A two-year-old girl has been attending our pre-school for over a month and still seems very unsettled. She doesn't cry when her mum brings her but just appears lost. We offer free play and there are a lot of varied resources on offer, but nothing seems to take her interest for long and she wanders around the setting rather than focusing on an activity or interacting with the other children. How can we help her to settle?'
What is always so inspiring and reassuring when reading these queries is the obvious care and concern demonstrated by practitioners wanting to do their best for the children in their particular environment - whether it is a day care setting, reception class or the practitioner's home. However, what is also striking is the way in which we all sometimes seem to lose a perspective on how our provision might appear to a new 24-month-old child. Often we presume that whatever we find agreeable, others will too!
It is important for us to try to really understand what the 'world' can look, sound and feel like to someone else and, in the case of babies and very young children, it is crucial, as we are the interpreters of their behaviour. So, how can we understand this little girl?
First, we need to think about her in general terms - what skills and abilities does she have at her disposal to manage her transition into this new experience? What are the developmental norms that we can use as a framework to reflect on what she may be able to do?
The vast majority of two-year-olds are becoming increasingly aware of themselves as a 'self', which is often evidenced by their referral to themselves by name rather than 'I' or 'me' (although they may have a strong tendency to say 'me do it'!). It has also finally 'clicked' that the person in the mirror is themselves and that they have a body whose parts they can recognise, name and point to. This awareness ties in with their growing urge to be independent, linking strongly with a growing understanding of being an active 'agent', someone who can initiate experiences and have choices. There is often very strong awareness of their personal likes and dislikes, as well as a growing appreciation that others have likes and dislikes too.
Also at this stage, a child's emotions are huge - they can swing between happiness, frustration, anger and sadness. The word 'no' becomes a significant part of their growing vocabulary. As Miller (2005) describes it, they are becoming 'aware of their own powers'. They are also beginning to recognise and equate the feelings of someone else with how they may be feeling, and practitioners will often witness the tender kindness of such a young child offering a teddy or doll to another child who is distressed.
A two-year-old's vocabulary is increasing rapidly and, to cap it all, they are often still going through the radical transition of toilet training. The capacity to explore, be curious, to want to move their bodies, is very strong in most two-year-olds.
In spite of all these emerging skills and a new-found understanding of a 'self', the emphasis is on 'emerging'. Any child of this age remains vulnerable and highly dependent on their parents and other caregivers.
A two-year-old's needs for comfort, safety and reassurance are no less than they were in their first year of life. In fact, it may be that in times of significant shifts in skills and abilities, the awareness and responsiveness of the adult is even more crucial. At this age a child is 'finding their feet' literally as well as metaphorically, and the ability to make sense of their environment is still very limited. Children of this age increasingly use pretend, observation and their old friend, imitation, to help them find their way around a world which is extending in its richness and complexity. This can be not only exciting and challenging, but also scary.
Confident relationship
This little girl has only been at pre-school for a month and is finding it very difficult to join in with the setting's activities and play with other children. Most two-year-olds are still very much at the stage of parallel play and many will require a considerable period of simply watching what other children are doing before being able to find the confidence to join in.
How, then, can this child become confident within this setting and with these adults? Primarily, confidence lies in the child's relationships, and so both the child's relationship with their parents and subsequently the relationship with the adults in the setting will provide the cornerstone for how able the child feels to join in and become part of the group.
Issues that need to be considered include how her natural distress at separation from her mother has been handled. While the child does not cry, this does not necessarily mean that she is not sad and unhappy about being alone - which is the reality for her. The practitioner describes her as 'lost', and this is probably exactly how the child is feeling. She doesn't know what to do and perhaps does not yet feel that she has a secure base from which to explore.
The first step is perhaps for staff to forget about her joining in, and simply help her gain trust and confidence - to build a relationship with her. They need to help her feel that they are available to her and that they are trustworthy and reliable. They need to think about her both in terms of her developmental stage and her unique needs and personality, so that they can more sensitively respond to how she is behaving. They must accept that it will take her time to get to know the adults and the other children. They will certainly need to find a key person with whom she can build a special relationship that provides her with the security she undoubtedly needs.
Talking to her mother will be helpful to find out how this little girl copes in other new situations.
If we remember that this child has to 'manage' new adults, a range of children, a new setting with its accompanying noise, activity and stimulation, new spaces to negotiate and so on, perhaps we can better appreciate the need for time and care to allow her to begin to 'find her feet' in this strange environment.
ALL IN A DAY'S WORK
Taking on a temporary manager created an opportunity for reflection all round, says Sian Nisbett, nursery director of Dizzy Ducks Day Nursery, which owns two nurseries in Essex
There is something in the water at my nurseries at the moment - pregnancy has hit almost epidemic levels! But this is the first time that one of my senior management team will be going on maternity leave.
During the process of recruiting maternity cover for her, we quickly realised that we would need a solid strategy for integrating the new manager into our setting. The current nursery manager will be going on maternity leave at the end of August, but we specifically chose to recruit a maternity replacement much earlier than this, not least because of the fact that we wanted to ensure that we picked the right person for the job, and didn't want the pressure of time constraints on that decision. So her maternity cover started working with us in May.
We held a managers meeting to discuss how best to work the transition of managers and decided that the new manager would arrange to meet each staff member at their nursery individually during her first week so that she could talk to everyone personally. Prior to the meeting, the staff were given a 'Getting to know you' questionnaire from the new manager. She included questions such as, 'Tell me about your current role as you see it', 'Is there any training that you would like?', 'Where do you aspire to be in three years' time?' and 'How should a manager support you in your role?' These questions gave the new manager the scope to build on the staff members' answers and give the informal discussion a purpose.
Initially our staff were nervous about meetings with the new manager. But they were sensitively handled and proved crucial in the maternity cover's settling-in period. In a feedback meeting, she said that it helped her to bond really quickly with the staff, find out about how they were feeling in their current roles and address any training needs almost instantly. In turn, the staff felt the new manager had their best interests in mind and had a solid understanding of how the nursery operated. They appreciated being asked their opinions.
The process was beneficial to forming a positive ongoing relationship, because both parties could quickly work out how each other saw themselves fit into the wider nursery organisation. It helped the new manager learn more about how our setting operates and ensured that staff felt valued and respected during the period of change.
Maria Robinson is an early years consultant and author of From Birth to One and Child Development from Birth to Eight: A journey through the early years (Open University Press). Her Nursery World series on child development can be bought online at: www.nurseryworld.co.uk/Books
If you have a behaviour query for Maria please e-mail it to: annette.rawstrone@haymarket.com, or write to the address on p13
SUGGESTED READING
- Miller, L (2005) Understanding Your Two-year-old (Tavistock Clinic Series). London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers
- Berry-Brazelton, T, Sparrow, JD, (2006) Touchpoints: Birth to Three. Cambridge, Massachusetts: DaCapo Press
- Robinson, M, (2008) Child Development from Birth to Eight. Open University Press
- Siren Films also produce the following: 'Life at Two' and 'The Two- year-old at Home and Nursery'