Learning & Development: National Strategies series - part 12 - With feeling

The role of empathy in early years is a perfect finale to this series, as it is at the heart of the quality of relationships and of our responses to the uniqueness of all those whom we meet in our day-to-day EYFS practice.

Empathy is the ability to 'stand in someone else's shoes' and see things from their point of view. It is part of emotional development - how we come to understand our own and others' feelings - and is underpinned by personal development (being me) and social development (communicating and making friends).

Howard Gardner stresses that this is important because empathy is essential to the way that we live together. 'The less a person understands his own feelings, the more he will fall prey to them. The less a person understands the feelings, the responses and the behaviours of others, the more he will interact inappropriately with them and therefore fail to secure his proper place within the larger community' (Gardner, Howard, 1993, Multiple Intelligences: The theory in practice. New York: Basic Books).

Have you ever experienced the bewilderment that can occur when a friend or loved one responds to your unique difficulty or joyous news with: 'I know just how you feel, oh, yes, it happened to me ...', and then goes on to describe something which is not at all similar to the way that you are actually feeling?

This lack of empathy can lead to feelings of sadness and frustration, and it is useful to remember these feelings when working with young children, because we do not always get it right for them. When adults fail to empathise with young children, they can feel sad and frustrated. Knowing and remembering this will help us all to avoid Gardner's trap of 'falling prey' to emotions, our own and those of others.

Skills

So, how can we help babies and young children to develop their skills of empathy? The Social and Emotional Aspects of Development (SEAD) practitioners' booklet (DCSF 2008, p12) reminds us of the importance of tuning into children as unique individuals. This involves:

- knowing about how children develop

- observing children closely

- listening actively, attentively, and with respect, to all children and parents, whatever their background

- being able to put yourself in the child's or parent's shoes by stepping outside yourself and the way your setting is run, and seeing things from their point of view - often called having empathy

- valuing what you learn from observing children and from talking with their parents, and acting on it for the benefit of the children

- understanding that physical and mental health and well-being are closely related.

Development

The EYFS contains plenty of guidance on child development, including the 'Development Matters' statements for each area of learning and development. These are some of the 'look, listen and note' statements from Personal, Social and Emotional Development (PSED): Making Relationships. They indicate what practitioners might be looking for in each broad developmental age band in order to tune into each unique child and support the development of empathy.

- Birth to 11 months: ways in which young babies respond to or mimic their key person's facial expressions or movements

- Eight to 20 months: the skills that babies use to make contact, such as making eye contact, inclining their heads, wiggling their toes, smiling, vocalising or banging

- 16-26 months: the different ways in which young children show their concern for other children

- 22-36 months: the strategies that children use to join in play with individual children or groups of children

- 30-50 months: ways in which children show they feel safe and cared for

- 40-60-plus months: children's acceptance that they may have to wait for something or to share things.

There are many more 'look, listen and note' statements to help practitioners observe the development of empathy in the other aspects of PSED - Dispositions and Attitudes, Self-confidence and Self-esteem, and Behaviour and Self-control.

The Principles Into Practice cards also support these skills - for example, 2.1 Respecting Each Other, 2.3 Supporting Learning, 2.4 Key Person, 3.3 The Learning Environment.

To supplement the EYFS guidance we have written an additional card to sit alongside the other EYFS Principles Into Practice cards.

CASE STUDY

The SEAD practitioner booklet contains several case studies which illustrate staff displaying empathy towards children and each other. Here is an abridged example of one (for the full case study see SEAD practitioner booklet, p43-44).

At a children's centre, staff have noticed that two boys, Daniel and Shahid, have difficulty in relating well with other children and adults. Both children's parents say they interact well at home. The staff decide that perhaps the children are a little anxious in the centre and resolve to try to lessen this, and to enable the children to be more adventurous in their play, to communicate better and more generally with their peers and the staff.

The children are invited to a table with paper taped to it, covering the top. There are felt pens and crayons in pots and some small-world figures, including people, animals and vehicles.

Sarah, their key person, says, 'Look at this huge piece of paper - what shall we put on it?' She picks up a felt pen and draws a line. At first the boys do the same, but then Shahid makes his line into a rectangle and places a train inside it.

Sarah does the same and pauses. Daniel is drawing shorter lines across his original line and says 'Look, train tracks.' Sarah says, 'You are drawing train tracks' and copies this without saying anything else. She does the same when Shahid places a tree beside Daniel's tracks.

The boys soon realise that Sarah is copying everything that they do. They are fascinated that this is happening and begin to engage in the turn-taking game - making marks and placing figures. They begin to talk to each other. Eventually they begin to offer more direction to Sarah.

In this way the children are developing control over the activity, and beginning to feel more confident that they have this ability. This strategy is repeated and extended into other activities.

Gradually the boys learn that sharing responsibility and other people's ideas is fun. Sarah, her colleagues and the boys' parents all observe that the children seem happier and more relaxed and confident.

The staff at this centre are very 'tuned in' to each unique child. They understand the importance of personal, social and emotional development for all areas of learning. They use their observations and assessment of children to inform planning for the next steps in learning. In doing this, the staff are demonstrating empathy and a whole-centre commitment to inclusive practice.

RESOURCES

Leaders and managers set the tone for the setting and encourage the development of empathy by the way they behave. Listed below are some resources for leaders to use with their teams to lead reflection on developing empathetic practice:

Developing an appropriate environment

SEAD Guidance for Practitioners

- Section 4 Enabling Environments, p32-39 - this section provides good background reading

- Appendix 2, p53 - an audit of the emotionally enabling environment

Could you use this as a catalyst for practitioner development?

Circle games and rounds supporting empathy

Excellence and Enjoyment: Social and emotional aspects of learning (SEAL booklets)

- Relationships - Revised Early Years Foundation Stage version

- Page 6 - Suggestions of circle games and rounds to support talk about others' feelings.

Uniqueness - what does this feel like for children, practitioners and parents?

Sure Start Personal, Social and Emotional training materials

- A set of training materials supporting managers and leaders to lead reflective CPD sessions with teams

- There is much to choose from here, but session 1 section 3 (p24) deals particularly with the reflective early years practitioner.

NATIONAL STRATEGIES RESOURCES

Excellence and Enjoyment: Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning: Early Years Foundation Stage red set booklets. DCSF 2008 (Ref: 00840-2008FLR-EN)

Social and Emotional Aspects of Development: Guidance for Practitioners Working in the Early Years Foundation Stage. DCSF 2008 (Ref:00707-2008BKT-EN)

The Early Years Foundation Stage: Setting the standards for learning, development and care for children from birth to five. DCSF May 2008 (Ref: 00261-2008PCK-EN)

The materials are available online at: www.standards.dcsf.gov.uk/nationalstrategies by searching using the reference number or title

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Gardner, H (1993) Multiple intelligences: The theory in practice. New York: Basic Books

Personal, Social and Emotional Development (PSED) materials

Sure Start Training materials, 2006