Running Feet and Outside Voices

Written by Efrim C.

By next month, CCB will be distributing a revised version of the Parent Handbook to incoming families. Most changes in the new version are minor, but I want to give some attention here to one change in particular, as it represents a shift in our policy regarding toys from home.  

The previous version read unequivocally, “we ask that toys, other than books and stuffed animals, remain at home,” and made no qualification about when or how these items may be used for play or comfort each day. The updated version replaces the earlier position with the following, “we recognize that bringing items from home often helps children to transition, adjust, regulate, and extend play in unique ways throughout the day . . . please be sure that any item from home is well labeled with your child’s first and last name . . . teachers are not responsible for lost or broken items.”  

To expand on this this statement just a bit, I would add that, similar to other experiences we facilitate for our kids at CCB, home toys present children from toddler to preschooler opportunities to practice personal responsibility with a , cherished item, to share their interests with peers, express their identity with unique play items, and to contribute in very individual ways to the culture of the classroom. 

Home toys can also be a platform for children to engage the values that CCB holds, for teachers to model center wide expectations, and can reflect the culture at large (such as super heroes, and tv and movie characters, for example) for children under the guidance of caring adults in age and developmentally appropriate ways. 

I know from experience, and want to recognize here, that there are many reasons teachers avoid welcoming home toys in class, limit their use to the start or end of the day, use them as a reward to motivate desired behaviors, or to otherwise discourage or inhibit their use under most conditions. As teachers, we put a lot of intention and passion into crafting the learning environments that drive children’s experiences each day. The environment is not simply the physical space itself, although this is of course a major factor, but also includes our curriculum continuum, weekly lesson plans, flows of the day, and the expectations that we present our kids as they grow and develop with us throughout each program year. 

I will not pretend that introducing toys from home does not have the potential to interrupt this environment in a variety of ways. As this shift in policy comes into play moving forward, we might find that children gravitate to their own toys rather than the items we have chosen to engage them in purposeful learning experiences. We will likely see caution, hesitation or an inability to share unique home items leading to conflict between children. Some children will become distressed when an item is misplaced, lost, dirtied, or broken – as may some parents. We may encounter some home toys that do not represent the values and culture of the Center. And many teachers may find the unpredictability that home toys bring to the room difficult to manage.  

So, I want to present some initial caveats to our home toy approach. First, to be clear, play weapons of any kind will not be allowed at CCB. I believe that there can be value and a place for weapon play for young children, and this is an idea I may return to at some point, but CCB is not a place for that play to occur. Additionally, electronic devices, including battery operated toys, should be left at home. And toys that are larger than the child, such as riding toys or oversized stuffies, will not be allowed in the room. 

And although home toys may, at least initially, slightly disrupt some environments as they are currently designed, we also have the knowledge, skill, and experience to successfully incorporate them into what we already do everyday. As teachers, we encounter similar situations throughout each day and know and are trained to use these moments to support social-emotional development, conflict resolution skills, self-soothing, and regulation in children, and to provide informative support for parents.  

Ultimately, home toys will become one more learning center in our overall classroom and center environment. As such, home toys will be treated with the same guidelines applied to other play items in our rooms: is it being used safely? Is it age and developmentally appropriate? is it being used at a time of day consistent with the daily routine? And as each class itself is so unique, teachers can determine how best to incorporate and utilize home toys to support children’s learning in their rooms. 

For example, some may choose times of the day when home toys are available, in much the same way that centers are open and closed throughout the day. Or teachers can come up with creative ways to incorporate home toys into lesson plans and encourage children and parents to bring toys that fit a theme. Some classes may add a show-and-tell time to their flow of the day, or create a home toy center in the room, and so on.  

However they are used, I know that as this approach to home toys is embraced in the coming months and into the next program year, together we can ensure that home toys are one more tool we use to provide children with play, learning and developmental experiences that fit and flow with every other aspect of our day that embodies our CCB way. 

Teachers and parents, if you have questions about this shift, or would like guidance or support in incorporating home toys into the day, or preparing your children to bring items to school, or anything else, please reach out to your Cluster Support person, Susan or myself.  

As always, this is a dialogue, please share your thoughts, questions, comments, anecdotes, or disagreements. 

 Written by Efrim C.

