Literacy news

What shall I play with today?

2 Feb 2006

As adults, while at times we find making decisions a challenge, we see having opportunities to do so as one of our human rights. Other people behaving towards us as if they expect us to want and have the ability to make decisions is important for our self-esteem. This link between the opportunity to make decisions and self-esteem is not confined to adulthood. It begins in early childhood, through a process where the opportunity to make decisions helps self-esteem to develop and increasing self-esteem promotes children's ability to make decisions.

The link to self-esteem

This interdependence between decision-making and self-esteem is reflected in the frameworks with which pre-school practitioners work. In the Birth to Three Matters framework, the aspect 'A Healthy Child' has a component 'Healthy Choices' that highlights the importance of a child being able to make choices including:

• Discovering and learning about his/her body
• Demonstrating individual preferences
• Making decisions
• Becoming aware of others and their needs

One of the early learning goals in the 'confidence and self-esteem' aspect of the Curriculum Guidance for the Foundation Stage is 'have a developing awareness of their own needs, views and feelings and be sensitive to the needs, views and feelings of others'.

The most effective way for pre-school settings to incorporate these aspects of the frameworks into their practice is to make recognition of the important link between decision-making and the development of children's self-esteem part of the ethos of the setting. This means practitioners giving thought and attention to it in their provision of play activities and all of their interactions with the children.

Explaining the situation

Our ability to make decisions is influenced by how well we understand the particular situation involved. We need to feel that we can make sense of it and see how it fits with the circumstances of our lives. Pre-school practitioners can help young children to develop the feeling that the world around them makes sense, by explaining what is happening in the setting and why. This can begin with the very youngest children, as practitioners talk about the care that they are providing for babies' physical needs, for example, putting on a bib or changing their nappy. Even though very young babies will not understand what is being said, the tone of voice in which it is said will convey a message that there is rhyme and reason behind what is taking place. As children get to the stage where they are able to understand that there are rules for their behaviour, it is important that the reasons for the rules are explained to the children. Similarly, the reasons for the requests we make of children can be explained. For example: "In five minutes time, begin to put away what you are playing with as it will soon be time to go home."

The chance to choose

Promoting children's learning and development through the provision of child-chosen activities is a further way of recognising the link between decision making and children's development of self-esteem. These activities give the children opportunities to decide with which activity they will play and how they will play with it. It is important for settings to think through how to offer activities to the full age-range of children attending the setting.

• With babies, this will involve offering more than one object for them to stretch out and grasp, for example a rattle and a small soft toy.
• Providing treasure baskets for babies who are able to pick up gives them opportunities to make choices about which objects to explore and how to explore them.
• For toddlers and older pre-school children, pre-schools need to make sure that the range of activities from which the children can choose is interesting and inviting. This will make decision making a stimulating experience for the children and, consequently, one in which they will want to engage.

Children's opportunities and abilities to make decisions are further supported by enabling them to choose the equipment and materials with which they play at their chosen activities. For example, setting out the water play activity with a basket trolley where each basket contains a particular type of equipment will provide more choices for the children than placing a random selection of containers in the water tray. This could include the following:

• A selection of pourers
• Containers of differing and related shapes and sizes
• A collection of funnels and plastic piping
• Objects which float and sink

Encouraging choices

Sometimes, it will be part of the practitioner's role to help children to make choices. Their decisions to do this will be based on their observations of the children and their responses to the choices offered to them. A child who has joined the setting recently may be observed to be using a particular activity as a safe haven from which to view what is happening in the other activities. To help the child to engage with one of these activities, the key person might ask the child what they like to play with at home and use this to suggest an appropriate activity at which they can both play.

Putting together profiles for individual children is one of the ways through which settings promote their learning and development. Seeing these profiles as belonging to the child and her/his parents will encourage practitioners to involve both children and parents in their creation. Again, the way in which practitioners do this will depend upon the age and stage of development of the child.

• With babies this might involve showing them a photograph of them playing that will be placed in their profile.
• As young children are able to verbalise their thoughts and ideas, it will involve talking with them about the activities that they enjoy and why; then including these in the individual plan to progress their learning and development.
• Once children have sufficient language to understand that a collection of the things that they can do and their interests is being kept, they can be encouraged to contribute evidence of their achievements and activities, for example, a photograph that they have taken of a large block construction which they helped to build.

During my research and preparation for this article, I came across a quotation that reminds us young children are people in their own right and deserve to be involved in the decisions that affect their lives. It prompts a question that all of us practitioners working with young children should ask ourselves about our attitudes towards the children with whom we work.

"If we are constantly astonished at the child's perceptiveness, it means that we do not take them seriously." [Janusz Korczak]

(Barbara Thompson, course development officer at the Pre-school Learning Alliance, writing in Under 5 magazine, February 2006)

Tags: Talk To Your Baby

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