Category: Early Childhood

Labelling Body and Facial Expressions

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Labelling Emotions

Children use body and facial expressions to reflect their emotions. By the same token, children need to interpret body and facial expressions as part of their emotional development.

Children who cannot express their needs could get frustrated or miss out on engaging in activities with other children. One example is a child who is too shy to ask peers to play with them. Another example is a child who is trying to get a toy or a game from someone else. In both examples, children need to be able to express what they want and understand the feedback of other children whether verbal or non-verbal.

Role of educators:

How can educators help children enrich their emotional vocabulary and enhance their communication skills in order to successfully negotiate what they want?

Educators need to provide activities that help children recognise emotions such as anger, sadness, surprise, happiness, and frustration in themselves and other children. A child who can recognise the intentions of other children by correctly reading their emotional expressions will have a better chance of being included in any setting.

Expressing and interpreting emotions are pathways to emotional regulation and successful socialisation.

Building a vocabulary of emotions from simple to complex ones is part of children’s socio-emotional development. According to Plutchik’s wheel of emotions (Six Seconds, n.d.), the basic emotions are joy, disgust, anger, and anticipation, and their opposites are sadness, trust, fear, and surprise respectively. The combination of two basic emotions brings up a new emotion.

Children need concrete activities to interpret and label emotions. Educators could teach children how to recognise the affective states of other children by looking for their body language, facial expressions, and tone of voice.

A simple activity of having a face with a printed emotional label could be a starting point.

Reading children’s books to children can contribute to their understanding of affective states. Often, in children’s books, the plot revolves around an issue that triggers an affective state and how to resolve the issue.

Games could be used as well. One example is asking children to play musical chairs. On each chair, there is a card of a facial expression flipped face down. When the music stops and the children sit down, they are asked to turn the card over and explain what emotion the face is expressing. They are also asked to make the same face. The children are then asked to go for a second round and repeat the process and so on. This allows the children to experiment with facial expressions in a non-threatening environment. More complex emotions could be introduced as children learn the basic ones.

The Georgetown University Center for Child and Human Development (n.d.) proposed other ideas. The educator could:

  • Provide activities that help children label their emotions. For example, they could look at the mirror and make faces and then try to label the emotion.
  • Read a book to the children and ask them to guess how the child is feeling based on the text or based on the illustrations.
  • Ask children during “show and tell” to make a facial or a body expression about how the activity they are sharing made them feel.
  • Assist children in making up a song about activities or actions that make them feel happy, sad, angry, surprised, and so on. The words of a familiar song could be adapted.
  • Provide props for children to role-play different experiences in the dramatic area. An example is going to see the doctor and trying to act the experience out.
  • Prepare cards of activities and facial expressions and ask children to pair the activity with the facial emotion it brings in them.
  • Play a game with children where one child chooses a card that has an expressed facial emotion and imitates that emotion. The other children must guess the emotion.
  • Prompt children to come up with a solution for a child who is sad, angry, or unhappy about an event through problem-solving.

Why are interpreting and labelling emotions useful?

Joseph and Strain (2003) elaborated on the process. When children recognise and label their feelings, they develop emotional regulation and when they recognise and label other people’s emotions, they strengthen their problem-solving skills. The process then assists the children to come up with solutions acceptable to themselves and other parties thus generating a win-win outcome.

The educators could easily share the information with parents. Both parents and educators could scaffold children as they navigate the emotional realm around them. A synchronized process would support children as they grow up in a global world.

References:

Georgetown University Center for Child and Human Development. (n.d.). Ideas for teaching about emotions. https://www.ecmhc.org/ideas/emotions.html  

Six Seconds. (n.d.). Plutchik’s wheel of emotions: Exploring the emotion wheel. https://www.6seconds.org/2022/03/13/plutchik-wheel-emotions/

Joseph, G. E., & Strain, P. S. (2003). Enhancing emotional vocabulary in young children. Young Exceptional Children, 6(4), 18-26.  https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/109625060300600403

Development
Future Global Children

What does it mean for children to feel different?

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When do children notice that they are different from other children? Is it when they see someone wearing something they would like to wear? Is it when they see someone playing with a toy they would like to have? Is it when they see the educator being very attentive to a parent that is not theirs? Is it when they see someone eating something they would like to have? Is it when they learned colours and realised that their skin colour is different than the skin of other children?

Children learn to make judgments about who they are at a very young age. They have also developed ideas about others around them.

