At the recent conference of the National Coalition of Campus Children’s Centers (NCCCC), keynote speaker Tom Hunter spoke about the importance of belonging, particularly for young children who are experiencing their first educational experience outside the family.  Such belonging starts, he suggested, with “someone waiting for you”, both an educator at the beginning of the school day and then a caregiver at the end.  Mr. Hunter defined good teaching as “an act of hospitality to the young” and then described such hospitality as having several components.  Hospitality values participation more than performance and process more than product.  Hospitable adults also acknowledge children’s feelings and offer their presence rather than answers or advice.  One of Mr. Hunter’s primary vehicles for touching the lives of children and the adults who care for them is through his songs; check for his “Song Growing Company” at www.tomhunter.com on the web.

At the Children’s School, we have many strategies for extending hospitality to encourage belonging.  We purposely address each other as “friends”, and every adult greets all the children by name.  We use the children’s photographs as labels throughout the school on attendance charts, lockers, etc., and we display the children’s work as a way of sharing it with each other.  Like Mr. Hunter, we emphasize the use of songs to promote inclusiveness; each group has a standard set of greeting songs, as well as songs for many other parts of their school routine.  All types of learning are affirmed here, with particular emphasis on noting progress relative to the goals the children have set for themselves (e.g., getting the ball in the basket, learning to cross the monkey bars, making a new friend, etc.).

Keynoter John Medina, from the Talaris Institute on Early Brain Development (www.talaris.org) expanded on Mr. Hunter’s theme by advocating emotion coaching, which includes adults clearly indicating their awareness of children’s emotions, their recognition of emotion situations as appropriate contexts for teaching, and their empathy and validation of the emotions.  After setting the stage for effective coaching in these ways, adults need to help children verbally label their emotions, to set consistent behavioral limits for responding to emotions, and to offer assistance in solving problems related to the emotions.  Since we have been focusing our professional development time on the issue of fostering social competence, emotion coaching is a current topic for our reflection.  Naturally, such coaching happens here on a more individualized basis as the need arises.  Occasionally, when issues such as teasing or tattling seem pervasive in a particular group, teachers will read related stories and discuss them during circle time so that all the friends can work on developing new strategies together.  Conference time is a wonderful opportunity to talk with your child’s teacher to learn more about the issues arising at school, as well as to share ideas about how to partner to facilitate your child’s development.