Positive Relationships For School Readiness

Have you seen all of those back-to-school pictures on your Facebook feed? This time of year is exciting, but can be a tough transition for Kindergartners. This is their first time they have been to school or even away from their family. Emotions can run high for both children and parents during this transition. Many children need comfort items or words to get them through the day, but all children need a positive relationship with an adult to make them feel safe and secure so they can venture off to school and be ready to learn in this new environment. For many years, researchers have discussed the importance of attachment in early childhood. It is widely accepted that relationships are an important part of the healthy developmental processes.

Adults must support children’s social and emotional development in addition to their cognitive skills. They also must assist children to navigate conflicts with peers, easing the transition from home to school each day, and helping children identify their feelings and needs. An adult who is responsive to the emotional needs of a child will be rewarded with a child who is excited, interested, and engaged.

Supporting a child’s healthy social and emotional growth takes commitment from all the primary caregivers in a child’s life. This includes mothers, fathers, grandparents, teachers, and other key adults. It’s important to remember that children in the primary years observe and learn from our relationships. What they observe shapes their expectations of how people treat others and therefore influences their developing social skills and emotional competence.

A great book to introduce your little one to the kindergarten transition is “Clifford goes to Kindergarten.” The book shows how Emily goes from the comfort of her home into they new world of school.

Looking for more information on supporting children’s healthy social and emotional development? Check out our publication The Role of Relationships in the Primary Years for tips on building relationships.

Lisa Poppe, Extension Educator | The Learning Child

(This article was originally published in NebLine by Poppe. It is republished here with permission)

Make sure to follow The Learning Child on social media for more research-based early childhood education resources!

  

What’s Bugging You?

Young children go through a variety of emotions every day. Sometimes they have problems relating their emotions to their behavior and all adults see… is the challenging behavior that is exhibited!

Take time to talk with your children about what is really bugging them. What has happened to them that is making them feel upset? How does their body feel when this happens?  What can they say to the other person?  How should they react?

We need to explain these feelings to our children and give them simple ideas of how to deal with their emotions. One way to teach this is by using bugs themselves.  Summer is a great time to have a lesson on bugs.  Incorporate bugs into the discussion of emotions too.  First take a large piece of paper and draw a bug right in the middle.  Title the paper with “When something is bugging me, I can say…”

Give the child plenty of ideas on what to say….. This poster can hang in their room, on the refrigerator or anywhere the child spends a lot of time. It is a constant reminder of how the child can start to regulate their own emotions and deal with conflict.

Author: Lisa Poppe, Extension Educator | The Learning Child

Make sure to follow The Learning Child on social media for more research-based early childhood education resources!

  

Enhancing Children’s Emotional Literacy: Tips For Families

Did you know that a child’s social and emotional development is key to school readiness and overall healthy growth and development? As a parent of an infant, toddler or preschooler, you are your child’s first teacher on how to regulate and control their emotions. Young children look to you for guidance on how to respond when they are angry, happy, surprised, frustrated, fearful and so forth. In early childhood education, we refer to this as helping young children to develop emotional literacy.

Emotional literacy is the ability to identify, understand, and express emotions in a healthy way. It is also is the capacity to recognize, label, and understand feelings in oneself and in others.

Emotional literacy in very young children develops as a result of having respectful, caring, supportive relationships with adults. When children have a strong foundation in emotional literacy they tolerate frustration better, engage in less destructive behavior and generally have greater academic achievement.

On the other hand, children who don’t learn to use emotional language have a hard time labeling and understanding their own feelings or accurately identifying how others feel.

How can you help your child develop his or her emotional literacy? One technique is to verbally acknowledge and label emotions expressed by your child. A gentle positive tone of voice communicates to children an understanding and acceptance of whatever emotions they are exhibiting. Check out how the mother assist her child in regulating his emotions:

“Oh Ethan, sweetie, you bumped your head and it hurt. Let me hold you for a few minutes. Aw, it hurt, didn’t it, and made you mad. We will go away from that counter and find something else to play with. Are you feeling better?”

To learn more ways you can help support your child’s emotional literacy, visit our website and The Pyramid Model.

LISA POPPE, EXTENSION EDUCATOR | THE LEARNING CHILD

This article was previously published for Nebraska Extension by Lisa as a PDF. It is re-published here with her permission.

Make sure to follow The Learning Child on social media for more research-based early childhood education resources!