The Doll Test:

As an example, the “Doll Test” examined children’s attitudes towards race and found that most children are aware of racial stereotypes. The Doll Test is available at:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkpUyB2xgTM

The Adults’ Role:

Children need support as they are making sense of their social environment. Parents and educators are expected to initiate those discussions. So, when is the appropriate time for adults to discuss development including race and non-race-related social development with children?

One study examined the developmental readiness of children to understand behaviours and traits and compared the scientific findings with the estimates that adults thought were appropriate times to approach those topics with children.

Specifically, the study examined participants’ estimates of the age at which children develop race-related awareness, non-race related social development, and non-social development. The participants were also asked when they would start discussing race with children. Participants were from the USA and half of them were parents. The results were compared to the ages children were scientifically found to start developing those types of awareness.

Developmental Findings:

Developmentally speaking, children are able to:

  1. Prefer people based on their race by three months of age.
  2. Categorise faces based on race from 9 months.
  3. Associate face colour (or race) with positive or negative traits based on the messages they receive from their environment by the third year of age.
  4. Associate racial groups with wealth or power by the fourth year of age.   

The Educator’s Role:

What should the educator pay attention to in a classroom especially when it comes to children who are different or who are minority?

Educators should start by questioning their own values and beliefs about how children learn and their role in ensuring children’s future success.

Educators need to implement a curriculum that allows for equitable opportunities with no bias.

For additional information, please refer to the following article and related supplement:

Sullivan, J., Wilton, L., & Apfelbaum, E. P. (2020, August 6). Adults delay conversations about race because they underestimate children’s processing of race. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. Advance online publication. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/xge0000851

Inclusive Education
Future Global Children Homepage

How to help a child sleep better?

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People go through 4 to 5 cycles of sleep per night with each cycle extending from 75 to 90 minutes. The cycle includes two main states, the Non Rapid Eye Movement (NREM) state and the REM sleep. The REM sleep is the last stage in the cycle and it is the stage where we dream.

It is important to go through REM and NREM to get the full benefits of sleep. Those include better memory, increased creative thinking abilities, and enhanced pathways between the left and right sides of the brain.

When we sleep, the body evaluates the information acquired during the day and decides what to keep for later use and what to discard. Storing the information in long term memory allows us to build on this experience to better sort out related issues. The process itself strengthens the neural connections in the brain.

What goes on before sleep plays a role in sorting out problems as well. One study found that thinking about a question before going to be induced dreams regarding the issue for half the participants and solutions for a quarter of them.

Sleepiness builds up during the day and is released when we sleep. If we don’t get enough sleep, we feel unable to make decisions that require a lot of focus. We are also prone to making mistakes in judgment due to a lack of full attention.

It is important to maintain consistent sleep routines, avoid using the computer the last hour before sleep, have the last heavy meal for the day at least 3 hours before sleep, and sleep in a dark and cool room.

Some children have issues going to bed and keep waking up through the night. The attached video covers states of sleep and factors related to sleep problems including if the child is a morning or an evening person. The video also includes ideas on what parents and educators could do to help the child sleep better.

For additional information, refer to:

Karman, M. (2023, July 15). How sleep improves and impairs creative thinking. Eachnight. https://eachnight.com/sleep/sleep-improves-impairs-creative-thinking/ .

Rethinking the NO in Guiding Children’s Behaviour

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Have you ever asked yourself as a parent or as an educator why do you say NO when a child asks for something?

Rethinking the NO brings us to a journey inside ourselves where we need to be clear about our beliefs, values, and daily responses.

Firstly, with regards to beliefs, we need to consider the following: If we believe that children need guidance all the way through and that they are not able to take good decisions, this will make us react differently to children’s requests than if we believe that children want guidance to make the right decision themselves.

Giving guidance highlights that children have needs that they like to see fulfilled and are happy to learn from the people around them so there is a win win situation between the adult and the child.

A belief that children learn when adults enforce strong rules early on in life triggers a strict and firm response from the adult with little room for flexibility. The emphasis is on exerting an effort to prevent the child being spoiled.

What are your beliefs as a parent or as an educator?

Secondly, what are our values?

If we value respect from the child to the parent by all means, we don’t mind if the child fears us. We should be controlling and demand respect from the child regardless even if the respect is not in the child’s best interest.

On the other hand, if we value the rights of children to meet their needs, we respect this right and guide them towards fulfilling their needs in socially acceptable manner even if that means that the child could grow up different than us, the parent or the educator, and could be interested in different activities.

