Supporting Children in Child Care

It has been over four years since COVID-19 emerged as a stress-producing pandemic. Its impact was enormous and continues to be a concern for everyone involved in child care.

Anxiety (both tolerable and toxic) remains a continuing concern for families, educators and all children who have witnessed the impact of this stress in their homes, childcare learning environments and kindergartens.

Very young children’s exposure to social life has been distorted in ways that they do not have the cognitive ability to understand or regulate.

Physical personal connections between educators and parents have been eroded.

Children’s social connections and opportunities have been limited or drastically reduced in group settings, to avoid COVID spread.

Social interactions for sharing, turn taking, and collaborating together have been reduced for children.

It falls on the educators to direct safe interactions and manage children’s social stress.

The nine concepts of the TFL Early Years SEL Resource will help to guide your approaches and strategies.

Here are a few examples taken from various Concepts presented in the Resource:

Concept 1

Building a Culture of Belonging

In a welcoming environment that celebrates belonging and community, children will learn and practise inclusivity, social awareness, and empathy. As they build friendships, they will 

• be able to notice differences and similarities  between themselves and others. 

•  begin to show kindness and concern for others.

  
  

•  begin to build trusting relationships and

  
  

• understand they are valued as part of the group.

Concept 2

How to Calm Down

When children are calm and focused it is easier for them to explore, play and interact with intent. Educators co-regulate with children as they learn strategies and skills for self- regulation, which can be taught during group time and utilized during play and routines.

Children are encouraged to choose self-calming strategies from the 

Calm Down cards, throughout the day.

Concept 3

Communication Builds Connections

Communication is very likely both the most important and the most complex set of skills a child will ever develop.

Communication skills enhance

• emotional bonds, 

• mutual social enjoyment and 

• joint attending between educator and child and between peers.

Interactions between children and educators during play help children to focus and share ideas and emotions.

Concept 5

All Feelings Are Okay!

When children are able to name feelings, they will begin to understand what is going on inside. This self-awareness is a prerequisite for both well-being and understanding the feelings of others.

Children will practise identifying feelings that they experience during play and group times, supported by the I Feel Face Cards and the Feelings Wheel. They will learn that all feelings, both comfortable and uncomfortable, are okay.

Concept 8

Friendly Words! For Others

Social development has taken a back seat for safety protocol reasons. But remember two years is one-half of a preschool child’s life. They have not been able to freely work on their social skills and competence, and this is further eroded by the underlying stress that creates frequent and unpredictable outbursts. Some children’s social skills may be noticeably delayed, and they will appear quite egocentric.

Your role is not to judge or get frustrated, but to recognize the effects of lack of opportunity and to create numerous opportunities that you can use to guide and teach children. Using Friendly Words! Is a key starting point.

We need to always remember that a play-based program cannot be effective until the emotional needs of children are met, enabling them to effectively use their newly developing social competencies.

TFL Early Years Social Emotional Learning and Relationship Building Strategies is based on research and provides practical strategies and hands-on resources to support you as an Educator.

Jan Blaxall Janet Foster

Contact us at info@tflearlyyears.com