All children are born with a unique temperament. Some will be more sensitive to scary news stories or worrisome about their safety and the safety of their loved ones.  We need to be mindful of what we are watching and discussing when small ears are around while also making sure we take time to listen and pick up on cues our child might be sending us. A change in behavior like clinginess or crying might be a signal that a child in your care is anxious over recent disturbing events in the news.

Parents, teachers and child caregivers can help children that are feeling distressed about safety cope with their fears. We recommend the following actions:

Keep regular routines. Stick to your normal schedule and events. Children take comfort in predictable daily events like dinner at the snack at the table and naptime rituals. Knowing what will happen provides a feeling of security.

Watch your emotions. We are all are shocked and saddened when children are victims of a tragic event. Children that are sensitive to emotions can pick up on this and become concerned for their own safety or the safety of others. When adults maintain a calm and optimistic attitude, children will also.

Have conversations. If a child is showing some signs that concern you, talk to the child’s parents. Find out if they have similar concerns, and come up with a plan for talking with the child and answering questions he or she might have. Young children might express themselves through drawing or in their play. Provide reassurance, clear up any misconceptions and point out to the child the many helpful people in emergency events like law enforcement and medical professionals. Talk with the child about what is happening to make him or her safe at home, school or in the neighborhood.

Limit TV viewing. It might be tempting to catch up on the latest news events, but resist that urge. Young children may not understand that scenes repeating on news stations are all the same event.

Find healthy ways to deal with feelings. Taking a walk together, reading a favorite book, or playing a board game can be comforting to both you and the children in your care.

Take action. If a child continues to show concern, he or she may be feeling a loss of control. Doing something such as sending a donation or writing a letter, if developmentally and age appropriate, can help bring back a sense of power and help children feel a part of the response.

Seek professional advice if needed. If a child shows symptoms of distress such as a change in appetite or sleep patterns, recommend to the child’s parents that they speak with a medical or a mental health professional. You can also contact ISU Extension and Outreach’s Iowa Concern hotline at 1-800-447-1985.

Share Resources with Parents.

• A handout from Zero to Three titled Little Listeners in an Uncertain World.
• Extension’s handout titled Loss and Grief: Talking with Children.
• Helpful tips from the Fred Rogers Family Communications Institute.
• Sesame’s Street’s You Can Ask video clips to help adults open conversations with children. There is one specific to fears.
• PBS’s article Helping Children Deal with Scary News
• NAEYC’s Tips for Talking with Children and Youth after Traumatic Events
  

Fred Rogers often told this story about when he was a boy and would see scary things on the news: “My mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’ To this day, especially in times of ‘disaster,’ I remember my mother’s words, and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers-so many caring people in this world.”

In case you haven’t heard this today, thank you for the important work you do! You make care and safety of young children a priority, and we at Iowa State University Extension and Outreach are proud to work along side you.

Malisa

P.S. Please share with us your conversations, concerns, or questions as you go about your work with young children this week. You may comment on the blog at http://blogs.extension.iastate.edu/childcare/lets-talk-scary-news/

Fortunately, today’s dads are more involved than ever in the raising of children. My own spouse plays an equal part in helping my children get homework completed, get to and from activities, and attending their events. What does this mean for child care programs? How are we welcoming and supporting their engagement in our programs?

Here are some resources available on the subject -

• Involving Fathers from NAEYC Teaching Young Children
• Involving Dads in Childcare: Top 13 Ideas from Dads
• Celebrating Fathers as a Resource in Early Child Care Settings from NAEYC Young Children
• Involve Dads in Early Child Care Programs

Iowa State University Extension and Outreach also has an excellent resource for strengthening the relationship when dad lives outside the child’s home titled Dads at a Distance.

How are you making sure you are reaching out and providing a welcoming environment to the males that are so important in the lives of the children in your care?

Malisa

Children with a daily nap experience more joy, less anxiety, and can solve problems better! Who wouldn’t want this experience for their child?  And since we all know how critical these early experiences are, it seems reasonable to assume that this has an impact on not just a child’s experience that day, but in the future as well.

Licensed child care centers in Iowa are required to offer a supervised nap or quiet time for all children under the age of six not enrolled in school who are present at the center for five or more hours (Iowa DHS Child Care Center Licensing Regulations 109.12 (1)).

What do you do to prepare and aid children in having a restful period of time during the middle of the day? Have you had children that struggled during rest time or that parents did not want to sleep?

