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Section 3

Chapter 6 Belonging and connecting in close relationships

If we consider the positive elements of our own close relationships with other adults, we might be able to identify the communications and interactions that are at the root of emotional attachments throughout life and which comfort us when we need it and also support us to go out into the world to meet new challenges.

Consider your own close relationships

  • Who do you turn to for in times of stress or need? Is it a close family member or long-standing friend?
  • Why do you turn to this particular person?
  • How do you feel once you have made contact?
  • What is it that is positive in this relationship for you?
  • How does it make you feel?
  • What does this person do that makes you feel good?

Educators undertaking this task often identify that the qualities of these relationships include: being non-judgemental, understanding, sharing and communicating, kindness, respect and trust. That this person is loving and supportive, listens, gives focused attention and time and cuddles. This makes them feel accepted -of their good and bad sides, free to be themselves, self-confident, able to go out into the world and loved.

How might you use these insights to develop your close relationships with your key children?

Now think about how you feel when you are apart from this person or someone else you are close to. You may feel sad, bereft, anxious, distraught or just a bit ‘lost’. Note down how your feelings are more or less intense according to the length or permanency of the separation or according to whether you know where they are and when you will see them again.

How might you use these insights to deepen your understanding of young children’s experience of separation?

  • Who first developed ideas of attachment theory and what perspective were they coming from?
  • What are the 2 aspects that make up the framework of attachment relationships?
  • Can you identify the 3 key features of attachment relationships?
  • What is ‘goal-corrected partnership’?
  • Suggest 3 benefits of a secure attachment pattern.
  • Suggest 3 disadvantages of an insecure attachment pattern
  • What is separation protest? Why does it happen?

Belonging and connecting in close relationships: Thinking Further about Attachment Theory

Caregiver’s behaviour Child’s experience Attachment pattern Behaviours and potential later life outcomes
A high degree of sensitivity
Generally prompt responsive to child’s needs
Consistent patterns of behaviour 		Positive working model of relationships
Feels worthwhile and valuable 		Secure Can be healthily independent but also express needs
Are more able to regulate their emotions 		Can ‘bounce back’ from setbacks Confident and interested dispositions to exploring and learning
Are more able to empathise and relate to their peers
Less attuned to child
Rejecting and dismissive of child’s needs 		Model of themselves as unworthy and unacceptable
Minimises own needs 		Insecure Avoidant Avoids contact with others
Always auto-regulating their emotions 		May seek attention and emotional support in socially unacceptable ways
May have difficulty focusing calmly on their learning
May engage in anti-social and / or self-harming behaviours
More likely to abuse drugs and alcohol
More prone to accidents
More prone to adolescent pregnancy
More prone to psychiatric disorders
Higher risk of school failure
Inconsistent in responses Negative self-image
Fear of rejection 		Insecure Ambivalent Clings anxiously
Always inter-actively regulating their emotions
Unpredictable and abusive Expects little from close relationships
Poor self-esteem
Confused actions 		Insecure Disorganized Displays ‘freezing’ or manic behaviours

The chart above may support educators in clarifying their understanding of caregivers’ behaviours, attachment patterns and outcomes. But, as discussed in the handbook, attachment theory was developed in a particular socio-cultural context, i.e., post-war Britain and has been critiqued and further developed since. Therefore, early childhood professionals should be aware that attachment patterns vary slightly between cultures, as culture influences parenting behaviours in ways that appear to promote differences in attachment relationships. However, secure attachment is the norm in the overwhelming majority of cultures.  In addition, Van Ijzendoorn and Kroonenberg suggest that differences in attachment within a culture are far greater than those found between cultures. They conclude that it is wrong to think of everyone in a culture having the same practices. Within a culture there are many sub-cultures, all with their own way of rearing children.  These may be ethnically based but also may be class specific, for example in the UK the middle and upper classes often have different approaches to child-rearing than working class families.

Every culture requires that its children adapt in different ways in order to live successfully in that society…But that does not mean that every adaptation is healthy or useful or that culture cannot be organized in harmful ways.’ (Karen 1994, p.262)

Robert Karen

What do you think about this statement? How do you respond to parenting behaviours that are different to your own cultural values and experiences? At what point does a parenting style become unacceptable in your view?

Informed and aware educators need always to consider whether they are basing their idea of a parent’s practices on that family’s own culture or judging them against the educator’s own criteria. They need to reflect on whether they are ‘othering’ a parent’s approach because it is culturally different to their own or whether, in their attempts at acceptance and inclusivity, they are accepting a parenting approach that is not in the best interests of the child’s well-being. This dilemma warrants much reflection and team discussion or supervision in which educators need to draw on as much informed research as possible, rather than just rely on personal feelings or popular fads.

Chapter 6: Workbook
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Chapter 6.1: Key Aspect of Practice: The Key Person Approach

Key Aspect of Practice: Further Thinking about the Key Person Approach

  • What did Bain and Barnett (1980) believe should be the primary task of an early years setting?
  • Which theories underpin the Key Person Approach?
  • When was ‘key working’ first introduced into early years settings in the UK?
  • What are the main aims of the Key Person approach?
  • Identify 3 aspects of the key person role

If you are undertaking this task alone, make 3 lists of your thoughts on the key person approach from the child, parent and educators’ perspectives.

  • The first list should complete the sentence: As an educator I think the Key Person approach is important because…
  • The second list should complete the sentence: As a parent I find having a key person useful because…
  • The third list should complete the sentence: I like my key person because…

and be completed from the point of view of a baby or young child. I recommend that the ‘child’s’ list is completed using a crayon or marker, large sheets of paper and using the hand that you don’t usually write with; this helps to get more into a child-like mindset – especially if you lay on the floor to do it!

