What does Loving Pedagogy look like in the Early Years?

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What is a loving pedagogy in Early Years?

Tamsin developed loving pedagogy through inspiration from Dr Jools Page's work on professional love. She use a 'languages of love' framework for understanding how different children feel loved in different ways. The five love languages Tamsin refers to are:

• Words of affirmation - Children might say the word love, "I love you," but they might equally say, "Your dress is pretty."
• Quality time - With our younger children, we'll notice if they "speak" that love language because they'll be our shadow.
• Gifts - Have you ever been outside and a child gave you a pebble, a stone or a feather? It's a love token - a gift.
• Acts of service - Sometimes we do things when we need a "special helper." Choosing that child will mean more to them than you.
• Physical touch - A hug or a high-five.

What does loving pedagogy look like in early childhood settings?

Tamsin explains, "It just looks really natural, really child-centred, really family-like. It looks like a great setting, an effective setting where all the children are known as the unique individuals they are, and they are all loved. I mean, you can feel love just like when you walk into a room."

"Managing challenging behaviour" or teaching emotional skills?

Tamsin comments on educators seeking reactive solutions for challenging behaviours, rather than proactive prevention strategies. It's much less effective to try to implement immediate fixes to biting, kicking, and other challenging behaviours young children might present, instead of addressing underlying causes through scaffolding and teaching.

Tamsin also notes that settings need to shift from compliance-based expectations to developing children's critical thinking and moral reasoning skills.

"There are serious safeguarding concerns there. Because if children are taught, 'Thou shalt always obey an adult,' one day they might meet an adult who does tell them or ask them to do something inappropriate. So what we really want is to teach children right and wrong and why, so that they can become critical thinkers, so that they can actually have a moral code. So that they become actually nice people and good citizens of the world."

Tamsin's top take-aways...

• Create staff reflection sessions on personal comfort levels: Facilitate team discussions about individual educator's comfort with different aspects of loving pedagogy, to ensure authentic implementation. What's right for one team member might not be right for someone else.

• Integrate loving pedagogy into leadership practices: Extend loving pedagogy principles to staff management and parent relationships, creating consistency across all interactions. This approach recognises that loving pedagogy "becomes part of who you are" and can be applied beyond child interactions.

• Implement scaffolding approaches for behaviour teaching: Settings should treat behaviour learning like any other skill development, providing multiple opportunities to practice and learn rather than punitive responses. Evidence shows that current approaches focus on reactive fixes when, "people are there to get fixes. They're wanting to sort out the behaviour" rather than teaching.

• Develop explicit touch and physical interaction policies: Staff teams should conduct meetings to establish clear, setting-specific guidelines for appropriate touch and physical comfort. This addresses the identified need where, "lots of People want to be told what to do" regarding touch policies, but solutions must be individualised.
  
  "We can reciprocate [physical touch] but make sure it's something in the setting that you've talked about," advises Tamsin, "What does appropriate touch look like in our setting? Think about it in detail because I think it's easy for people to say, 'Oh, yes, we let children sit on our laps.' Well, how do you let them sit on your laps? Can they do a full frontal straddle of you or are they sitting on one knee or with their back to you or their front to you? What about kissing? Lots of settings would say, 'oh, no, no, no. It's a definite no for kissing.' Well, when I was a childminder, I would have kissed the children on their head or kissed their hurts better. The parents knew that I was that sort of child minder. I made sure they knew before the children even started at the setting. If they didn't want that for their children, I was the wrong child minder for them."