The emotional wellbeing of babies and toddlers depends on feeling that they are noticed and appreciated as individuals. Caring adults help very young children to feel emotionally secure and actively engaged through two broad kinds of routine:
* The personal care routines for a baby, toddler or young child are an important way to show affectionate and respectful practice. You do all the care for a young baby, but very soon, older babies and toddlers start to share in their own care. Their skills of self- reliance start to build.
* When you allow and encourage young children to help out within the regular domestic routines, they learn a wide range of physical and cognitive skills. But they also gain emotionally by feeling like an active working member of your home as a childminder or within the nursery.
As soon as they can move with confidence, very young children want to help: to do some of their own care, and be active helpers in their social world.
Young children who help in regular domestic routines are learning early pro-social behaviour. They cannot develop a helpful outlook if adults will not let them help. Toddlers like to be part of the action by handing you items or wiping the table. Two-year- olds relish doing simple errands across a room or moving safely between the garden and indoors.
There is a pattern to many personal care and domestic routines. In routines of dressing, personal hygiene or food preparation, young children learn an order of 'first we... then we... and last of all we...'. There are logical sequences that are often highlighted by, 'Oh no, we forgot to...'.
Familiar routines help young children to anticipate what usually happens within the day and a given routine. They are pleased to make choices and decisions within the boundaries of 'how we lay the table' or 'we can get some new library books'.
As their spoken language develops, two-year-olds are often keen to explain to 'new' adults or children about 'what we do at tidying-up time' or how the school pick-up is 'when we see Harry and Jessica again'.
Young children benefit from personal care routines that are genuinely personal and from their involvement in regular domestic routines. So what may get in the way of promoting this vital source of early learning?
* Early years practitioners must overcome a division that still exists between 'care' and 'education'. When you focus on children's emotional and learning needs, of course caring matters!
* The value of routines may be undermined if practitioners have taken on an exclusive 'learning through play' approach. Children learn a great deal through the medium of play but they do not only learn through play, as we adults would describe it.
* Adults may underestimate the importance of emotional security. Marjorie Boxall's work on nurture groups showed how some children struggle in primary school because their early childhood did not create confidence that the world is a predictable place or that adults are a reliable source of support.
When my daughter was 22 months old she created two words, 'helpit!' and 'helpme?', that puzzled me, but highlighted a young child's understanding of routines. I realised that she said 'helpit!' (with a pleading tone) when she was stuck with her clothes or play. But she used 'helpme?' (with a questioning tone) when I was busy with a domestic routine. I listened to myself. Her unique words came from my usual comments of, 'Do you want help with it?' when she looked stuck with dressing, and 'Would you like to help me?' as she walked into the kitchen.
Further reading
* Jennie Lindon, Kevin Kelman and Alice Sharp, 'What's next?', Nursery World, 5 September 2002.
* Jennie Lindon, 'Peace of mind', Nursery World, 20 September 2001.
* Marjorie Boxall, Nurture groups in school: principles and practice (Paul Chapman Publishing, 2002).
