The Covid-19 lockdowns prevented us from socialising outside of the home, and the effects on social skills remain apparent for many young children. Practitioners report that turn-taking, building relationships, accepting boundaries, sharing and showing consideration to others are proving to be more difficult for the current cohort then previously.
How are settings responding so that ‘lockdown children’ do not lose out on opportunities to develop their social interactions? More broadly, what constitutes an environment in which children can thrive socially?
MORE SUPPORT
Jan Stillaway, deputy head teacher and SENDCO at Thomas Coram Centre and Nursery School, says, ‘We’re noticing an increase in some children needing more support in terms of their social and emotional and language development. We see many children being more dependent on adults, having poorer attention and less sophisticated collaborative play skills.’
Stillaway continues, ‘Though these children often make themselves understood, they use a limited vocabulary. They’re not using longer sentences or expressing more abstract ideas. Also, they are often the children who don’t really have friends and rely on adults to help them engage with activities.
‘We are spending longer helping our two- and three-year-olds to settle in. Many children remain less confident for much longer. Part of the explanation seems to be a lack of social experiences outside their immediate family.’
During the pandemic, support for families of children with SEND became virtual or non-existent. This left many isolated and desperate at this critical stage of their children’s lives. ‘Their difficulties are now compounded by pressures of the cost-of-living crisis,’ Stillaway adds.
Staff are supporting the children at Thomas Coram with social interactions by:
- emphasising making friends
- developing conversational skills: focusing on dialogue as opposed to learning new vocabulary or following instructions
- making local trips and visits.
These focuses help them to think more specifically about the nursery environment. Stillaway says, ‘This is always good to reflect on afresh. As part of “making friends”, we have extended the ways we support children with SEND, particularly those with social communication differences. We offer more specialised input to help develop their play and establish relationships. When we plan activities like cooking, we consider how each activity will specifically promote social connections with others.
‘We have taken to making lots of simple photo books to document our trips. This enables us to continue discussing them long after the event. We revisit the outing, reinforcing specific vocabulary and developinga range of narratives about what we did. This also highlights the fun of doing things with others.’
The pandemic was an affecting early childhood experience. For some children, particularly the better-off ones, it might have been a positive family time. For many children, however, it was a difficult time. They will have experienced increased anxiety and distress. This makes it more important that the nursery offers good practice that will help children feel safe and secure. It is always important to understand behaviour in the context of wider social and emotional development.
ENABLING ENVIRONMENTS
Michele Barrett is executive head teacher of Vanessa Nursery and Randolph Beresford Early Years Centre in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham. Barret thinks emotional and behavioural issues are inseparable. For her, the emphasis is creating an environment where children feel secure and have a sense of belonging.
Several aspects of daily practice are fundamental to this:
- The key person approach: ‘We place a strong focus on the role of the key person,’ says Barret. ‘It provides a feeling of security. They need to know there is a safe adult with whom they can build their first nursery relationship. They can use this relationship to build further ones.’
- Settling in: ‘We take this at the child’s pace,’ explains Barret. ‘When parents are working and have limited time, we encourage them to stay for long periods during the first week or two, gradually handing over to the key person.’ The emphasis is on children building a relationship with their key person within the safety net of their main carers.
- Creating a sense of belonging and ownership: Children need to get to know the people and the physical environment of their setting. ‘This helps them to feel ownership of their environment as opposed to adhering to a set of rules,’ says Barret. ‘They need to discover the benefits of sharing; boundaries and rules; caring for their environment; how things work, where they are and how they can be accessed. We gradually build these things into daily practice, using ways that suit each child.’
- Attachment to a group: Key group times help build relationships with the key person and peers. These intimate times also provide opportunities to focus on specific activities. ‘During these sessions the key person models [good] social interactions, as well as throughout the day,’ says Barret.
- Connection with the home and familiar experiences: Home visits and meetings between parents and the key person enable staff to know what their child likes and does not like, what helps them feel safe and how to comfort them. ‘Routines such as nappy changing, sleeping and getting dressed are shared so that the children have a similar experience at nursery to home.’
- Playing alone and with others: A quality setting needs to provide areas that encourage play in a range of ways – ‘where children can move from playing alone to playing alongside others to playing with groups of children. We develop areas of the environment over time as staff get to know more about the cohort of children,’ says Barret.
SUPPORTING CHILDREN (VERSUS BEHAVIOUR MANAGEMENT)
‘Behaviour management is a horrible term to use with young children,’ states Barrett. ‘Rather, we think in terms of supporting children through incidents of negative behaviour. When situations are more challenging, we use relationship plans rather than behaviour management plans. All adults have a “behaviour response plan” for each child, detailing what works best for them. This enables staff to respond consistently and individually. Over time, we learn to spot triggers and respond supportively rather than reactively.’
She adds that children are taught to stand up for themselves. ‘We teach them to sign and say loudly “Stop, I don’t like it”. It is a powerful tool. It also alerts an adult to be able to support an interaction if needed.’
Thinking about how the sensory environment may impact the child is especially important for children with complex needs: how to avoid over- or understimulation is integral.
‘We create spaces where children can move around freely. Within these spaces are cosy spots or places where they can build dens or enclosures,’ says Barrett. ‘Many children use fabrics, boxes, blocks and crates to create safe spaces – they are not permanent and can be changed to suit different needs.’
In all, Barrett and her team want children to be confident and skilled enough to manage social interactions. ‘We are not too behaviour-led, “following the rules” at all times,’ she stresses. ‘Rather, we place more emphasis on supporting children with their skills and knowledge about social interactions, decision-making and learning ways of self-regulating. This should stand them in good stead.’
MAKING ASSUMPTIONS
Notions such as behaviour management and good social skills can be problematic, and we should interrogate our expectations and where they are derived from. Are we basing them on what the Government or other authority tells us? Or, perhaps, on our biases about how children should function?
Every child is unique and we need to celebrate difference. As a result, children’s behaviour is never a straightforward matter – no one size fits all. There is a fine line between children having skills that will enable them to thrive in a social setting and being ‘trained’ to fit in. It is critical that we never lose sight of this. The work of the EYFS is to support young children to develop their social interactions without surrendering their agency and creativity.
WHAT ARE SOCIAL INTERACTIONS?
- Social interactions can be described as ‘encounters between at least two people in which they attend to one another and adjust their behaviour in response to one another’ (Reis et al., 1980). They tend to encompass skills such as turn-taking, building relationships, accepting boundaries, sharing and co-operating and resolving conflicts.
