Topic introduction B: the dimensions of secure caregiver behaviour

What is the best way to act when you focus on relations work with children?


It is not so much about what you do (the task), but about the way you do it (the relation quality).


The way you relate to a baby (especially during the first two years of life) is a learning process, where the child learns how to cope with separations and how to relate to other people. This is learned from the first caregiver(s), and interaction with early caregivers forms the child’s Attachment Pattern.


A SECURE CHILD – THE SECURE ATTACHMENT PATTERN


When caregivers act securely, the child tends to be sad when the caregiver leaves – but not for long. It will soon start crawling away and spend a lot of time playing and exploring as we saw in session 4.
A young child with good caregivers will develop a Secure Attachment pattern:
As the child grows older, it will develop a positive idea of itself and a positive and trusting attitude towards other people, children and caregivers. It will seek for care and help when it needs help.
It will not only be able to play with peers, it will also be able to leave a friend and find other playmates when it gets bored by some activity. It will prefer some caregivers to others because it feels more attached to some caregivers than others, and it will prefer some peers to others and develop friendships with them. When the child grows up, it will function well in social relations, and it will be able to learn as much as possible in school and other institutions.
This happens only if caregivers relate with the baby / young child in a secure way.

WHAT DOES SECURE CAREGIVING MEAN


Science has studied what caregivers do to give the child a secure relationship and develop a secure attachment pattern in the child. Here are five videos and text to illustrate and explain:

VIDEO 1

What caregivers do to give the child a secure relationship and develop a secure attachment pattern in the child:They often respond when the baby wants contact. They also often take initiatives to contact and stimulate the baby.
They use a melodious voice and clear facial expressions to show what they feel. They talk to the baby and try to make eye contact with it.

VIDEO 2

What caregivers do to give the child a secure relationship and develop a secure attachment pattern in the child:They act in a sensitive way. They have tasks (feed the baby/child, put on clothes, sing songs or make other activities, etc.), but they “read” the feelings of the child and resolve the task in a flexible manner: if the child is sad, they comfort the child while putting on shoes, if the child is happy putting on shoes it becomes a play, etc. Being sensitive means that you don’t follow strict rules, you motivate the child by “meeting and understanding the way the child feels right now”.


VIDEO 3

What caregivers do to give the child a secure relationship and develop a secure attachment pattern in the child:They act in a sensitive way. They have tasks (feed the baby/child, put on clothes, sing songs or make other activities, etc.), but they “read” the feelings of the child and resolve the task in a flexible manner: if the child is sad, they comfort the child while putting on shoes, if the child is happy putting on shoes it becomes a play, etc. Being sensitive means that you don’t follow strict rules, you motivate the child by “meeting and understanding the way the child feels right now”.


VIDEO 4

If the child is angry, sad or very desperate, the caregiver feels with the child, but not like the child. Even though the child is excited or angry, the caregiver does not become excited or angry – he or she stays in a calm feeling. The caregiver does not scold or punish the child. She may be firm, but does not feel angry like the child does, and she talks to the child in a kind and calm way. A child will become more insecure if the caregiver also becomes angry when the child becomes angry.

VIDEO 5

The caregivers are interested in what the child feels and thinks, and they try to mirror the state of the child’s feelings and thoughts. Even before the child can understand the words, they talk to the child while they are working about what the child may feel and think. For example when the baby looks at the caregivers, they may say “Oooh, you are looking at me now, that is nice, I think you are happy now, are you not?”. Or while they change a diaper they say: “It is so nice to have a fresh diaper, I can see that you are happy now!”. In this way the baby learns to understand how language and feeling are connected, and it learns to understand itself and others.



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).