Malisa

I am interested in discussing “perfect attendance”.  I can see that it is a great accomplishment to have perfect attendance in preschool, but I also feel sorry for the little ones who don’t receive recognition at graduation simply because they had an illness or their family had an out of town funeral, etc.  Is it appropriate to recognize perfect attendance in early childhood? I am also interested in discussing big events in preschool.  When little ones are uncomfortable in performing in front of a crowd it tells me our event needs to be smaller.  Does anyone else worry about this issue?  Families love to see their little ones perform and I do too, but how can we make it less scary to preschoolers or should we do these at all?

Thanks for the great discussion topic! In 2007, Christine Taharally and Evelyn La Fontaine of Hunter College wrote an article for Young Children titled “Developmentally Appropriate Practice and Preschool Graduation.” While this doesn’t specifically address the topic of awards for perfect attendance, it does speak to the touchy subject of ceremonial programs where young children are expected to perform. The article recognizes that in many communities events such as preschool graduation ceremonies have a strong significance, deep emotional meanings, and are an expectation of families and organizations that support early childhood programs.  Although there are some children that even at a young age enjoy performing for others, we all have seen that for some children programs such as these cause much distress.  And most of us agree that young children do not understand the meaning behind perfect attendance certificates, caps and gowns, and graduation diplomas created by someone else for their scrapbook.

If we as early childhood professionals recognize that some traditions in our program like perfect attendance awards and elaborate preschool programs where children are expected to perform for a large audience are not developmentally appropriate yet we understand the cultural context of maybe how such traditions possibly began and the meaning they hold for adults connected to the program, what are we to do? I think the first step as early childhood leaders is to have respectful conversations with families and colleagues about possible adaptations or alternatives for recognizing achievements and celebrating accomplishments that fall more in line with developmentally appropriate practices and are therefore more meaningful for the children.  

Some ideas to get your thoughts and conversations started -

• How can we make the celebrations that have become tradition for our program more low key and simple?
• Can the number of outside adults attending an event be limited in order to not be overwhelming for the children?
• Is there a way to imbed the celebrations in the familiarity of children’s regular routines like an afternoon “tea” in place of our usual snack?
• Are there ways to celebrate achievements without exclusion such as a slideshow presentation of projects the children have worked on throughout the year?
• What about an art gallery event where children’s work is formally displayed for families and communities? 
• How about setting up centers in the classroom where families visit with their child to experience hands-on (and read on cards) what children are learning through play in that center?

Hope this has provided you with some food for thought!  As always, we would love to hear how you have been creative in celebrating accomplishments and achievements in young children’s lives in ways that are more developmentally appropriate than some of the traditional ways more appropriate for older children. Tell us your ideas at http://blogs.extension.iastate.edu/childcare/Developmentally_Appropriate_Celebrations

Malisa

After spending almost a decade at the Iowa State University Child Development Laboratory School, I came to understand the other side of the spectrum. Although children and families are certainly welcome to share and discuss their holiday traditions, excitement, and celebrations as a natural part of interacting with each other, it’s not a focus for the Lab School’s curriculum. Because the program is linked with the university, it has families from many cultures and religious backgrounds. A wonderful experience!

Although we are becoming a much more diverse world, for some early childhood programs, this blending of people from diverse backgrounds doesn’t describe their program. This leads to many questions – Do we continue to celebrate the dominant culture holidays of children enrolled in our program like we’ve always done? Does our current practice lead to families from different backgrounds feeling comfortable enrolling in our program? Do we provide the “tourist” approach where we introduce young children to celebrations around the world as part of the curriculum? Or do we have a policy that the focus of our early childhood program will be units of study that they naturally are drawn to rather than ones we as adults have established for them?

I can’t answer these questions for your program, nor would I want do so. You know your program and the goals that you have for it, your families, the children in your care, and your community. I would ask that wherever you sit on the issue that you give thought to the other side of the coin. Experiencing the two programs above helped me understand both sides of the discussion and helped me formulate my own opinion on the subject. Here are two articles to help you get started in giving this issue some thought - Rethinking Holidays from an Anti-Bias Perspective and Going One Step Further – No Traditional Holidays.   I love how Bonnie Neugebauer of Child Care Exchange and World Forum Foundation suggests that we celebrate milestones like getting a new tooth or the birth of a sibling. Aren’t these the occasions that are most appropriate for celebration in early childhood programs?

Give thought to what you do and why you do it. Is it because its what you’ve always done or what you believe parents expect from your program? Is it time for a change? Is there a way to provide some balance with regards to your program’s approach?

