Relationship As Curriculum

"Child care must be understood as a profound influence on the lives of children, not as a service to parents like ATM machines." Dr. Gil Foley, Ed.D.
by Linda Lloyd-Jones
At the Zero to Three National Training Institute in Washington, D.C. in December 2000, Dr. Gil Foley suggested that we are engaged in a vast social experiment–the venue and style of child rearing are being dramatically altered. For the first time, large numbers of children are being cared for by non-family members who have a professional rather than personal investment in them. Millions of babies are now in child care, some for 50 hours a week or more. How do we as early childhood professionals provide care for young children that meets their most basic human needs?

Regardless of the setting, the experts agree that the primary need of infants and toddlers is emotional connection. Relationships are the key and emotional development is the critical domain. As Dr. Foley said, "Child care must be organized to protect, sustain, and support emotional development. What is most at risk for children in care outside the home is the development of the capacity for relationships and endeavoring sense of inner security and spark of self that are spawned in relationships."

This view is also expressed in the current report, From Neurons to Neighborhoods. In the executive summary, we learn that research has "generated a much deeper appreciation of the emotional role of early relationships as a source of either support and adaptation or risk and dysfunction. Complex emotions have powerful capabilities for the development of the essential social skills during the earliest years of life." Given the essential nature of deep emotional relatedness, how are we to capture these most profound and formative human experiences of infancy and toddlerhood in the context of a curriculum?

What does curriculum mean? According to the Head Start Program Performance Standards, curriculum is a written plan that indicates goals for children's development and learning, the experiences through which they will achieve these goals, how staff and parents will help them achieve these goals, and the materials that are needed to support these goals.

The needs of babies in group care are the same as those of babies at home–a safe, secure, and predictable environment; routines that are dictated by their own unique patterns and rhythms; and the presence of a primary caregiver who loves them. This caregiver needs to be attuned to the baby and able to recognize the baby's signals and respond appropriately. These are aspects of a good home environment that group care should replicate. As Dr. Foley put it, "The environment itself should be as home-like as possible. It should be designed to be nurturing and informal, in support of the experiences and interactions between children, caregivers, and families."

A misconception about the use of a written curriculum for infant/toddler care is that it will lead to the notion that quality care should be based on a school model rather than a home model. There is a certain pressure to define quality care as skills based and focused on cognitive development. Existing curricula look at infant/toddler development in separate domains (cognitive, gross motor, fine motor, language, and social-emotional) and set goals and objectives for babies in each of these domains. But, a rigid, fragmented perspective to infant/toddler curricula is not in the spirit of the Performance Standards. The standards clearly indicate that social and emotional development is to be encouraged by–

• enhancing each child's individual strengths;
  
• providing a setting that allows for building trust;
  
• fostering independence;
  
• having realistic expectations;
  
• encouraging respect for feelings and for the rights of others;
  
• supporting and respecting a child's home language and culture; and
  
• planning routines and transitions so that they occur in a timely, predictable, and unrushed manner, according to each child's needs. (See Performance Standard 1304.21 [A] [3].)

These mandates enumerated in the Performance Standards cannot truly be accomplished in any other way but within the context of a relationship attuned to the individual child.

Babies in group care live there. They live with caregivers and other babies and children while their parents are temporarily away. When looking at what constitutes quality care for infants and toddlers, think of it in terms of quality of life. What are the minute-by-minute, day-to-day experiences of babies in care and how does this stack up against a "good natural home environment?" One feature that distinguishes home from school is that the home does not have a rigid set of activities. Even though home has basic routines and predictability, in between the necessary daily activities that families engage in are long leisurely periods when people do the activities that reflect their priorities within the protective shelter of love.

The strong and secure attachment that infants and toddlers need to share with their primary caregivers is described as a secure home base by noted child psychoanalyst, Margaret Mahler (1975). From this home base, infants and toddlers can venture out to explore their environments, engage with others, experiment, and problem solve. This secure home base, where children can relate to and connect with their primary caregiver as they need, has to be the central focus of any curriculum. It is through and in the context of relationships that infants and toddlers learn how to be in the world.

