Good early years practice emphasises paying proper attention to children, listening to their views and always remembering that in any situation there is also adult behaviour to consider. Childcare practitioners can develop good everyday habits of consultation to support children's behaviour, as well as looking for opportunities to consult children in a more organised way about aspects of daily life in nursery, pre-school or reception class.
Good communication
Children may need to become accustomed to being consulted, but adults may also have to get used to the element of 'power sharing' in proper consultation. Children will soon decline to be involved if they are asked for their views but then have them ignored.
Of course, consultation does not mean handing over all responsibility, whether you communicate about behaviour or any other aspect of children's lives. You will continue to have adult responsibilities such as sharing your attention between the children and stepping in to ensure that children neither hurt themselves or others.
Consultation means sharing choices with children and enabling their voices to be heard.
* You need to use full communication skills: listening and not just talking at children, paying attention to their body language as well as any words.
* Children can be helped to express an opinion with the support of a smiley or sad face sticker, or happy and sad mats which the children can sit on.
* Photographs or drawings of parts of the setting can be used to support a discussion about 'what we do' or 'what we like', that would otherwise be rather abstract for young children.
An open approach to talking about acceptable behaviour has to be underpinned by honesty about your own feelings. For example, in open communication with a small group of children there is a difference between saying, 'I want to talk about the computer corner; I'm concerned that some children rarely get a go' and the critical approach of, 'Now, don't you think, Darren and Chloe, that you're being selfish about your computer time?' Primary school age children are even more attuned to hearing the music behind adult words and can distinguish the genuine consultation from the paper exercise. Researchers such as Wendy Titman have shown that the youngest primary school children are full of ideas for making school grounds more friendly and resolving some of the 'behaviour problems' that arise from a negative adult response to lively games.
Giving children choices about everyday events helps them to weigh up possibilities and consequences, as well as helping them believe you really are interested in their views. Children need experience of honest adults who offer real choices while at the same time being clear about when they, the adult, need to make a decision.
Everyday there will be some potential choices to decide, such as the route of a local walk, or the stories you tell with the puppets. And even young children can help plan ahead for an event. The Save the Children project Children as partners in planning reports an example of children between two-and-a-half and three-and-a-half years of age who played a full part in planning a farm visit. The children used smiley or grumpy faces on sticks to vote for what they wanted to do on the visit.
Two-way process
The kind of open communication that builds consultation with children also includes acceptance of feedback about your own adult behaviour. A child may say, 'I'm cross with you. You promised we could go to the market today', and you will need to acknowledge that promises matter. Have you explained properly why the trip did not go ahead or do you need to apologise because you had forgotten your promise? Do you need courteously to remind the child that you did say 'maybe' but then perhaps accept that these children are too young to have as many 'maybe's' as you give them?
It is good practice to involve children as much as possible in setting up ground rules, but you and other carers must expect to follow them too. The children might say, 'You let Maria's dad interrupt us. What about the "wait, don't interrupt" rule?' You will need to acknowledge that you made a mistake if you let an adult break a rule that the children have to follow.
Once you invite children's views you will often hear their expert comments about the adults themselves. The Stirling Children as Partners project reports how photographs and a pictorial layout of nursery areas were used to invite children to comment on activities. They were asked to place Playmobil figures where they would like adults to be. Yet the children took the exercise further, named the figures for the staff and made insightful comments about why they wanted particular team members in different places. In this way the children highlighted the strengths and weaknesses of the staff. This unexpected feedback led to a valuable follow-up discussion in the team, but as the report says, 'This can be daunting for staff'.
Talking over problems
There will be some arguments between children, even in the happiest early years settings, and adults can support children's problem-solving skills when they operate as a 'communications umpire'. You can enable each child in an altercation to be heard and help them step back and see a problem that needs to be resolved. A similar problem-solving approach can help areas of your setting that seem to be a source of troubles. For example:
* You can invite children's views with, 'there seem to be a lot of squabbles on the technology table, why is this?' * When you have understood the children's perspective, you can perhaps offer your own thoughts, but as equal to the children's ideas.
* Then you can ask, 'What could we do about the problem?' The children will have ideas, so will you, and together you can reach a possible solution.
* Adults have a responsibility to keep a discussion friendly. Sometimes you may rephrase a child's comment slightly to make it less hurtful to a child they see as a source of problems.
Children may take a while to gain the habit of offering ideas, or to believe that you really will listen. Whether the idea to resolve a problem area came from the children or from you, it is a constructive step to revisit the problem in conversation. You might say, 'How do you feel about the new timer for the computer corner?' or 'We've had our new arrangement in the book corner for two weeks now. How is it working?' A habit of consulting children will let them express priorities and concerns that may not have reached adults' attention. For example:
* Children have sometimes been asked about their favourite places in the nursery or invited to use happy and sad faces to describe their feelings about different learning areas.
* Carers have then heard how children are distressed by sand throwing or having their buildings knocked over.
* Equally it has been important to recognise the value of that special place in the garden or school grounds that children do not want to be tidied up and made more 'useful'.
* Children say how important friendships are for them. Adults can show that they respect this important social side to nursery and then children will be more likely to consider, 'How can we make new children welcome?' Children learn respect and consideration for others when they have experienced the same themselves. If you want them to listen and be guided by you, a key strand of your approach has to be to show them that you listen to them, and that your actions are guided by their feelings and how they experience a situation. NW
Further information
* Alison Clark and Peter Moss Listening to young children: the Mosaic approach National Children's Bureau 2001 (0207 843 6000) * Lina Fajerman, Michael Jarrett and Faye Sutton Children as partners in planning Save the Children 2000 (ask for the publications department on 0207 703 5400) * Wendy Titman Special places; special people: the hidden curriculum of school grounds WWFUK/Learning Through Landscapes 1994 (0208 850 3112) * Children as partners Children's Services Stirling Council 2000 (01786 443 322).