As always, we hope to hear from you – your thoughts on celebrating holidays in early childhood programs, how your program handles this issue and has this changed over time?

Malisa

Knowing information related to our changing communities helps us to plan and prepare for being open and inviting. We might think we already are, but a recent article in Education Week shared that nationally preschool program enrollment by Latinos is declining. The article speculates that the increase in Latino population numbers, yet decrease in enrollment, is due to a variety reasons such as Latino families relying on relatives for child care more than other population groups. Linda M. Espinosa, a professor emeritus of early childhood education at the University of Missouri, shares that she believes in many communities where Latino families are settling there are inadequate numbers of early childhood programs that are culturally/linguistically appropriate.

So, what can we do? The NAEYC Position Statement: Responding to Linguistic and Cultural Diversity Recommendations for Effective Early Childhood Educators is an excellent resource to get us started. I love this statement, “When early childhood educators acknowledge and respect children’s home language and culture, ties between the family and programs are strengthened. This atmosphere provides increased opportunity for learning because young children feel supported, nurtured, and connected not only to their home communities and families but also to teachers and the educational setting.” To me, this means we honor home language, that we take the time to learn what the families in our program value and make changes or accommodations where needed, and that we encourage the engagement of all families in their child’s education.

So, let’s hear from you! In what ways are you reaching out and working to relate to children and families whose language and cultural background is different than your own?

When the news came out that the Missouri River was going to flood, my children, ages 7 and 9, were concerned.  They knew that they lived far away (an hour) from the Missouri River, but they were worried about the creek near our house.  I assured them that we were fine and that the creek is ¼ mile downhill from the house — far enough away to not be a concern.    Their innocent questions and concern made me realize that children in Iowa and other parts of the country are also coping with natural disasters such as floods, tornadoes, earthquakes, and hurricanes, but they are doing it without the prior knowledge, skills, and resources that we as adults have.  I wondered how to best help children and families impacted by a natural disaster.

Some of the best resources I found available to me were from my very own coworkers. Iowa State University Extension and Outreach staff have put together resources designed to assist in helping children cope, think through, and ultimately recover from natural disasters like flooding, tornadoes, earthquakes and hurricanes. On the ISU Extension and Outreach website you can find  Dealing with Disasters which lists resources available to help recover from a natural disaster.  Another ISU Extension and Outreach site is Assisting Children and Youth Cope with Disasters which lists resources specifically geared toward assisting children and youth in coping with disaster.

The National Child Traumatic Stress has created a website, Recovery: After a Hurricane, — a list of resources for parents and teachers. The National Association for the Education of Young Children has also created a website, Coping with Disasters, – a list of resources for early childhood professionals regarding being prepared for a disaster, talking with children about a disaster, and helping families cope.  Information on involving children in the rebuilding efforts is also shared. We know as adults that active involvement is the best possible way to give people back a sense of control of their own lives. The same is true for children!

As you read through the resources I hope that you will find a useful tool or tidbit that assists in your important work with children and families.

We want to hear from you! Has your program ever been impacted by a natural disaster?  What resources and strategies did you use to recover and/or assist the children and families in your program?

• Engage in natural conversations with children about what they might be feeling. Children who feel secure and comfortably able to talk about their concerns, needs or ideas will likely enter new situations with more ease.
• Be calm and supportive. Too much enthusiastic talk about the transition might send the message that you are anxious and cause unnecessary fears.
• Visit the new school or classroom. Visibly being able to picture yourself in an environment can help ease the fears of the unknown.
• To ease separation anxiety, it helps when parents can establish a ritual such as a big bear hug and a wave at the window to provide a comforting good-bye routine for their child.

Iowa State University Extension and Outreach has an excellent publication, Early Learning – Preschool and Kindergarten Ahead (PM2081A) to share with families helping their children get ready for this new adventure.

Books can be a great way to introduce a major transition such as starting school to young children.  This naturally opens the door of communication to help you support a child in this new endeavor. Here are some of my favorites –

• Back to School Tortoise is a great book (with a surprise ending!) for those that might be a bit anxious as Tortoise is worried about falling down or not liking lunch.

• Wow! School! would be a great read for those that are enthusiastic about starting school as Izzy shows that same emotion.  Children will love seeing familiar items in the drawings such as a few of their favorite books.

This is only the tip of the iceberg! There are always the classics such as Spot Goes to School and Maisy Goes to Preschool.   Do you have a favorite children’s literature you share with children at this time of year?