Millions of children in the United States are currently enrolled and attending daycare and nursery schools full-time, which is usually 6-8 hours a day, 4-5 days a week. For a large portion of this population, this can mean up to 10 hour days 5 days a week. This means that for some children, they are spending more time with their teacher and classmates than they get to spend with their family, and there is a need for the implications of this to be discussed.
For a child spending 80% of their awake existence at daycare, the approaches, attitudes, and teachings of the childcare professional become all the more important. You may wonder why I am highlighting this, and the reason is that parents do not have a guarantee that their child’s teacher is exactly who and what they need them to be. With an increasing need for conscious parenting resources in today’s age, many childcare facilities fall short in incorporating the most up to date knowledge on holistic child development into their philosophies.
As a childcare professional of over 10 years, I have found very little change and adaptation in the 6+ different childcare facilities I have worked at. I have met countless teachers for all classroom types (infants, toddlers, preschool, and pre-k), and I have noticed a jarring trend: frequent inadvertent invalidation of children. And I do not mean to imply that there are zero teachers out here not doing this. There is a wealth of absolutely wonderful childcare professionals and educators that see children as people who deserve the same respect and compassion as adults do. However, this is where we begin to see problems - when children are seen as less than due to their age and stage of development. From here, we can make sense of how this can result in inadvertent invalidation of children's’ experiences, as well as why we sometimes hold children to a higher standard than is appropriate for their age and stage of development.
What might a typical scenario of this look like? Let’s take a peak at what is going on for little Jo in her toddler classroom:
Teacher A: “What’s going on with Jo today? She seemed happy this morning.”
Teacher B: “Well, she started throwing her food, and I told her that if she threw her bar across the table again that she would have to leave the table and do an activity while the other children finish eating.”
Teacher A: “Okay, and how did that go? I can see she is really upset right now.”
Teacher A picks up said child and begins to hug and comfort her.
Teacher B: “Oh, yes. She hasn’t been able to behave herself at all since. She threw her bar again right after I told her not to, so I took her out of her seat and brought her to the sensory table. Then she started throwing the rice and noodles everywhere! I mean everywhere. And I know she knows better, especially after what happened at the table. When I started cleaning up the rice she started yelling and crying like a baby. I told her to wipe her “big girl tears” away and she kept freaking out. I really don’t know why she insists on giving me such a hard time when I know she can be better.”
Teacher A: “Well what did you do to comfort her? When she started freaking out?”
Teacher B: “I really had no time for such a thing because I had to make sure I was keeping an eye on all the other children, and my co-teacher had to set up the activities for the day while the kids ate. I put Jo in the ball pit after that so she could calm down by herself and get space. That’s what we always do. She’s usually fine in a few minutes. You really don’t need to come in and save them every time they cry or whine, they know how to calm themselves down, and plus she was just throwing a tantrum for attention. She probably held out for you since she knows you come in the room at this time everyday.”
Teacher A begins swaying and rocking the distressed toddler.
Teacher B: “You need to stop babying them! She’s a toddler, she’ll be over it in no time.”
This scenario is based on a lived experience of mine at a daycare for which I was also the main teacher of this classroom. This is one of the many scenarios that brought me a sense of dissatisfaction and disappointment in the childcare system that exists in daycare settings. This is actually one of the better scenarios I’ve experienced, and is a very common interaction I’ve had with countless daycare staff over the years.
What Teacher B fails to understand is that Jo is a toddler, doing very normal toddler behaviors, and having very normal and age appropriate reactions to her environment. Here are some key takeaways of a child Jo’s age:
Throwing is completely normal for children this age, in fact, it is a means for them to learn about the world around them, one that is programmed in their toddler brains up until they are about 4-5 years old. This is called “Schematic Play” and involves children repeating actions or specific behaviors to explore the world around them and figure out how things work. We see this much earlier than toddlerhood, and some classic examples include babies putting everything in their mouth, as well as toddlers dumping things out of buckets and containers.
Jo is a toddler, meaning the brain parts necessary for self-soothing (self-regulation) are underdeveloped and won’t reach maturation for several years. In fact, children only develop skills for self-soothing after having been repeatedly soothed and comforted by a caregiver consistently throughout their childhood (co-regulation). It is unrealistic of children this age to have fully developed, or sometimes even just partially developed, skills in self-soothing. It is fair to say that a toddler is quite literally incapable of responding in any other way to distress or upset.
All behavior, words or actions, are an attempt to get a need met. This is true for all beings of all ages, not just adults, and not just humans. Many inconvenient behaviors of young children are their only or most sturdy means of communication. Jo throwing her bar was probably her way to communicate that she was all done eating or was ready for play. Her throwing rice was probably her toddler way of saying she was upset that she was moved from the table, or even in response to being treated as if she was doing something wrong. Teacher B did not take the time to get curious with Jo, and try to figure out what she was needing at that moment. Jo was needing someone to connect with her, get down on her level, and explore what her needs were. Without connection, we are often led to miscommunication and misperception of intent and motivation behind the actions of others.
Teacher B amounting Jo’s emotional reactions of upset as “just freaking out”, “giving her a hard time, and “throwing a tantrum for attention”, (AND voicing this in front of the child) is inadvertently invalidating Jo’s very real internal experience of distress. It is fair for Jo, a mere toddler, to be upset about not getting what she wants or having something taken away from her. As a toddler, tantrums are a form of communication, and should be met with connection, comfort and guidance as to how to communicate needs effectively before things get to the point of a meltdown or upset. Our reactions and responses to children are a mirror through which a child learns about and sees themselves. Teacher B’s words and approach reflect back to Jo that she has no reason to be upset, that her thoughts, feelings about why she should feel upset are invalid and do not warrant such distress. Basically, this communicates to Jo that she is wrong or “ridiculous” for feeling so upset.
