Written by Efrim C.
One of my favorite things about the culture here at CCB is the center-wide belief that every teacher should be their authentic self in their classroom with the kids, parents, and colleagues alike. When working with new teachers, developing parent education programs or partnering with long time teachers, I nonetheless point out that there are some (usually) benign habits of speech that I prefer teachers inhibit when working with young children.
Some common examples include, “be careful!” “that is not safe!” or “that is dangerous;” simply calling “stop! no!” or using only a child’s name to indicate when they are exhibiting undesirable behaviors. Such expressions offer children neither actionable information about the world around them (what exactly is dangerous? Why? What might happen?) nor new ways to navigate it (what to do to avert an unsafe consequences? What is a safe choice that achieves the same goal?).
We know that children use our reactions to gauge their own impact on the environment and those around them. Children can sometimes be exceedingly transparent when they are limit-testing.
Who of us working with toddlers and preschoolers have not watched a child slowly escalate a behavior (increasingly loud voice at nap time, banging two toys together with slightly more force each time . . .) while looking to you over and over after each instance to see just how far they can push before you respond to redirect or otherwise intervene.
And we know that children look to us as models as they build their own interpretations of their world as well as themselves. It is always striking to me when visiting the 2 year olds, just how thoroughly they repeat what we say to them. These repetitions are doing far more than just building vocabulary, helping them find the words to describe their experiences and exert their influence on the environment. The language we give children does more than interpret the world for them, it interprets the world into being for them. The language we use and that we teach children to use for themselves shapes, in a very real way, what the world around them is.
This is why as teachers, we strive to use language that is neutral and objective. There is a difference, as we know, between playing in the mud with a child, scooping a handful and saying that it feels “cold, wet, and slippery” and saying that it feels “yucky, gross, and dirty.” The former we know is descriptive and the latter valuative. Or, even more impactful, saying that the mud is cold, wet, and slippery, and implying with our tone, facial expression, and gestures that it is also yucky, gross, and dirty. As Margaret Mead’s has famously written, “we must teach children how to think, not what to think.”
This is why, when asked by a child if we like their art, their clothes, the snack we are sharing with them, and so on, we turn the question back to them, “do you like it?” This is why we emphasize using open-ended questions whenever we can, “how does this mud feel to you?” instead of yes or no questions, “does this feel wet, yucky, crunchy, etc?”
I acknowledge that it is a fine balance to tread between allowing children to form their own visions and interpretations of the world, and providing the tools and language to do so. And like so much else in our field, walking that line is determined by each individual child’s temperament and development, the dynamics of the group, the context of the experience, family culture and history, and countless other factors.
It is for all the above reasons that I generally oppose using “are you OK?” as a response to children who are injured, hurt, or otherwise in distress. When a child falls on the playground and our immediate reaction, without taking the time to first observe the child’s own, is to call out an alarmed “are you ok?!” we are sending the message that the occasion is a cause for alarm. The question inherently implies that there is reason to not be OK. When children see that they are able to illicit such an emotional and immediate response from us, we set the expectation that affecting being hurt is a way to gain our attention. The question poses for the child a closed binary, the answer is “yes” or “no,” it neither prompts the child to reflect on what or how they are feeling nor gives us any useful information about how we can support the child when answered.
In short, the question essentially projects our interpretation, concerns or fears onto the child, instead of making room for the child’s own natural reaction, often creating a loop wherein the child is simply reflecting our emotions or responses back to us. So often, developing our practice – our discipline – of working with young children is as much a process of unlearning ingrained habits as it is strengthening and building new ones.
Instead of immediately jumping to action when you see a child take a minor spill, remain near, wait a breath or two, and just observe the child, who very often is looking to you to see how you will respond. More often than some may expect, if you do not immediately jump into action, the child will get up and resume playing without much of a fuss at all. Or you can try acknowledging the moment with a statement of fact, “you fell down,” or humorously with a sound effect or onomatopoeic “splat.” Or asking the open ended, “how does your body feel?” And when the child shows us they may want or need some support in the moment (beyond any first aid they may need, of course), we can by word or gesture, ask the child what we can do for them, a hug or a help getting up from a fall, or rubbing the ouch away with a gentle touch. When we do this, we are not displaying indifference, or turning away from a child in need, but rather providing the child with an opportunity to develop the resilience and the knowledge that they can endure life’s bumps and bruises.
