Kim, a childminder in Colchester, Essex, places a strong emphasis on the importance of listening to the children in her setting and being guided by what they communicate to her. A young baby joined her setting, and it seemed almost impossible to settle him. So guided by him, and working closely with his parents, she came up with a creative way to gradually settle him in. It took a long period of time, but she was determined to find a way. By placing an absolute priority on listening to what he was trying to tell her, and responding flexibly, she found it.
As an early years practitioner, I really want to ensure that the children in my setting have agency and autonomy over their lives. This is so important in establishing respectful care and a secure bond, and also in promoting confidence and strong mental health in the young children and babies we care for. Often when we consider the voice of the child, older children with stronger verbal communication skills come to mind, but it is also very important to listen to the voice of the very young too.
Last year a baby started at my setting, let us call him Ben. His older sibling was already attending, and the family were neighbours, so I had seen Ben almost every day in the nine months leading up to his start. I have been a childminder for almost 24 years and have settled many babies over that time, some had taken longer than others naturally, but none were quite like Ben.
Of course, we had done our short settling-in sessions, an hour, then two then a morning and so on, I had held meetings with his parents to learn Ben’s likes and dislikes, how he preferred to be held, fed, put down for a nap etc. Ben struggled at every session, but we held out hope that he would settle once his start date in September came around.
When Ben began his regular hours, he was inconsolable, nothing I did helped and both I and the parents were worried when after three weeks we saw no improvement. One day after he had cried for hours I sat down and thought, “What is this child trying to tell me?”. It is obvious really, but he was saying, he didn’t like being here, he didn’t like me, and he wanted to be at home.
I rang his parents and asked if I could come for a visit and a chat, they were both worried that I was going to tell them that I couldn’t have Ben in my setting. But actually, what I wanted to do was to try and work out how we could listen to Ben and support him to feel comfortable with me and my setting.
Now, I should add that the solution we came up with would not be practical for everyone and, in Ben’s case, we were extremely lucky to be able to do this. We decided that sending Ben to me for eight hours was just too stressful for him and, to be fair, for the other children in the setting. Both parents work shift patterns could be altered and a grandparent lived nearby.
Between us all we rearranged his hours, so he never had to come for more than a few hours at a time. We set a review date at the end of December to see if our plan was working. Very slowly, we began to see a slight improvement, a few minutes here or there, where Ben was calm and able to engage with me. Even so, at the review we felt he still wasn’t quite ready to resume full time hours, and we carried on with the arrangement until Easter.
By then Ben was mobile and keen to explore, he had formed a strong attachment to me and began to be confident enough to explore the setting. He did still struggle at drop off time, again we listened to him, we observed that drop offs were easier if Dad did them so that’s what we did.
By the summer term, almost a year after his official start date, Ben was finally able to attend for his full hours, he was able to part from his Dad with just a quick cuddle and kiss and was busy and engaged during the day.
I know there will be many of you reading this who for practical or financial reasons would not be able to do this. However, I would urge you, even if it’s in a less extreme way, to listen to voice of the child. Each child comes to us as an individual, yes there may be similarities in behaviour and development, but we need to see the child as their own person with their own voice, even if they are communicating in a different way.
If we had ignored Ben when he so clearly was communicating his distress, what would this have said to him? That his opinion doesn’t matter? That he has no choice, that we see him in distress but don’t act upon it? Babies and young children have so little agency over their lives, they don’t get to choose where they spend their day or who they spend it with. By really listening to children, we are telling them, you matter, and I hear you. Showing empathy and understanding for a very young child goes such a long way towards supporting their later resilience and mental health, something that we all want for the children in our care.
November 2024