1. Coping and competence in early childhood
What makes some children more successful than others in meeting life’s stresses and challenges?
What can adults do to help children grow to be as adaptable as possible?
In this module, you will examine concepts related to coping and competence. You will also get some insight into what caregivers can do to help every child thrive.
Consider… Eyad
8-month-old Eyad wakes from his nap. He sits in his cradle and sees his mother and grandmother just outside the door…Read more
In each of these situations, what do you think Eyad is learning about his world?
What do you think he is learning about himself? His mother and grandmother?
How is he learning to cope?
Coping means adapting to challenges – meeting new people, dealing with frustrations, managing fears and stress – and accommodating to new situations.
Competence is a cluster of related skills, knowledge and abilities. Learning to cope with life’s challenges builds social, emotional, physical and cognitive competencies.
In the next clip, two-year-old Greta challenges herself by learning to climb up the slide. As you watch, notice how many different ways Greta’s mother supports her developing competence.
How does Greta’s mother nurture and support Greta in this scene?
How do you think this affects Greta’s feelings of competency?
What do you think may have happened if Greta’s mother had ignored or actively discouraged Greta?
Developing social competence
As we saw in the module on Brain Development, newborn humans are different than most other species. Babies rely completely on others to take care of them. Human abilities to cope and become competent develop slowly and are rooted in the brain’s architecture. Adults play a key role by supporting children’s coping and competence.
In the next video, Dr. Lillian Katz, professor emerita of Early Childhood Education at the University of Illinois, explains why it is so important for adults to help children to develop well socially in the first six years of life.
What is the risk of children growing up with a negative self-image according to Katz?
How do you think children who see themselves as unlikeable can be helped by the adults around them?
Around a year-and-a half, children are becoming more independent. They can move about on their own and are starting to use language. As parents and caregivers know, children this age often set their own goals and are very firm in wanting to persist to achieve those goals. They often assert their independence with “no”, “I do” or “mine”. They are declaring their autonomy.
In the next clip, Dr. Joan Durrant, child-clinical psychologist and professor emerita of Community Health Sciences at the University of Manitoba, and Executive Director of Positive Discipline in Everyday Life (PDEL), explains how toddler autonomy is a developmental achievement – as important as walking or talking.
In the next video, a mother patiently gives her child time to dress himself, thereby supporting him to be autonomous. See if you can notice the different ways she helps him develop competence.
Consider… Eighteen-month-old Zehra climbs the stairs to the diaper change table assisted by Darlene, an early childhood educator…Read more
Physical care is a core part of young children’s daily lives. Repeated routines of daily life are opportunities for children to experience gentleness and for adults to demonstrate skills that children eventually acquire themselves.
What is Zahra learning from the diaper-changing routine?
Why is it important that child and caregiver collaborate in this experience?
Why is the familiar song important?
As they grow older, children become increasingly engaged in interactions with other children. Dr. Bryan Kolb, from the Canadian Centre for Behavioural Neuroscience at the University of Lethbridge, discusses children’s social interactions with each other.
Durrant explains that parents might look at their children’s growing independence as defiance or misbehaviour. What approach does Durrant suggest parents use?
Kolb makes the point that social interaction is the most complex areas of functioning that we as humans need to develop. How do we develop these skills?
How early do you see children behaving differently with different people?
Review the terms by playing the following game.
Developing competence through play
How is play related to coping and competence? Between the ages of one and six, play is the main way children interact with the world. Young children not only learn best through play; they also find ways to deal with fears, anger and other strong emotions.
The ways that children play, in terms of what they do, how they use objects, and how they play with others, varies during childhood. The next reading explains some typical ways of categorizing play.
The types of play listed in the reading above relate to children’s abilities in all domains of development: cognitive, language, social, emotional, and physical.
How does your understanding of child development help you explain how children’s play can become increasingly more complex over time? What skills and abilities do children need for each type of play?
What about children whose development is not typical? How might that affect the types of play in which they engage?
See how you do on this review quiz on play.
Play is simply what children do – how they learn about the world around them, how they problem-solve, develop skills, create imaginary worlds, make friends and discover all kinds of new and interesting things. Play is joyful, satisfying and essential for children. If children do not have enough time, space and opportunity for play, they cannot develop optimally.
All children are unique and relate to their environments in their own way. In the next pages in the overview section of this module, you will learn about how children develop self-regulation – the ability to adapt their emotions, behaviour and attention. You will also find out about individual differences and temperament and consider the important role adults play in helping individual children learn to cope and become competent.