We have to be careful when we ask children to comply with our demands without any consideration for their opinion. This teaches them that the strong person should be followed and they could later follow an abuser out of fear and of a need to belong.

We want to gradually give the children control over their decisions and to release our power. More importantly, we want to be compassionate towards children. They make mistakes but that does not mean that they have evil intentions.

The ideal practice is to acknowledge the behaviour or misbehaviour that children engage in without defining the personality of the child based on that behaviour. We need to accept that children need to learn how to present their beliefs, values, and practices, and that there will be many attempts along the way prior to working out what conveys the need and the message and what doesn’t.

We want children to have a bank of constructive activities and behaviours instead of constantly reminding them of what is not working.

That is how we can help children grow into successful global citizens ready to explore and contribute to the future of humanity.

For further reading, refer to:

Porter, L. (2016). Guiding children’s behaviours. In M. Ebbeck, & M. Maniganayake (Eds.), Play in early childhood education: Learning in diverse contexts (2nd ed., pp. 161-182). Oxford University Press.

How to build success?

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When children are learning to walk, they fall and get up time after time until they learn. They don’t make a decision to stop trying and to crawl for the rest of their lives.

They are not concerned about how much time it is going to take to get what they want. They don’t know much about time or the future. That seems to work for them. They are willing to give tasks the required time to achieve them. They live in the moment.

They might not be happy repeating all over but that does not stop them. They are not forcing happiness or positive thinking upon themselves.

Do children’s responses differ? Yes, they do. They might accept difficulties with ease but also may not. Babies process their feelings by crying. It is their way to express themselves and to sort things out. Crying does not stop them. It might even encourage to persist.

Children are patient most of the times. Sometimes they get frustrated. Does either of those two feelings stop them from trying again? The answer is “No”.

Yes, they would like approval from people around them but not at the expense of doing what that they really want to do.

How to build success? Adults need to allow children to solve their problems on their own. Children are natural explorers. They experiment and accept that things might not work out right away.

Can we as adults solve our problems as children do, please?

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Sleeping like a baby. What does this mean?

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By Majida MEHANA

We go through different stages of sleep depending on the activity level of the brain. The total cycle is between 92 and 110 minutes. Then the cycle repeats itself throughout the night.

Infants go through a shorter cycle of approximately 50 minutes (National Science Foundation [NSF], 2020). Those stages of sleep include two main states, the Rapid Eye Movement (REM) irregular state and the Non-REM state (regular full sleep with closed eyelids). The duration of REM sleep is longer for newborns (50% of sleep time) and decreases to 20% by age 2. The brain activity in the REM state is similar to the waking state.

In terms of hours, newborns sleep anywhere between 10.5 and 18 hours. The sleep is irregular and can happen at different times during day or night times. The number of hours decreases to approximately 12 hours by the end of the first year (Garvis et al., 2019).

The long duration of the REM state activates the infant’s central nervous system and consolidates learning. It is also the state where we dream (NSF, 2020).

Learning occurs in other Non-REM stages as well. One study showed that babies who were shown new learning prior to a short nap (went into Stage 2, which is a light stage of sleep) were able to remember the learning better than the babies who did not take the nap (Horváth et al., 2018).

As sleep consolidates different learning in different stages, it is important to allow babies enough time to sleep through the full cycle, so they go through REM and non-REM sleep. If they need to be woken up, then it should be done gently. The REM sleep is the state that prompts waking.

Parents should note the baby’s sleep pattern and reinforce a transition to nighttime sleep by providing a quieter environment in the evening. Habits of sleep change throughout life; however, helping infants establish a regular sleep system early will give their body the time needed to recuperate and to be healthy.

Reference:

Garvis, S., Phillipson, S., Clarke, S., Harrison, L., McCormack, J., & Pendergast, D. (2019). Child development and learning. Oxford University Press.

Horváth, K., Hannon, B., Ujma, P. P., Gombos, F., & Plunkett, K. (2018). Memory in 3‐month‐old infants benefits from a short nap. Developmental Science, 21(3), 1-9. https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.12587

National Sleep Foundation. (2020, August). Children and sleep. https://www.sleepfoundation.org/articles/children-and-sleep

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Height, weight, teeth, and hair of babies in their first year

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By Majida MEHANA

We are shaped by nature and nurture and this applies to our physical development and appearance; namely, height, weight, teeth, and hair.

