Home Living Extension Update from Megan Burda: Building Positive Relationships with Children

Extension Update from Megan Burda: Building Positive Relationships with Children

By
Taylor Siebert
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Building Positive Relationships with Children

Last week I shared guidelines for our 4-H Clover Kid program. This week, I thought I would continue on that trajectory and share principles of positive youth development as they relate to children from birth through five years of age. 

Through trusting relationships with adults, young children learn about their world and their place in it.  They learn the world is safe and responsive to their needs.  They learn to form satisfying relationships with others, to communicate, to face challenges, and to experience and regulate their emotions.

Supporting a child’s healthy social and emotional growth takes a commitment from all primary caregivers.  This includes mothers, fathers, grandparents, child care providers and other key adults in the child’s life.  It’s important to remember that young children observe our relationships. What they observe shapes their expectations for how people treat each other.

The term social emotional development refers to the developing capacity of the child from birth through five years of age.  This includes forming close and secure adult and peer relationships, as well as exploring the environment and expressing while regulating their emotions in socially appropriate ways.

When positively interacting with young children, adults should:

  • use a warm, engaging, and comforting voice
  • follow the child’s lead
  • say the child’s name
  • respond to child’s vocalizations
  • use good positioning so the child can see the caregiver’s face or the play objects

Repeated interactions lead to fairly predictable relationships because the infant or young child begins to know how you will respond to him or her.  This pattern of responses creates the emotional connection the child has to you.  The key to building positive relationships with young children starts with establishing a pattern of positive interactions with the child.

Positive relationships with young children support their development of secure attachments.  We can use encouraging and positive words to tell the child what “to do” instead of what “not to do”.

To learn more about 4-H Positive Youth Development programs, visit 4h.unl.edu.

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