and pretending to cry. 
•  Role playing with characters perhaps from a story; Goldilocks and the Three bears; how did the bears feel when she broke the bed, ate their porridge?
•  Photos of the child role playing an expression: Take photos of the child pretending to be angry, sad, etc. and use them as a display or for communication at times when the child does not want to verbalise.
• Facial Expressions (above) 
• Guess how they are feeling? 
• Discuss; how they are feeling?
• What happened to make them feel that way? (imagination).