Personal, Social and Emotional Development

1. Self-regulation and executive function - I want your child to leave me as a competent independent learner, who when learning and exploring can self-focus their attention and persevere, and when their 'tower' begins to wobble they know how to change their design and approach, rather than getting disheartened and giving up

.These may not be terms you are familiar with, although of course like me, you will want the desired outcomes for your child

.So... What is self-regulation? Self-regulation is about the ability to control one’s immediate impulses, behaviour and emotions. It is also about the ability to focus on a goal and resist the temptation to give up before reaching the goal. Self-regulation skills develop in childhood, and play an important role in your child's wellbeing, learning and later life chances.

What is executive function?

Executive function describes the basic skills of thinking, reasoning, remembering and problem-solving. To develop these, your child will need to be able to focus their attention, learn to regulate their behaviour, and think flexibly and plan ahead.

So how does my curriculum support self regulation and executive function?

My role is key, as self regulation rests solely on co regulation, where I provide the supportive 'structure' to help children manage those strong feelings, and as a result of that babies, toddlers, and young children, finding things hard gradually take 'that' on for themselves.

For your child to learn basic skills of remembering, thinking, reasoning, and problem solving (their executive functioning skills) they need to learn to focus their attention, self regulate and plan ahead. I support this by understanding the challenges all children may face focusing their attention (some children have a busy over crowded home environment, which I support by providing quiet 1:1 time that builds on and extends their interests). Stress and frustration are part of everyday life. I see ordinary conflicts as opportunities to help your child regulate behaviour, by giving a better way to handle the situation next time, like next time you could say "can I have a turn next"? Or by modelling waiting and exchanging toys. Talking about strategies to control impulses can be helpful to your child, so I might say things such as ‘What can you do while you wait for your turn?’ or ‘Shall we put this away because otherwise you might find it hard not to touch it.’ I help your child to talk through their plans for play, and in so doing help them to plan ahead. To learn affectively involves children planning activities in sequence. So I may help your child to think about the space they need and the resources, or by getting them to choose somewhere to play where babies and young children won't knock their work over. I may get your child to think about which of their ideas worked well with a ‘plan-do-review’ approach and help them think about what they would do differently next time.

I want your child to concentrate their thinking, so I ask open questions like: How did you...? Why does this…? What might happen next? What do you think? How did that work?

I want your child to learn that all feelings are valid even strong feelings, but not all behaviours are. It's alright to feel angry, but not alright to hit or hurt. I want your child to be able to handle strong feelings, then go back to a hard task and give it another go.

I want your child to have self-efficacy and view themselves as essentially competent, rather than a helpless learner, so they are less likely to 'give up', so I give lots of challenges and responsibility. Children need opportunities to do challenging things that are only just in reach of their skill level. They also need opportunities to take on a little responsibility. Activities such as cooking, growing plants and caring for the environment provides opportunities for your child's to feel ‘competent' and so develop self-efficacy. My role in these moments is to coach and cheer and maybe to lend a hand, but not to take over. If adults take over, some children learn that they are not competent.

I want your child to be able to bounce back, so I support sensitively, and encourage profusely.

2. I want your child to have a healthy sense of wellbeing.

High levels of wellbeing go hand in hand with being curious, strong, resilient and resourceful. The early years are a crucial time to nurture strong social and emotional capabilities in children, and a well- supported childhood leads to many positive later outcomes. Social and emotional well-being helps prevents poor mental health and improves education and employment outcomes in adolescence and throughout adulthood.

By providing your child with a stable and emotionally supported environment, they will be better able to handle stress. Children who are well supported physically, socially, emotionally and intellectually develop neural connections in the brain that serve them throughout their life. So how will I support your child's wellbeing?

By supporting self-regulation, by acknowledging your child's feelings, by providing calm soothing spaces, teaching your child mindfulness techniques like mindful breathing, shark fin, bellie buddies, Pinwheel breathing, breathing colours, breathing star hands, listening to the singing bowl; by playing calming music, using a calming voice and by providing glitter sensory bottles to name a few.
By offering co regulation and helping your child with their 'big' emotions with physical comfort, by naming their emotions, through warm and responsive interactions, by modelling my own self-regulation behaviour and acknowledging your child’s feelings and offering support.
Through attunement and bonding - Listening to and engaging with your child, tuning into their needs and spending time with them and getting to know your family. That 'bond' will help your child relax and feel safe and secure in their home from home and their learning.
By providing lots of stimulating toys, activities, experiences and outings that reflect their interests, which are interesting and challenging, and support your child to take risks.
Routines are simple, so your child can feel secure going through their day and know what to expect next.
There is a strong link between physical activity and emotional wellbeing so we get outside every day. We take time to notice and talk about nature as this promotes wellbeing. I will talk more about this in the section about supporting 'Understanding the World'.
Books and stories will help your child to develop the vocabulary they need to express themselves and talk about their emotions. I use the Book Trust as a valuable source of book suggestions to support understanding feelings and emotions and borrow many of them from the local library, when we don't have our own copy.

3 I want children to recognise and understand emotions

As learning to understand emotions, both positive and negative, and those of others around us is central to building successful relationships and interrupting the world around us, I place high priority on teaching children all feelings are valid so they gain emotional literacy. Children who are emotionally literate are able to regulate emotions in a way that ensures they can effectively handle all situations including any change or disruption in their life.

As there are lifelong benefits to good emotionally literacy, see below, I will ensure your child experiences a nurturing environment, builds their vocabulary of emotions and feelings, and joins in celebrating similarities and differences in people to gain empathy.

Your child's emotional literacy will benefit through:

Friendships - finding it easier to make friends and develop friendships. I will help them talk about how the behaviour has affected others around them. For example 'Tilly was sad when you kicked her tower over -it's not ok to do that'; and help your child talk about what caused the feeling, and suggest other ways of managing it - according to their age and stage of development. Relationship building and self-regulation are beneficial to good mental health.
Self-regulation - being asked to bounce back quickly from disappointment e.g. when someone accidentally knocks over their tower of blocks. I will support your child to calm through the use of quiet spaces, physical comfort, teaching breathing techniques and encouraging your child to practice them, and by spending time co-regulating and reassuring your child. I often use the BBC learning resources in feeling better. With self-regulation your child will be less likely to suffer from mental health issues. If conflict is reduced, play and learning can continue, and your child's academic outcomes will improve as they find learning more straightforward. They will naturally work better as a team as they can communicate and listen to other's point of view, which later in life will be highly valued in the workplace.
Resilience - being better able to cope with the unexpected. Just by ensuring there is risk and challenge in outdoor spaces, your child will develop their confidence and wellbeing, which is key to resilience.
Behaviour - learning the vocabulary of emotions. They can then express their needs and wants without having to rely on negative behaviour, such as hurting others or having tantrums. I will support your child by: using books, rhymes and songs and modelling facial expressions that match the emotions; talking about body language and facial expressions so your child begins to pick up on visual clues about how people are feeling; using simple face pictures - e.g. happy, sad, scared, angry, shy, embarrassed and surprised; using mirrors to explore facial expressions; talking about their feelings either 1:1 or in small groups eg “ you were so happy when...“ or "I was a bit worried when…”; or by bringing emotional literacy learning into role play by talking about how characters are feeling – how they can tell? How they would feel if that happened to them?