Nicola Hacking: Supporting Children’s Emotional Security

Supporting Children’s Emotional Security

As practitioners, we spend a huge amount of time and energy making sure our learning environments meet and extend the physical developmental needs of the children within our care, but how much thought do we put specifically into their emotional needs?

My three initial areas to consider in promoting emotional security within our provision are safety, fostering home school links, and is above all, that it’s relevant.

Safety is obviously at the core of Early Years provision. As practitioners we all understand that children have basic needs; to be kept safe from dangers, warm, fed and have adequate rest, but I’d argue that their emotional wellbeing is just as important. In order to keep children emotionally safe we need to be pleased to see them, value them, have time for them, know them, listen to them, and care about helping them to develop their understanding of emotions. We need to ensure our provision gives ample opportunities and resources for them to explore this. Play is how children work through these complex and confusing thoughts and learn to make sense of them. You often see children introducing themes or playing out scenarios that are on their mind, both things that excite them but also those they find worrying or scary. What does their play tell you?

Home links are crucial. A child’s parents/carers are their first, and enduring educators, and when they move into our professional care we need to be careful to support the strong link between us. I think it’s so important to get to know the parents as well as the children. Do you know all your children’s parent’s names? No? But you expect them to leave their most precious thing in the world in your care all day? Do you ask them how they are? What if we’re the only other grown-ups they see or speak to? The children’s home experiences can be a powerful tool to enrich and personalise our provision. What is important and central to their lives? What are they celebrating? What sadness or transitions may they be experiencing that we can support them through? Give value to their homelife. This could be as simple as accessible photos from home, or stay and plays/reading sessions with their parents.

Relevance – Our provision and learning objectives need to go beyond the next step tick list of an Early Years Framework, and they certainly need to be differentiated to meet the child’s REAL and UNIQUE needs individually, rather than by slotting them into an appropriate age bracket or scheme. This could come from a spark you see in their own interests. Can you spot that individual sparkle and extend and enhance their learning in a way that’s relevant to them? Or is there no time or room for this because it’s ‘people who help us’ or ‘traditional tales’ week?

I’m particularly mindful at the minute of the impact that current world issues are and will have on the emotional security of children in our care. I’m sure we’ll all give a wry smile to the phrase ‘kids miss nothing’, because it’s so true, but frankly, it’d be hard for them to miss it all at the minute. Current world issues including Coronovirus and Black Lives Matter are all consuming - everywhere on the tv, on social media, in the environment, it’s all people are talking about and the children are hearing it all, good and bad. The week before lockdown I took the dogs around our local park, a lap that we often do with our godchildren, and noticed that suddenly every adult we passed was discussing coronavirus and giving us a wide berth. Some wouldn’t even meet eye contact whilst they stepped away from the path to stay away from me. How on earth could I explain this to children? How could they make sense of that? Their world has changed so brutally and so quickly. A friend was talking about her grandchildren last night, and how she’s seen them over the fence and the little ones have reached their arms up for Nanna to pick them up but she can’t. She feels like they won’t understand why their beloved Nanna no longer wants to snuggle them. How do we explain that to them? And now we have riots and discussions of colour, race, the sudden discussions around whose lives matter, black or otherwise. I’d hazard a guess that until now, small children would have happily believed that people were just people. Children just play with everyone until they’re told there’s a reason why they shouldn’t.

We need to make it a priority to consider the emotional security and well-being of the children in our care. Let’s provide an environment that is safe, kind and welcoming for all. An environment that provides our children with the space and tools to explore these worryingly huge issues surrounding illness, political concerns and cultural diversity, and supports stressed families. Let’s make time to be kind.