According to research described by Dr. Ronald Lally (1997), an Early Head Start collaborator in the Program for Infants and Caregivers, infants and toddlers develop their sense of who they are from the adults who care for them. They learn from their caregivers what to fear, what behaviors are appropriate, and how their communications are received and acted upon.

They learn how successful they are at getting their needs met by others, what emotions and intensity levels of emotions to safely display, and how interesting others find them.

None of these can be taught with a narrow focus on the behavioral aspects of curriculum, but are learned through awareness in relationships.

Children everywhere are becoming themselves and experiencing their feelings in increasingly complex ways during infancy and toddlerhood. Identity formations occur and it is the relationship with babies rather than the activities planned for them that profoundly affects the child's sense of self and emotional development. Beneficial environments, high quality toys and equipment, and a variety of developmentally appropriate activities are, of course, desirable in infant and toddler care. But, the only indispensable aspect of quality care is the relationship between babies and their caregivers. All the activities and materials in the world will not make up for the lack of bonded, loving relationships.

So what should be done to ensure quality of care? One idea is to expand the focus on curriculum for babies to include a curriculum for grown-ups. Dr. Lally has provided curricula for training staff that focus on helping caregivers develop attachments with babies. This program emphasizes watching, asking, and adapting as the steps to follow when interacting with infants and toddlers.

A curriculum will set goals and objectives for adults who care for babies. For example, one goal may be that caregivers will learn and demonstrate skills that promote children's curiosity. The effects will be seen in the happy, well-adjusted, and active children who feel free to explore their environment. Helping caregivers learn to engage in authentic, deep, loving relationships with infants and toddlers is something that must be done for the long-term benefit of social and emotional competence.

We need to turn caregivers' attention away from planning what babies will do all day in care and onto what their babies are actually doing all day. Noted infant specialist Jeree Pawl (1998) offers this wise advice, "Don't just do something, stand there and pay attention." We should watch and observe our babies much more closely. What are they doing? How are they playing? What are they trying to achieve? Ask them who they are, what they need, how they can be helped. Then listen and watch for the answer and let that guide what we choose to do with our babies. In this way the baby will truly direct his or her care. The baby will lead.

This is hard work for caregivers. To truly attend to and "be there" emotionally for babies is not a skill, but a way of being. Engaging in loving, responsive relationships with each individual baby while at the same time fully supporting the family/child relationship is a tall order. It requires that caregivers have a depth and breadth of knowledge about infant and toddler development; a high degree of self-awareness; a wellspring of emotional resources; and intense dedication to the well-being of other people's children. As a society we do not yet sufficiently value the people who take on this responsibility, nor do we give them the support they need. This is an area where Head Start and Early Head Start can take the lead as a national laboratory for best practice.

Alison Clarke-Steward (1993) stated that one of the primary goals for child care is to facilitate a happy childhood. When we focus fully on training and supporting caregivers to love their babies and be responsive to their needs, this will allow for the optimal expression of each infant's needs and abilities in a curriculum. Babies in the hearts and hands of such caregivers have a real chance for a happy childhood and the development of social and emotional competence. Loving, responsive, and well-trained caregivers will know how to meet their babies' needs because they will listen to what their babies are telling them and respond from the heart. 

References

Clarke-Stewart, A. 1993. Daycare: Rev. Ed. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Foley, G. 2000.

Child care from a trandisciplinary perspective: A relationship centered approach. Presentation at the Zero to Three National Training Institute, Washington, D.C., December 1-3, 2000.

Lally, J.R. 1997. Curriculum and lesson planning: A responsive approach. Unpublished manuscript. Sausalito, CA: WestEd.

Mahler, M., F. Pine & A. Bergman. 1975. The psychological birth of the human infant: Symbiosis and individualization. New York: Basic Books.

Pawl, J. & M. St. John. 1998. How you are is as important as what you do. Washington, D.C.: ZERO TO THREE/ National Center for Clinical Infant Programs.

Shonkoff, J. & D. Phillips, eds. 2000. From neurons to neighborhoods. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press.

Linda Lloyd-Jones is an Early Head Start Teacher, Teen Aide High School, LYFE-Early Head Start. T: 718-935-9836; E: JLloyd8475@aol.com.