If you are able to join up with other practitioners, you can complete this task by small groups taking one perspective and then comparing your responses. How are they the same or different?

You may notice from your lists that the educator’s lists may emphasise the organizational aspects, such as observing key children, planning play experiences for them and communicating with parents, colleagues and other professionals about key children.

In contrast, the child’s list may identify the details of the relationship more and include things like ‘plays with me’, ‘knows what I like’ or ‘gives me cuddles’. The parent’s list will probably be a mixture of these two aspects. This highlights that, to be meaningful to children and parents, implementing the Key Person Approach must emphasise the relational aspects of the approach; focusing on being physically and emotionally available to children, responsive to parents and offering consistency and continuity of care.

Personal, professional and organisational dilemmas and challenges can arise when implementing the Key Person approach, some of which are discussed in chapter 6.1 of the handbook.

  • What dilemmas have you experienced and how did you resolve them?
  • Did you get support from leaders or colleagues in thinking your dilemma through?
  • Did the resolution have a satisfactory impact on your well-being and the well-being of the child and parent?
Chapter 6.1: Workbook
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Chapter 6.2: Key Aspect of Practice: Partnership with Parents

Use the grid below to list all the things that, as a parent, you would want to know about the setting and all the things you want the setting to know about your child. Then imagine what information you might not want to share because you might worry that educators may misinterpret, misunderstand or judge you, your family or your child.

Then repeat the exercise but from an educator’s point of view. What do you think you need to know about the child and what do you think the parent needs to know about the setting? Is there anything you think the parent doesn’t need to know?

Then compare your lists. How are they the same or different?

As a parent As an educator
Things you want to know about the setting Things you want the setting to know about your child Things you want the parent to know about the setting Things you think you need to know about the child and family
Anything you don’t want the setting to know Anything you think the parent doesn’t need to know

You may have included some of the following:

  • how the key person system works
  • the qualifications and experience of the educators
  • approaches to comforting the child
  • what type of play opportunities are offered / how many toys there are
  • how information is shared
  • how allergies and other dietary requirements are catered for
  • how clean things are
  • health or developmental issues
Chapter 6.2 Workbook
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Chapter 7: Belonging and connecting in my community

  • Think back over a day and list all the social interactions you have had.
  • What social skills did you need to use?
  • Think back over your life and note the key people in your social circles or communities. How have they influenced the person you are today?
  • How sociable do you think you are? Does this vary? What does your level of sociability depend on?

  • 1. How does social understanding impact other aspects of development and learning?
  • 2. Identify an aspect of perceptual development and say how it feeds into social development.
  • 3. How might a child’s biological make-up impact their social development?
  • 4. What is intersubjectivity?
  • 5. What is ‘theory of mind’?
  • 6. How might babies and toddlers show empathy?
  • 7. Who developed the idea of ‘apprenticeship’ in children’s development?
Chapter 7: Workbook
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Chapter 7.1 KAP Behaviour

Some behaviours that children exhibit can trigger strong responses in their caring adults. Either because they are reminders of what we were or weren’t allowed to do as children or because they prompt memories of how we were treated when we misbehaved, which might be unpleasant. These are times when it is useful to take a step back and reflect on what is going on for the child and for the educator.

Identify the behaviours in children that you find particularly difficult

Now list how those behaviours make you feel

Now identify how you might or could respond if you were to act in an unprofessional way

For example:

Hitting
Rejecting

Helpless / frustrated
Rejected / angry

Slap
Push away

Now add your own…

You may notice from your lists that the feelings aroused in you may reflect the child’s feelings that caused the behaviour in the first place. So, undertaking this exercise will help you to understand how we pick up on children’s feelings, which then prompt our own memories, feelings and responses.

If you do the task with colleagues, you may notice that each of you may have different behaviours that ‘push your buttons’. So, the task will also support team discussion about the different responses to different behaviours each educator will have and, therefore, the importance of developing consistent responses.

Chapter 7.1 Workbook
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Chapter 8: Communicating

Think back over the day and identify instances when you;

  • Asked for something you wanted or needed
  • Told somebody what to do
  • Greeted someone
  • Were asked to do something for someone else
  • Told another person what you thought about something
  • Asked a question about something you didn’t know
  • Told someone how you were feeling
  • Answered a question
  • Made a phone call
  • Explained something
  • Told a story
  • Understood a non-verbal interaction

Each of these are linked to Halliday’s 7 Functions of Talk (1978). Can you link your answers to them?

  • 1. Instrumental – being able to satisfy our needs and desires
  • 2. Regulatory – being able to control or be controlled
  • 3. Interactional - to establish and maintain contact
  • 4. Personal - to express ideas and thoughts
  • 5. Educational - to find things out
  • 6. Imaginative -to create worlds
  • 7. Representational - to inform

From this we can see how communication and language help us to:

  • Get our needs met and meet the needs of others
  • Understand people and events through being able to between the here and now and the past or the future in our thoughts.
  • Develop our ideas and thoughts
  • Express and communicate personal ideas and feelings
  • Express creative and imaginative thoughts and ideas
  • Plan and organise our lives
  • Connect with other people
  • Learn

  • What is the difference between verbal and non-verbal communication?
  • What is the difference between verbal communication and language?
  • Who developed the idea of a ‘Learning Acquisition Device’ and who developed the idea of a ‘Language Acquisition Support System’. What is the difference?
  • Who developed the idea of ‘proto-conversations and what are they?
  • What is the difference between receptive language and expressive language?
  • What is the difference between simultaneous or subsequent second language acquisition?
  • Identify a benefit of being bi-lingual or multi-lingual
  • What factors would you consider when you are concerned about a child’s language development?
Chapter 8: Workbook
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