| Strategies and Examples for Developing Confidence and Self-Esteem | |
|---|---|
| Strategy | Example |
| Encourage trial and error, so children learn that mistakes are a normal part of progress and the way we learn what does work. | Trying several different combinations of paint to make green. |
| Share your own experiences with success, failure, and problem solving. | “Last weekend I was making cookies and I burned them all in the oven; I had to start over, but the second time, I set a timer, and that batch turned out great!” |
| Identify challenges. | “Wow, our plan for the garden is going to include a lot of digging and hard work, but I know if we take our time and work together, we can do it!” |
| Model talking through options or pros and cons for solving a problem so that children see that decision making is a process. | “Well, if you want to put a tower on top of this airport, there are a couple places it could go. Let’s think about what might happen if we put it here or there before we move the blocks.” |
| Read stories to children that provide good examples of how one finds success and deals with failures. | See the appendix for a list of children’s books geared to social-emotional development. |
| Emphasize the value of trying something new as an important part of learning. | “This puzzle doesn’t have the little knobs you are used to, but look at the great dinosaur picture on the cover of the boxit shows what it will look like when the puzzle has been put together.” |
| Acknowledge accomplishments. | Documenting with photos, displaying work, sharing a construction or art product during group time with other children, etc. |
| Praise effort over ability. | “I know you tried three times to cut that paper circle to get it just right.” |
| Sources: Gartrell, 2012; Pawlina & Stanford, 2011; Willis & Schiller, 2011. | |
Empathy
As defined earlier, empathy is an abstract concept that develops over a long time. Very young children generally do not experience or express empathy. Infants, toddlers, and young preschoolers tend to be highly egocentric, acknowledging only their own needs and assuming that everyone experiences the world from a single perspectivetheirs (Piaget & Inhelder, 1969)! It would not be effective, for example, to address an 18-month-old child who bit another child with, “That was mean! How do you think you made him feel?”
The teacher or caregiver could, however use such an episode as an opportunity to begin building empathy. The teacher might say, “Oh, you hurt your friend,” and ask the biter to help comfort the other child, perhaps by holding his hand or helping to hold ice on the bite. Parents, teachers, and caregivers can encourage childrenbeginning around age 3to consider how others are feeling, keeping in mind that it takes many such experiences for empathy and compassion to grow.
As with many other dimensions of social learning, it is essential to use language to help children recognize what others are feeling or thinking. You might, for example, say “Remember this morning when you couldn’t find the block you were looking for and you got upset? I see that Molly is getting frustrated because she can’t find what she is looking forcan you help her?” Here you are letting both children know that emotions and feelings are universal and that one can demonstrate sympathy and concern.
Caregivers can support the development of empathy by providing children with opportunities to care for and recognize emotional signals and body language in others. Children should also be encouraged to consider the fact that different people have different perspectives about the same situation. Simple activities such as looking at, describing, or drawing an interesting seashell from multiple angles, or asking children what they see when they lie on their backs and look up at the sky, provide concrete reference points for discussing point of view.
Additional caretaking activities that help children to develop empathy include:
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- Encouraging children to wash, dress, feed, change, and speak to baby dolls in the dramatic play area.
- Caring for classroom petseven a fish needs daily care; provide a feeding schedule and record children’s daily observations about what the fish is doing or how it is behaving. If your state allows other kinds of pets, consider inviting children to take a pet home over a weekend.
- Noting when a child is out sick and making cards or sending a note/email message to a child at home.
- Using sticky notes to jot down brief anecdotes when you observe a child doing something thoughtful or particularly sensitive to another child’s feelings; put the sticky note in the child’s take-home materials or make a wall chart.
To help children learn to recognize and acknowledge others’ feelings, try activities such as:
- Making “persona dolls” (Derman-Sparks & Edwards, 2010)simple rag dolls that children name and for which you make up a back story relevant to the circumstances of children in your group. Use them to role play empathetic interactions.
- Making stick puppets, each with a photo/face of a child in the classroom. Use them to reenact caring or hurtful interactions that you observe.
- Giving plush animal puppets names like Fearful Frog, Sickly Snake, Angry Alligatorthus encouraging children to use them for role playing.
- Making or buying a matching lotto-type game that incorporates facial expressions indicating feelingsdelight, anger, frustration, boredom.
- Making a book with pages that start with, “I feel sad when. . . . I feel happy when . . . .” Record children’s responses and keep your record handy to read frequently.
- Singing songs like “If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands . . . if you’re angry and you know it, stomp your feet. . . .”