In the first year of life, infants’ physical performance and appearance develop as follows:

Height and weight: Newborns are expected to follow a pattern of growth from head to toe and middle of body to extremities. Gross motor skills get refined prior to the fine motor skills required for the efficient use of hands, fingers, feet, and toes. For example, in the early months, the whole body shakes when the baby moves. It is later that the baby is able to differentiate the actions. The brain plays a major role in the implementation of the actions by giving orders to the body to move and then analysing the response and adjusting new orders accordingly.

Height and weight vary according to the genetic makeup of the child and the expected norms in the child’s culture. In general, boys tend to be taller and heavier than girls. With the growth in height and weight, we have changes in muscular development which allows the child to sit and walk. In one year, babies move from moving head from side to side, to rolling over, crawling, sitting, standing, and taking first steps (Alli, 2011).

Teeth: Signs on the gum line start to show up around four months and babies will have their first teeth from five to eight-month-old. Teething can be associated with crying, fever, restless sleep, biting, rash, rejection of food, and diarrhea. The process can be exhausting for both infants and parents. A visit to the dentist should be arranged soon after the first tooth comes out.

Hair Growth:  The process is a byproduct of genetics and balanced nutrition. Newborns lose hair in the first three to six months and by the end of the first year, they have most of their head hair. The strength of the hair is affected by genetics, nutrition, and the quality of the environment. Stressful events can make a child or adult lose hair; a condition called telogen effluvium.

Children are genetically predisposed to hold a height and weight that falls along a continuum. In addition, nutrition during mother’s pregnancy and in infancy influences the child’s appearance immensely. A balanced nutrition is optimal for this age group.

Unbalanced nutrition has been associated with stunting thus preventing the child from developing as per normal. It is also important to allow opportunities for children to move freely so they could practise using their body independently and confidently.

Caring for infants and attending to their needs help them meet developmental milestones. A disruption of care routines would affect the child’s physical as well as all other aspects of interrelated development.

Small encouragements would allow the child to develop an experimental mindset which would take them further in life to become global successful people.

Reference:

Allie, R. A. (2011, October). Baby’s first year: How infants develop. https://www.webmd.com/parenting/baby/features/stages-of-development#3

Garvis, S., Phillipson, S., Clarke, S., Harrison, L., McCormack, J., & Pendergast, D. (2019). Child development and learning. Oxford University Press.

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What do infants feel in the first year?

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By Majida MEHANA

Newborns have innate emotions. They cannot speak about their emotions, so they behave and use expressions to help the people around them understand their feelings.

The four emotions that we witness in the first year are:

Happiness: This is expressed when infants are exploring their environments. They are looking around them fully engaged, positive, and open to learning.

Fear: Infants are anxious and look in pain. They turn their faces away as if trying not to face the situation or they could choose to stop responding altogether.  

Panic/grief is expressed when infants cannot sense the presence of the caregiver around them and they look sad and cry seeking comfort.

Rage: When infants experience irritation, anger, or restraint for an extended time, they lash out by physically attacking people within their reach.

Happiness is expressed through open body movements and smiles. Babies’ smiles become more purposeful in the early months. They smile as early as two months as a response to touch, move to a social smile at 4 months when seeing their parents, and would laugh of joy at 5 months.

On the other hand, fear becomes more apparent later. It takes time for babies to recognise familiar from non-familiar faces. Once they do, feelings of fear show up when seeing strangers.

It is recommended to expose the child to the different feelings including feelings of insecurity. Parents could wait a short time prior to intervening just to help the child get used to deal with uncomfortable situations. The waiting time should vary depending on the child’s individual needs.

It will take parents some time to understand the facial expressions of infants; however, the process helps parents develop a positive relationship with the child. It is also very important for parents to become attuned to the temperamental characteristics of the child and avoid the child reaching an uncontrolled fear that takes a long time to console.

In the second year, children become more self-aware and they experience feelings of pride and guilt as a response to people’s interactions with them.

Helping children manage the full range of their emotions and learn problem solving techniques to alleviate each emotion will help them succeed in a global world. Successful people accept their emotions and work through them to achieve a balanced life.

Reference:

Garvis, S., Phillipson, S., Clarke, S., Harrison, L., McCormack, J., & Pendergast, D. (2019). Child development and learning. Oxford University Press.

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How do infants and toddlers socialize?

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The infant learns what it means to socialize by interacting with family members and by engaging in activities with them.

Early on, the infant reacts to the adult’s smile and gestures by smiling back, by moving, or by vocalizing sounds. With time, the child not only reacts but also initiates social encounters even when the basic needs are taken care of.

