QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION
If you look at a normal workday with the children: In what activities can you pay more attention to responding to the children when they want contact?
Mutual contact: Do you have activities every day where you pay much attention to mutual contact between a caregiver and other children (singing, playing, etc.)? How can you make mutual contact activities with the babies while doing practical tasks?
Being sensitive :Think of a daily task and think of how one specific child reacts to something it is supposed to do (eat, dress, etc.). What is the best way to motivate this specific child to do the task? How can you be sensitive towards this child –what caregiver behaviour gives the best result?
Being accessible to the child: If a child needs our attention or help (afraid, insecure, unhappy, in pain), how long does it have to wait before we help? There are no demands from the caregiver about how you should act to get help, you get if if you need it. If there are many children and few caregivers, what can we do to overcome this problem, so that we are accessible as much as possible?
Feel with the child, not like the child: When a child is uncomfortable, angry, constantly arguing, irritated or has a temper tantrum: How does the feelings of the child affect us and make us respond? How can we pay attention to what happens to us and be calm, firm and kind even though the child is unreasonable or too excited? What children can make us angry or irritated? How can we pay special attention not to feel like those children? Reflecting the thoughts and feelings of the child: How can we talk to the children while we work with them?For example: When we perform a task with a child, we also talk about what we see happening in the child: “Now you are going to play with this toy – I can see that you are a little afraid of it because you have never seen this toy before – that’s okay, let’s have a look at it together” or “Now you are drinking from your bottle, you are really hungry, it’s so nice to eat, that makes you happy, doesn’t it?”, etc.
ACTIVITY SUGGESTIONS
- Reflect on how you can improve the ways you relate to children (mutual contact, sensitivity, etc.).
- Find everyday examples and reflect on how you can make improvements in relations work.
- Reflect on especially what problems there may be in improving relations work (“I am too busy, it is difficult to do something new, there are so many children and just me”, etc.) and reflect on how you can overcome some of these problems.
- Reflect on how old negative attitudes can prevent you from practising secure caregiver behaviour:
- “My parents always used to scold me, how can I avoid doing this when I work?”
- “As a professional you should not have personal relations with the children”
- “We don’t have time and energy to do all this”
- “If the children start getting attached to me, they will be sad when I leave and I will be sad”
All these attitudes have something true in them, nevertheless you should drop them, they are not good for child development. Yes, if you did not receive good care from your own parents you must exercise being a good caregiver, but you can do that.
Having personal relations with children and letting them get attached to you is part of the professional job. Yes, children will be sad when you leave if you allow them to attach, but this is part of life and much better for them than if they never learn to have a personal relation with a caregiver.
Working with orphans, you are also a “parental attachment figure”.
REFLECTIONS
Reflect on how you can do relations work by organizing the daily activities in new ways:
- ‘Maybe we should divide our work so that we are busy some of the time and not very accessible, and other times during the day where we show the children that now we are very accessible and have time to give them attention’
- ‘We have many children per caregiver, so some of the time we decide to have all of them together in groups, at other times we give individual attention to one child at a time. F. ex., every afternoon we make an activity where we care for one child at a time while the other children watch’
THE SECURE BASE AND EXPLORATION: PLAY AND CONTACT WITH OTHERS
If the baby learns to separate without too much fear, you have given it a Secure Base.
A baby with a secure base does not have to exhaust itself with fear of separation, crying and clinging, it feels secure. So when you work with children, you should always start with being there and not move too much around.
If you stay where you are near the child, the child will become calm and have no fear that you are leaving.
Only if you give the child a secure base, another behaviour system can take over: The Exploration System.
So you “turn off” the Attachment System by being calm and present, and then you automatically “turn on” the Exploration System.
A secure child with a caregiver who stays where she is will start moving away from her, play with things, learn, explore the world, be curious, make contact with other children and make little experiments. This is called exploration behaviour, and it is extremely important for child development. Healthy children only cling to their caretakers for a short while until they feel secure. Then they start playing, exploring, etc. This is the only way they can learn about the world and be motivated for teaching and learning later in life. So, secure children learn a lot more than insecure children who spend their energy trying to avoid separation. For example, you take a child into a new group of children. At first, it will cling to your leg and cry (attachment behavior), but if you stay in the same place and remain calm, the child will crawl way from you, play with the toys, and make contact with other children (exploration behavior). If you get up and walk away, the child will stop exploring and come back and cling to you again to stop you from leaving (attachment behaviour).
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