Dr Janet Rose
Principal, Norland College
Neuroscience tells us that children thrive when they are both nurtured and challenged and the nature of the nanny role can be aptly summarised as being both caring and daring. New research into the way the brain works is highlighting how much of its development is reliant upon the social relationships the child encounters, particularly in the early years.
The importance of social relationships
There appear to be two neurobiological and neurophysiological systems – the stress regulation system and the social engagement system – that lay the foundation for more complex learning and development. The millions of connections that make up our ‘social engagement system’ are primarily driven by our need to connect with others. This system facilitates our interactions with and understanding of each other, helping us to make sense of our social relationships, enjoy them and develop social cognition, enabling us to thrive in society. Our ‘stress regulation system’ exists essentially for our survival, and its sole purpose is to protect us from actual harm or perceived threats. It incorporates our capacity to respond to real and imagined dangers, including social encounters, and to regulate our stress and emotions, and therefore our behaviours. The integration of these complex neural networks literally lays the groundwork for all our learning and our capacity to self-regulate.
What is self-regulation?
Self-regulation is our ability to adapt our physical, mental and emotional state to meet the demands of a task or situation, resist distractions and persist even when things get challenging. Research from neuroscience suggests that effective integration of our stress response system with our social engagement system helps establish our ability to self-regulate and, in turn, our capacity to learn effectively in the classroom.
Supportive relationships help to moderate the stress response, and nannies’ relationships with children, therefore, have important implications for children’s learning. Brains require nurturing, socially and emotionally, to work at their optimum and to allow for healthy growth and development. Brains can be worked and changed with time and practice, but they suffer if lonely, isolated and overly stressed.
Understanding how children develop self-regulation can help nannies create more optimal environments for children. Key to the development of self-regulation is the social relationships we encounter and the conditions of the environment. As the adult attunes to a child’s needs, the child develops a ‘sense of belonging’ – a critical factor in helping the brain to feel safe and secure. When a brain feels safe, its stress response system is in a more balanced state and is more receptive to exploration and learning. When children feel that they ‘belong’, they are more motivated and more able to learn to their potential.
One useful strategy that promotes a ‘sense of belonging’ and behavioural self-regulation, is emotion coaching. This involves helping children to become more aware of their emotions and manage their own feelings, particularly during instances of misbehaviour. It entails being aware of the underlying feelings behind behaviour, validating, empathising with and labelling children’s emotions, setting limits where appropriate and problem-solving with the child to develop more effective behavioural strategies. Emotion coaching is a relational approach to behaviour management that works with the brain and body to facilitate self-regulation. You can find out more about this strategy here – https://www.emotioncoachinguk.com/
Executive function skills
Self-regulation is strongly associated with the development of ‘executive function skills’. Executive functioning entails the operation of three types of brain function: working memory, mental flexibility and self-control, all of which encompass the capacity to self-regulate. As always, the more integrated and coordinated these networks are, the more effectively we can learn.
Executive functioning essentially comprises a skill set that enables us to filter distractions, control impulses, focus and redirect attention, hold and manipulate information, prioritise tasks, set, achieve and adapt goals – all vital skills for nursery, school and life in general. Not surprisingly, children with stronger executive skills have a better capacity to regulate behaviour, focus their attention and a stronger working memory, and thus do better academically.
Executive functions are ‘trainable’. Let’s take working memory as an example. In order to learn, children need to transfer information from their working memory (where it is consciously processed) to their long-term memory (where it can be stored and retrieved when necessary). Nannies need to consider children’s working memory capacity, which can become overwhelmed if too much information is supplied at once. This is why we break things down into achievable steps, scaffolding and differentiating children’s learning, attuning to their capacity to cope with particular cognitive demands.
Nannies who employ sensitive interactions, take notice of what might be happening in a child’s mind, provide appropriate stimulation and scaffolding, and gently encourage children’s decisions and goals, appear to generate more effective executive function skills in children.
The optimal learning environment – caring and daring
Nannies need to be both caring and daring – fostering curiosity and supporting uncertainty. Much of their day might be spent in ascertaining when a child needs more caring (reinforcing, scaffolding, support, nurturing) and when they are ready to be more daring (acquire new learning, problem-solve, tackle something independently). They can ‘care’ for their children, facilitating positive relationships and matching tasks to achievable levels, and co-regulating a child when the child is feeling stressed or emotionally overwhelmed. They can ‘dare’ their charges, operating as a source of inspiration and energy for learning and exploration, stimulating them to take risks and rise to a challenge. They need to recognise and adjust the environment, their relationship with the child and the nature of their interactions to sustain a ‘golden’ balance to optimise every child’s learning a
Dr Janet Rose – Janet is Principal of the world renowned Norland College. Norland pioneered the world’s first nanny training course 128 years ago. The College now awards degrees in Early Childhood Development and Learning, alongside the practical and prestigious Norland Diploma. Norland College remains committed to raising the value, training and professional status of nannies all over the world. Find out more about Norland here – https://www.norland.ac.uk/
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