For the socialization process to be successful, the infant needs to feel that the context is secure and safe to explore, to express own emotions, and to expect a positive response. The mother or caregiver provides the child with the emotional and physical supports to explore the surroundings thus facilitating the baby’s feeling that the world is safe to explore. Babies understand that they could refer back to the adult, if needed.

Babies experiment with their responses. By the second year, the gestures become more accurate. For example, toddlers would wave Goodbye to a person leaving. They also start to use different intonations of language for different social purposes. They learn to say “no” to assert their choices and to test how far they can get away not doing as told.

By the third year, toddlers get a refined sense of the adults’ thoughts and feelings. This skill strengthens their ability to know when it is better to respond to the adults’ requests and what could be negotiated. Toddlers are seeking to develop autonomy and independence as they go about exploring the world.

Infants and toddlers learn valuable social skills when they have siblings. As children can have different set of skills, they engage and negotiate with varying strengths. So, the rules of social play get constantly redefined. This is quite different than the interaction with the adult who models interactions with the infant in a more predictable manner.

Children who attend day care at an early age will have different levels of acceptance to the setting. This is dependent on their temperament, home interactions, and the characteristics of the caring environment. High quality service delivery ensures that the child is receiving adequate attention from a caregiver.

Peers provide social support for the toddler when there is consistency in the implementation of the rules. Parallel play is often the form where a child first engages in social interactions with another child. It starts with the children playing in close proximity to each other. This is followed by each child keeping an eye on what the other child is doing without necessarily engaging in play or initiating a verbal communication.

Children observe other peers and could imitate them. Role play is a powerful medium for children to practice the skills that they observed. This capacity will become more enhanced by 3 years of age.

As children grow older, they will engage in group play and will apply rules of successful interactions. From there begins a lifelong process of socializing that will take them to different people, places, and cultures. They will engage in a global world and develop the tools to successfully do so.

Reference:

Garvis, S., Phillipson, S., Clarke, S., Harrison, L., McCormack, J., & Pendergast, D. (2019). Child development and learning. Oxford University Press.

 

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How can educators support children’s resilience?

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When children overcome difficulties, they grow up successful and resilient in the face of obstacles. The ability to be resilient involves drawing on multiple resources such as genetic makeup, temperament type, and the social supports in the environment.

Nolan et al. (2014) examined the impact of the environment and the relationships in the early childhood settings on children’s resilience. They recommended practices in the setup and the nature of relationships as follows:

Environment: The child who contributes positively to the environment needs to be acknowledged.

Educators can help children feel accepted regardless of how their feelings fluctuate in different spaces. Children explore their environment in order to check what works for them and what does not. Some children are more sociable than others. Some operate better in small groups than in large groups.

Educators can set the space, daily schedule, and activities so that children rotate among quiet and noisy spaces, small and large groups, and indoors and outdoors. Often a private space where children can rest quietly helps them develop a sense of perspective about the events surrounding them. The movement in different environments also helps children know themselves and their preferences.

As children grow up, they will navigate in different spaces. The rotations in the early childhood setting enhances children’s abilities to be resilient in diverse circumstances.

Relationships: Educators can support the children’s resilience by establishing systematic and respectful relationships with the children’s parents and by communicating the effective practices around wellbeing, emotional regulation, and modelling that have been applied in the early childhood setting.

The children need to feel that their feelings are acknowledged by parents and educators. It is the responsibility of the educator to establish a strong connection with parents so they both support children’s resilience. Children need to feel that they are not left alone in the world to fend for themselves and that there is a safe place that they can go to. They should also be encouraged to seek support when they want it and be given time to regulate their own feelings.

Depending on what children need to share about their strengths and needs, the educator can engage in a one to one conversation with them or invite them to share their story/feelings in groups of different sizes. Effective listening is the basis for a successful engagement whether in a dyadic or a group interaction.

The educator needs to observe children and document information about their personalities. Based on the documentation, the educator supports children in order to boost their confidence and social-emotional wellbeing. As children get experience in different types of relationships (dyadic/group), they develop awareness of the dynamics of each setting and apply behaviors that would help them communicate their feelings and solve their problems.

Resilience helps a person grow mentally and physically healthy. The skills, attitudes, and daily practices of resilience will ensure success in a global world.

Reference:

Nolan, A., Stagnitti, K., Taket, A., & Casey, S. (2014). Supporting resilience. In S. Garvis & D. Pendergast (Eds.), Health and wellbeing in childhood (pp. 240-252). Cambridge University Press.

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