The HighScope Curriculum for Infants and Toddlers

1. The HighScope Curriculum for Infants and Toddlers Adult-Child Interactions Day 1

2. Objectives Describe children’s attachment behaviors and why they are important. Describe children’s typical responses to separation. Identify program policies and strategies that support children’s trust and attachment needs.

3. HighScope Infant and Toddler “Wheel of Learning”

4. What Do You Need When You’re Down and Out? With a partner, turn to page 8 in TB and answer the questions. Discuss as a whole group.

5. Needs Must Be Met • Infants and toddlers rely on healthy relationships with trusted adults to: • Calm their fears • Make them feel better • Give them the courage to explore their physical and social world • We are here to learn how to create safe, comforting and trusting places so that all infants and toddlers will be able to learn and take risks.

6. Why Hide and Seek and Simple Hiding Games • With your table group, for 15 minutes, play “Hide and Seek.” • Listen to the story. • With a partner, brainstorm all the reasons you can think of why infants and toddlers are particularly drawn to peek-a-boo and simple hiding games. • Discuss as a whole group.

7. Hiding Games and Peek-a-Boo Object permanence Give-and-take in human interaction Shared power and control Repetition and mastery Through repetition I not only learn cause and effect, I learn that when you leave, you come back, which begins the formation of TRUST!

8. Key Developmental Indicators Search • Look at the KDIs on page 3 of TB. • With a partner, identify the KDIs that occur during peek-a-boo and simple hiding games. The KDIs help describe actions of sensory-motor learners and explain why peek-a-boo and hiding are particularly appealing to children in the sensory–motor stage of development.

9. Describing Animal Mothers and Babies • Choose a card. • Discuss and record the actions and interactions that typically occur between each mother and her babies according to the card chosen for your group.

10. Consistently Present Relationships Animal mothers are consistently present. They respond to the babies’ needs. Human babies need mothers to provide shelter, clothing, physical comfort and contact and to participate in give-and-take communication. Animal babies, like human babies, who are not cared for either die or have no internal instinct on how to care for their own young. Human babies are less developed at birth than animal babies and have an even greater need for consistent, responsive care over a longer period of time.

11. What You Already Know About Attachment With your group, you will design an Attachment Handbook for Parents following the instructions in your TB. Your group will share your handbook with the whole group.

12. Attachment In your small groups you will include answers to the following questions: • What is attachment? • Why is attachment important for infants and toddlers? • What does attachment look like?

13. What is attachment? Being in love Caring passionately about your child Being crazy about your child

14. Why is attachment important? Assures that the helpless child will be taken care of. Provides the child with a basic trust in other people. Gives the child the sense that she or he is worth caring about.

15. What does attachment look like? What actions does it entail? Holding, cuddling, rocking, stroking the child. Smiling at, looking at, talking to the child attentively. Listening to, watching, participating in give-and-take exchanges with the child. Responding to the child’s interests and attention-getting signals, reading cues.

16. Four Patterns of Attachment Secure Avoidant Resistant Disorganized

17. Bowlby’s Stages of Attachment • Pre-attachment • Attachment in the making • Clear-cut attachment • Reciprocal relationships

18. Important Aspect about the Development of Attachment Behavior • Forming attachment takes time. • Parent-child bonds are different . • Clear-cut attachment by 3 years old. • Attachment is primarily a SOCIAL behavior. • Has little to do with food. • Has everything to do with how a child and mom interact and relate during caregiving and play. • A child’s attachment is directed at mom. • Lasts a lifetime. Through this process, the child constructs an internal working model of how human relationships work. This model serves as the child’s guide to future relationships.

19. How do children respondto separation? Listen to the Story

20. Think of a child you know whois in the clear cut-attachment stage with mom. • What do these children typically do when mom leaves the room? • How do these children typically respond to a caregiver who offers comfort when mom leaves? • What actions and/or words typically comfort them? What actions and/or words typically do not seem to bring comfort?

21. Phases of Separation • Protest • Despair • Detachment

22. Things for Caregivers to Keep in Mind About Separation Protest and despair are normal In care settings, a child’s separation is temporary. Important to acknowledge children’s feelings and offer comfort and contact. Need to be consistent, dependable, and trusted. A child who is not attached, becomes detached. A child’s need to form strong attachments for future relationships is the rational for practicing primary caregiving and continuity of care.

23. Tender Care and Early Learning Quote: Trusting relationships built over time are the bedrock of healthy human development. While young children are powerfully self-motivated to learn they depend on the affirmation and warmth of trusting relationships to be able to do so! -- Mary Hohmann and Jackie Post

24. Supporting Trust and Attachment • Your group will be assigned one strategy that promotes trust and attachment. • With your group you will gather as much evidence on your strategy and report it to the whole group. • Answer these questions: • What is primary caregiving, small group size and continuity of care? • Why is it important for children, families, and caregivers? • How does it affect the overall quality of the program? • How would you explain your strategy to an administrator?

25. Look at the following videotape… Supportive Adult-Child Interactions-Part 2

26. Policies that promote attachment and trusting relationships: • Anchor each child’s day around a primary caregiver. • Create small groups of children with caregiver teams. • Keep children and caregivers together. • Arrange caregivers’ schedules around children’s needs. • Tell children and parents about caregiver absences and returns. • Have primary caregivers record observations of children

27. Primary Caregivers

28. Small Group Size Recommended: • 0-8 months = 1:3 with a max of 6 • 8-18 months = 1:3 with a max of 9 • 18-36 months = 1:4 with a max of 12 • Mixed ages = • 0-36 months 1:4 with a max of 8 • Younger than 24 months 1:2

29. Continuity of Care • Some options: - Multi-room with looping - Multi-room without looping - Shared, subdivided space with looping (see page 130-132 in Tender Care)

30. All of these strategies foster rich exchanges between children and between children and caregivers and caregivers and parents. Gives infants and toddlers a sense of belonging, stability and security. Summary

31. Arrival Scenarios With a partner read through the scenarios and answer the questions on pages 25-26 in TB. Discuss as whole group.

32. Barriers, Obstacles and Solutions Difficulty in hiring and retaining part-time caregivers. Change to a caregiver shift work week. Turn to page 28 in TB. Turn to page 27 in TB and work together on barriers that might affect you in your program.

33. Caregiver Schedule Example #1

34. Caregiver Schedule Example #2

35. Representing Attachment • With your group. Choose one of the topics and give a short presentation to the whole group about that topic. • Examples could be picture, song, dance, pantomime, skit or poem. • Attachment and bonding • Primary caregivers • Continuity of care • Small group sizes

36. Day Review: • Reflect on today’s topic (adult-child interactions). • What do you want to remember and begin implementing in your classrooms? Any parting thoughts about our day’s topics?