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How does positive and respectful relationships influence children’s learning and development?

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Children’s relationships affect all areas and stages of their development. In fact, positive and respectful relationships are the foundation of child development. Through relationships, children learn vital information about their world. For example, children learn whether the world is safe and secure, whether they are loved, who loves them, what happens when they cry or laugh, and much more. Children also learn by seeing relationships among other people, for example, by seeing how we behave with other family members. This learning is the foundation for the development of the children’s communication, behaviour, social and other skills. Children learn in the context of their families and communities. From birth to eight years, children continue to establish learning dispositions and patterns of engagement with others that have a profound influence on their learning, behaviour, motivation and capacity for being confident and involved life-long learners (VEYLDF, P. 21). As educators, we should get to know children and the families from the beginning and demonstrate sensitivity and initiate warm, trusting and reciprocal relationships with children and their families. Develop learning programs that are responsive to each child and build on their culture, strengths, interests and knowledge, recognise when a child learns something significant and apply this knowledge to strengthen learning relationships that reflect the uniqueness of the child and their family, support families’ choices and decision making, help children to establish secure attachments and develop self-regulation and demonstrate respect and understanding of the views of other professionals and families when communicating and interacting across cultures (VEYLDF, P. 11) are some of the plans we can organise as educators in order to build up positive and respectful relationships which directly influence children’s learning and development.

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Name of the pre-service teacher: Madhushika Ramanayake

Name of the learner: Mabel

Age level of the learner: Four years old

Mabel was waiting for each and every session very excitedly and she joined for the virtual placement sessions with her mother ‘Sophie’. Sometimes her father ‘AJ’ and six years old brother ‘Freddie’ joined as well. All of them were very friendly and supportive and we scheduled to have six virtual placement sessions from 4.30pm to 5.30pm for two weeks. She goes to a day care centre one day per week (Mondays) and spend the other days with her parents and grandparents. Mabel engaged enthusiastically and actively in different kinds of play activities which I planned to have for each session and specially the ideas given by her mother and how she coordinated with Mabel during the activities were really helpful for her to accomplish the tasks well.

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Early Childhood Australia 2012, ‘What have theories got to do with it?’, National Quality Standard Professional Learning Program e-Newsletter, vol. 31, Early Childhood Australia, pp. 1–4, viewed <https://www.ecrh.edu.au/docs/default-source/resources/nqs-plp-e-newsletters/nqs-plp-e-newsletter-no-31-2012-what-have-theories-got-to-do-with-it.pdf?sfvrsn=4>.

Education.vic.gov.au. 2016. Victorian Early Years Learning and Development Framework. [online] Available at: <https://www.education.vic.gov.au/Documents/childhood/providers/edcare/veyldframework.pdf> [Accessed 13 October 2020].

Yorganop 2016, Theories and theorists in early childhood: who they are and what they tell us? ideas for practice, Yorganop, Perth, WA, viewed <http://web.archive.org/web/20180316184334/http://ipsuwa.yorganop.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/combined-theorists-resource.pdf>.

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Mabel’s parents are very supportive in her learning and they are the backbone of her life, who always stay behind her to encourage, give advices and support her in everything. According to Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory, children’s development is influenced by their relationships with parents, family and friends; their experiences in settings such as childcare and school; and by the customs, laws and the cultural values of the community. (Bronfenbrenner, 1979). As a pre-service teacher, I always wanted to do my best for Mabel during each session while having a good relationship with her family and according to John Bowlby’s Attachment Theory, if you have good relationships with families then their children are better placed to form a secure attachment with you. According to Lev Vygotsky’s Socio-Cultural Theory also, children’s cognitive understandings are enriched and deepened when they are ‘scaffolded’ by parents, teachers or peers (Berk, 1996). Children learn in the context of their families and families are the primary influence on children’s learning and development. Professionals too, play a role and by uniting around a shared vision for all children, early childhood professionals work together with children and families to facilitate learning and development (VEYLDF, P. 3). According to Jean Piaget’s Cognitive Development Theory, children are considered as, active learners and active participants in their own learning and one example for this is when Mabel’s mother was giving some choices of colours for the painting, she takes her time and thinks bit more, whether those colours are matching or not, and if it suits her, then only she goes with it. As a pre-service teacher, in this kind of situations I always value children’s strengths and differences and communicate high expectations to them (VEYLDF, P. 10).

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When she was engaging in the activity called, ‘paint me’, she was choosing the same colours that she was wearing for her gown, hair band, shoes etc. and at one instance, she was deeply thinking about which colour is the best for her skin colour, and this realised me that she was greatly concerning about colour matching. Once her mother was giving different choices of colours, she was thinking bit more, whether those colours are matching or not, and if it suits her, then only she goes with it, proving the fact that, ‘children are active learners and active participants in their own learning’. Once she was done with her painting, I said, ‘good job, it is very nice’, then she replied me, ‘I know I’m really good at painting’, which clarified me that she has a great confidence about herself. Mabel’s parents were also very supportive in her learning and specially her mother was always behind her to encourage, give suggestions and ideas and support her in everything.

I was showing an animated film of a very hungry caterpillar and later on, how he becomes a beautiful butterfly. Once I asked her, ‘can you tell me what happened in the story?’, she replied, ‘the hungry caterpillar ate lot of food, then he made a cocoon and after few days a butterfly came out of the cocoon’. I was impressed by the way how she summarised the whole story into few words. Then it was the play-dough time to make different creatures that we had observed in the film and initially, I was showing step by step how to make the caterpillar, the food he ate and the butterfly and Mabel was observing carefully and making them as modelled by selecting playdough of different colours and moulding them into different shapes. Once she was done, straight away she ran towards her brother to show the stuff she has made, and it showed me how strong was their bond between each other. Mabel’s mother was always aiming to have a balance between supporting her child and letting her child try things on her own and sometimes make mistakes proved me the fact that, ‘relationships are the foundation of child development’.

It was the session for ballet as we had planned before and she was wearing a ballet costume and performed few steps of ballet which she had learnt from her ballet class. Initially, she was bit shy to come forward, but how her mother made the space for her performance and encouraged her made Mabel more confident of herself and her performance. After her performance, I asked her, ‘can you become my teacher and teach me few steps of ballet?’ and she was so happy and she said, ‘okay’, and how she taught me was really engaging and when I asked her, ‘whom do you want to be in the future’, she said, ‘I want to be a ballerina’. She was very interested in watching stories online and then we watched the animated film, ‘I’m a Ballerina’.