In her book The Blessing of a Skinned Knee, Wendy Mogel tells the story of American researchers Dana Davidson’s and Joseph Tobin’s visit to Komatsudani Hoikuen, a Buddhist preschool in Kyoto, Japan while conducting field research into cross-cultural differences in the socialization of young children. On the day of their visit, they had the opportunity to observe the behavior of 4 year old Hiroki, a child some might call spirited or exuberant, and others might call difficult or challenging depending on the frame of reference, experience, and underlying philosophy informing one’s approach to the care of young children. To convey the scope of Hiroki’s behavior, I will quote at length from the researcher’s description in the resulting study published as Preschool in Three Cultures: Japan, China and the United States: 

Hiroki started things off with a flourish by pulling his penis out from under the leg of his shorts and waving it at the class during the morning welcome song. During the workbook session that followed, Hiroki called out the answers to every question the teacher asked and to many she did not ask. When not volunteering answers, Hiroki gave a loud running commentary on his workbook progress: “Now I’m coloring the badger, now the pig.” He alternated his play-by-play announcing with occasional songs, entertaining the class with loud accurate renditions of their favorite cartoon themes, complete with accompanying dancing, gestures, and occasional instrumental flourishes . . . During the course of the day, Hiroki started many fights, stepped on a girl’s hand and disrupted a game by throwing flash cards over the railing to the ground below. 

Let’s pause here to consider what our own responses to Hiroki might be. As a teacher, how would you address Hiroki’s behavior if he were a student in your classroom? As a parent of a child who behaved as Hiroki is described, what would you do if you received this report at pick-up time, and how would you have liked his teachers to have responded? As a parent of a child in Hiroki’s class, how would you have hoped Hiroki’s behavior was managed if your child came home and told you about these exploits? Hiroki’s actions are, we know, pretty natural impulses for a 4-year-old, and so these kinds of behaviors are not by any means uncommon in many pre-school environments. At CCB, we have a number of tools that we might use in response to behaviors such as Hiroki’s, (and even if such behaviors were escalated to include things like pulling toys off shelves and dumping them, throwing materials around the room or at each other; climbing and jumping from furniture; running and pushing, or breaking materials, and so on). 

As an starting point, we would examine the total environment, including teacher expectations, routine of the day, to ensure it is meeting the child’s needs. Is the room over-or under-stimulating? Does the room arrangement invite the behaviors (large corridors to encourage running, areas too close together an causing crowing)? Are the expectations that teachers are placing on the class as a whole, and the individual child in particular, realistic and age and developmentally appropriate? Are the relationships between the teachers and the child secure and established? 

As an initial tactic in the moment, however, we might use the emotionally validating FLIP IT approach (if you did not read my brief introduction to FLIP IT in the March newsletter, you can find it here). If the child’s behavior continued to be unsafe throughout the day regardless of the intervention strategy used, we might call in extra support as a shadow for the child, or to take him from the classroom for a walk outside to “reset” before returning. And if such disruptive and unsafe behaviors continued over time, we might invite guidance from a consultant at the Child Care Council, who would spend time observing and coaching teachers in their approaches. 

As our intervention strategies continued, we may develop an individualized behavior plan to support the child while establishing some clear limits for her. Depending on a host of other variables, we might recommend that the child is assessed for developmental delays, sensory issues, or other underlying causes for the behaviors. Or ultimately, in rare situations, parents, teachers, and directors may reach the conclusion that a different learning environment may better meet the child’s needs than CCB can. 

Each family’s culture is of course unique, and parents’ responses to behaviors like Hiroki’s will differ from home to home, and even from parent to parent within the home. Nonetheless it is safe to say that a parent will always bring the culmination of their own knowledge, experiences, cultural locations, and the conscious and unconscious so-called ghosts and angels in the nursery to any decision they make regarding a child in Hiroki place. And on the other hand, I have seen reactions from parents of other children in a classroom facing behaviors like Hiroki’s range from a kind of amused neutrality to extreme perturbation and calling for accountability from the other child’s parents or demanding dismissal from the class, and everything in-between. 

Whatever you considered your response to be, it seems unlikely that anyone’s response was that they would do . . . well, nothing at all. Yet this is exactly what the teacher in the room at the time did. She neither reprimanded nor re-directed Hiroki; she remained impassive and calm but did not intervene in any of the various conflicts or transgressions that Hiroki initiated. 

Discussing the event afterword, the research team described that it was at times difficult for them to remain neutral observers and recorders of the events; their instinctive impulse was to set aside their roles as researchers and instead to insert themselves into the children’s conflicts, as much for Horoki’s safety as that of the other students. An impulse they note, born of entrenched biases about how children should behave and what a preschool classroom should be like, despite being researchers in the field. 