This leads us to the idea of prioritizing the relationship with a child in moments of conflict and chaos. When we take the time to connect with and comfort a child in distress, a magical thing happens in their brain! The alarm system for danger - their nervous system - begins to shut back down, and the learning centers of their brain begin to come back online. The neural connections being made in their brain during this process of co-regulation pave new neural pathways of thinking and feeling, and they harden.
This is how a child begins to develop skills for self-soothing, like muscle memory, we can call this nervous system memory. This is the same idea when we think about veterans with PTSD. They may hear and see a firecracker, but their nervous system hears gunshots and smells smoke, and boom, they are sent into the same distress their nervous system experienced while they were in war. When we consistently soothe and comfort children during their upsets, their brain will start rehearsing the same calming thoughts they usually receive form you, and then, their nervous system will follow by shutting off the alarm bells. Why? They have learned that you are a consistent and predictable source of comfort, so they feel safe enough to allow the soothing process to take place.
In order to prioritize the relationship with a child in a moment of distress, having a comprehensive understanding of these body systems is key. Although EEC teaches childcare educators basic child development, in depth knowledge of these 2 body systems are unfortunately not covered. As the accrediting institution for daycares in Massachusetts that oversees early education and care of young children, this was perplexing for me once I become fully educated on brain and nervous system science. You may think this is odd, if connection and knowing about how a child’s brain and nervous system work are this important. And I agree!
It is not just odd, it's appalling. Without this knowledge, teachers are led to have higher expectations and standards of young children’s behavior, ones that can be not only damaging to the child-teacher relationships, but also damaging to their overall development. Why? Because children learn important skills in self-regulation, self-validation, and communication from adults. These skills are essential in maintaining a holistic mental and physical wellbeing, as well as in maintaining healthy relationships with others and themselves.
When we have an inappropriately high expectation of what a child is capable of at their age, we may start to see them as non compliant, mean, rude or intentionally irritating or hurtful. This results in our willingness and desire to connect with them waning, and the child’s feelings of connectedness and being truly seen and attuned to diminish. Keeping in mind that our perceptions of children’s behavior shape our own attitude when responding to them, having an complete and objective understanding of why they behave the way they do is key to modeling an appropriate response to their bids for connection and requests to meet their needs. The goal is to respond to a child in a way that communicates the following:
I see you (I will attune to you)
You can feel safe with me
You can feel secure in our relationship
I will soothe you when you need / ask for it
A teacher’s ability to see the child as a person, and not “just a kid” is paramount in ensuring the children in their classroom are getting all of their internal (mental / emotional) needs met in addition to their external (physical) needs. This becomes one of the most important things a teacher can do in light of many children receiving most of their childrearing (parenting) at school. Every way in which we interact with a child is teaching them something about not just us, but themselves and the world around them.
Let’s conclude our discussion with an example of how Teacher B could have responded to Jo’s bar throwing at the table during snack time:
Jo throws her snack, a bar, across the snack table, falling to the ground.
Teacher B: “Hey Jo, I can see that you’ve thrown your snack on the ground. Is your belly feeling full enough already?”
Jo nods yes with a smile on her face.
Teacher B: “Thanks for letting me know, silly! Next time, when you are all done with your food, you can call me over or place your bar in the middle of the table and I will know you are all done. When you throw your bar, I don’t know what you are needing.”
Jo: “Other table!”
Teacher B: “Are you wanting to go to the sensory table and play?”
Jo: “Yes.” Jo signs yes with her hand at the same time with urgency
Jo, impatient to play, begins to whine and cry a little while Teacher B cleans her spot on the table where she ate before taking out the sensory toys for the sensory table. Teacher B feels a bit frustrated by Jo’s very normal impatience, and takes 2 deep breaths before responding.
Teacher B: I can see that you’re feeling impatient to play at the sensory table, and we are still needing to clean up. Would you like me to play the bunny dance song while I clean so you can dance? The sensory table will be ready at the end of the song.”
Jo: “Bunny song! Bunny song!”
Teacher B then proceeds to play the song, Jo dances, and gets to play after it ends. Teacher A stands by the food table to watch the children as the morning teacher leaves, and Teacher B engages in sensory play with Jo.
In this version of Teacher B and Jo’s interaction:
Teacher B makes a statement of attunement to Jo, stating that she sees Jo has thrown her bar, and notices Jo is ready for another activity. This helps Jo feel seen by her teacher, rather than judged or ignored.
She responds to Jo’s throwing with curiosity, observations, and asks her what her needs are. This response communicates to Jo that she can feel safe and secure in their teacher-child relationship, and that she will not be punished for communicating her needs the only way she could access communication at the moment.
Teacher B takes a deep breath when feeling a bit frustrated with Jo, and prioritizes the relationships with Jo by taking some deep breaths, and offers an activity to do while Jo waits for the sensory table to get set up. Here, Teacher B attends to her own feelings so that she can provide an activity that will soothe Jo’s distress from feeling impatient.
As teachers, we have a duty to deliver a holistically healthy experience of development throughout their time at school. If you are a childcare professional seeking to improve your skills in ensuring children in your classroom feel seen, secure, safe and soothed, please reach out for a free consultation where we will discuss your development and transformation as a childcare professional and educator. Call today to to bring clarity to you perception of children, how to moderate expectations, and avoid inadvertent invalidation in the childcare setting.
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