When asked about her lack of response in a subsequent interview, the teacher, Fukui-sensi, cited a list of some of the important lessons Hiroki was himself learning, and that behaviors like Hiroki’s (when neither too extreme nor too dangerous) can teach other children. She spoke of the opportunities he offered others to practice new and emerging social skills in response to his play and conflict style. “Rather than seeing Hiroki as a problem,” Mogel writes, the teacher “valued his presence in the classroom because she 
believed that Hiroki provided the other children with opportunities to learn . . . how to concentrate when there are distractions, how to defend yourself, and how to manage conflicts without the intervention of a teacher,” or another adult. 

The underlying premise of Mogel’s book is that children should be more fully and independently engaged in making decisions regarding their own education based on their own priorities and according their own interests, passions, and curiosities. The chapter cited here specifically addresses conflict and conflict resolution. If we do not allow children the opportunity to manage challenging situations themselves, without engineering outcomes for them, if we do not allow them to fail, or choose badly, and learn from those mistakes, and for children to learn from the direct and immediate feedback from peers, Mogel suggests, we are denying them poignant opportunities to develop the internal skills to do so as they grow. 

Returning the books thesis, Mogel notes “Fukui-sensi gave up her own control in order to put control in the hands of her students.” And she follows this by challenging her readers to ask themselves, “are you ready to challenge your child to courageously solve their own problems?” 

How would you respond to Mogel’s challenge?

Written by Efrim C.

Last month, I shared Wendy Mogel’s reflections about allowing children to manage their own conflicts with no or minimal intervention from teachers or other adults. When we forfeit some of our control in this and other areas of young children’s education, Mogel posits, we provide them valuable opportunities to develop, grow, and strengthen the self-awareness and internal tools to do so themselves throughout their lives.  

Forfeiting some of our control does not require that we remove ourselves completely. The steps below outline a process that puts children in the driver’s seat but still scaffolded and supported by adults. These steps are similar to FLIP IT (although without the clever acronym) in that they are an attempt to clarify and codify what happens in various ways and to varying degrees in classrooms and homes throughout the Center each day. Unlike FLIP IT, however, which in a non-linear check-list of considerations to make when children are in moments of conflict or dysregulation (several of which are the same as discussed here), this is a concrete step-by-step process that supports children through conflict with peers in a manner that also honors and helps children build autonomy.  

The steps are: 1) Observe – lay back and see what happens, step in only when necessary for safety or if invited. 2) Clarify – make sure you understand what even is at stake in the conflict. 3) Narrate – repeat and confirm what you understand is happening. 4) Question – ask open-ended questions that can prompt children to find their own solutions. 5) Suggest – as a last resort, propose concrete solutions, present options and allow for further negotiation. 

1) Observe: Many conflicts between children will resolve quickly without intervention, sometimes to the satisfaction of both children, sometimes leaving one or even both children disappointed or with hurt feelings. Remember that our role is not to protect or insulate children from uncomfortable emotions, but rather to help them develop the skills and awareness to manage and process them when they arise. So before stepping in as soon as you hear voices raised, hold back and see what unfolds naturally between the children first. Give them a chance to surprise with novel solutions of their own. If the conflict ends with one or both children upset, follow up to help them develop the skills to identify and persevere through difficult emotions like disappointment, frustration, jealousy, or anger. Step in only when a child is cuing to you that the conflict is on the verge of becoming physical, (or as soon as it becomes physical if you are unable to intervene preventatively); or when the emotions of one of all the children become too big for them to remain regulated in their feelings (they are no longer using words and are just screaming at each other), or when one or all the children are signaling that they are stuck and cannot find a way forward (each child insists back an forth a toy is “’mine’ . . . ‘no mine’ . . . ‘nooo miiine’ . . .”). 

2) Clarify: Very often children in conflict are not really having the same argument at all, and the simple act of clarifying the position that each child is taking brings the conflict to an end. When you identify the need to intervene, use a level tone, there is no need to use a raised alarmed voice. Simply speaking one or both of the children’s names is usually enough to break the moment and prevent further escalation. Get down to their level. If the moment is becoming or about to become physical, place an arm between the children, this is usually enough to create a safe separation between them. If the conflict is over an item, and each child is trying to wrest it from the other, you can place your hand on the item, or let them know that you will hold on to it for the moment. Wait for children to voluntarily give you the item, explain to them what your intentions are, and why they need to give it to you. Do not pull the item from the children, or from a child who has taken something from another, by doing so we reinforce the idea that if you are bigger, stronger, or have authority, it is OK to take things by force. In conflicts over play items, let children know that it is not important who had the item first (in many cases you will not know), but that we need to find out who will use it now.  

Once you have inserted yourself into the conflict, ask each child in turn what is happening. Let each child know that you will listen to each of them one at a time. If there are other children observing the conflict that want to share what they witnessed, ask the children in conflict if you can listen to them share also, or tell them that you would like to. Allow each child to share their version of events without taking any position regarding the veracity of their descriptions. If you observed something yourself, you may share that with them also. Ask follow-up and clarifying questions. 

The goal in this step is not to determine the “truth,” but rather to determine what each child wants or is upset about, and if they are actually understanding each other. Often when we help children to express what they are upset about we find that, just as is often the case with adults, the disagreement is rooted misunderstanding and miscommunication. I am reminded of an episode from early in my career in which two girls playing “sister” were excluding a third girl from the game because there were only two sisters in their play family. When I asked the third girl if she wanted to be a sister, she replied, somewhat exasperatedly, “No! I want to be a cat!” Hearing that, the other two girls replied excitedly “Ohhhhh! You can be our pet!” 

3) Narrate: As each child is describing their version of events, or the nature of the conflict, repeat what you are hearing back to them. This shows the speaker that you have really heard them, and in hearing, validate and respect what they are sharing with you. This also gives you the opportunity to provide and model additional language that children can use to express themselves. It begins to provide connections between the physiological response they are experiencing and the words they can use to describe the sensations as emotions. So instead of “bad” or “not good,” we can suggest that the child feels angry, or frustrated , or jealous. And we can point out how feelings are registered in their expression and comportment, and in that of their peers. In narrating what we are hearing, we also mediate the statement between the children who may more easily listen to an adult than the friend they are in conflict with at the time. This step also ensures that we understand the nature of the conflict and gives children the chance to correct any misunderstanding on our part. 

If the children have already separated, you can speak to each in turn, and ask them if they would like to tell the other how they are feeling. If they are hesitant to, assure them that you can help them if they want. When offered help in expressing themselves, most children will accept, but if they refuse, or are not ready yet, or if the other child is still in their feelings and not ready to hear, respect their choices, and let them know that you will check with them again a little later, and make sure that do. 

4. Question: When you have gathered information, acknowledged and validated each child’s version of events, and their feelings, and the children are still willing to continue the process, you can begin to ask open-ended questions prompting them to think about solutions. “What can we do now?” “You both want to play with the yellow bus, how can we solve this?” “What do you want to happen next?” It will be tempting to provide leading questions, or to rely on yes or no questions to expedite the resolution. The time to provide solutions will follow in the next step. At this point, we are giving the children the opportunity to negotiate their own terms. 

It is possible that by this point in the process the children themselves may have already moved on from the ill feelings and the conflict itself. They may have decided for themselves that they would rather choose a different activity or toy or place to sit etc. If this is the case, allow them to make that choice. Allowing space for them to set their own priorities is a resolution in itself. If they are still with you however, when a suggestion is made by one child, check with the other to see if the term is acceptable to them. If not, continue the process until an agreement can be reached. When children grow into and learn this process, they can be highly invested in making it work. I have sat with children for as long as 20-25 minutes while ideas were hashed out between them. So often what is important to them is not so much the end result, but that they were given the choice and freedom to work their way to it. We have all seen children fighting over a toy, and going back and forth to decide who will use it first, and when both children agree that the first child will use the toy for 5 minutes and then pass it to the other, the first ends up passing the toy along in about 30 seconds. And at that point the other child may not even desire the item any longer. 

5. Suggest: Finally, if you have helped children through the previous steps without an adequate resolution, we can ask the children if they would like to hear your ideas. It is possible that they do not, especially once they are familiar with this style of negotiating. Respect this choice if this is the case. It is also possible that your ideas do not work for one or both children. At which point, you can join the negotiations with them. It is not uncommon for other children to be near and observing what is happening. It is OK to get them involved, ask them for their ideas also. Only when you decern that the moment has ended in a stalemate and the process cannot go any further, should you arbitrate a solution yourself. 

This can be a drawn out, and somewhat laborious process for children and adults, and it requires a kind of concentrated attention that may not always seem practical in a classroom setting. And, of course, how this process unfolds for 2 year olds will look differently than with 5 year olds. But, in my experience, when we lay the foundation for this kind of process with the 2 year olds, by time they are 4 or 5, they often do not even need the guidance of an adult to help them work through it. Which, of course, is exactly what we want for them. 

As a final note, although parents may not find as many occasions to deploy this strategy in the home, a version of this process can be used when there are disagreements between yourself and your child also. Next month I will provide some strategies for negotiating with young children in a way that empowers them to advocate for themselves while also finding a healthy balance between more permissive and more authoritative parenting styles. 

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.