Promoting Well-Being in the Pre-School Years

Research, Applications and Strategies

Erica Frydenberg, Janice Deans, Rachel Liang

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN:
  9780367028633
• eBook ISBN:
  9780429671623
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Developmental Psychology

Promoting Well-Being in the Pre-School Years provides evidence-based research and real-life strategies that support social and emotional development and well-being for children aged 3–5 years. It places emphasis on nurturing social emotional competence through purposeful scaffolding activities and how these can be used by children and families to create a harmonious platform for building resilience and positive relationships with family and the community.

Drawing on principles from Positive Psychology and Positive Education, it is illustrated throughout with examples of sustainable practice in diverse, global settings. Key topics explored include:

• Contemporary well-being concepts, including 'grit', 'growth mindset' and 'gratitude', as well as 'classic' constructs such as coping and self-efficacy
• The attitudes and skills that need to be developed to ensure that young children flourish
• Cognitive and sociocultural perspectives complemented by neuroscience and epigenetics
• Social Emotional Learning (SEL) in the early years curriculum
• Using visual tools – the Early Years Coping Cards
• How we measure young children's coping
• The relationship between coping, stress and mental health
• Recognition of the importance of parents' own coping skills
• How partnerships with communities can improve children's SEL.

Promoting Well-Being in the Pre-School Years shows how we can support young children to develop an understanding of what it means to be happy and to flourish as a socially responsible member of the family and wider community. It is essential reading for teachers, parents and professionals who work with young children, as well as academics in child development.

Chapter 1

Capturing the well-being construct in the pre-school years

‘When we sit around the table to have a cup of tea, it feels like we are all around the world, we hold hands and we are all friends. We are friends of each other and the world. The love heart means I love the world and be good to it’

~ Jane, 5-year-old

Overview

This chapter is designed to provide the theoretical framework for the chapters to follow. The concepts of health and well-being will be explored in the contemporary context of early childhood development. Key insights from Positive Psychology and a Positive Educational perspective are considered as they relate to early childhood education. It is at this point that expanding understandings of what attitudes and skills need to be developed to ensure that young children flourish. For example, translating the work around coping will be considered in the context of early childhood education from the perspective of helping teachers to support children and their parents to take an active role in developing their self-concept, resilience and positive attitudes to learning.

Health and well-being

The global context

The definition of health as ‘a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity’, proposed by the World Health Organization (WHO, 1948) in the preamble to the Constitution has remained unamended since 1948. In doing so it incorporates total well-being under the concept of health and puts an emphasis on the individual’s subjective experience rather than the objective assessment of others. The focus on social well-being recognises the important role of the environmental context in promoting well-being of individuals. Fundamental conditions and resources for health such as social justice, equitable access to education, shelter, food, stable ecosystem etc. are some of the basic prerequisites for a secure foundation in health, particularly for children in their early years who are reliant on others for these provisions. This is akin to a mother bird building a nest for its babies: ‘The twigs intertwined for the nest and the nest is where you feel safe and where you do your growing and the baby bird grows safely to an adult’ (‘The Nest’ – ARACY, 2014).

Chapter 2 provides a more detailed look at well-being in the early years using Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory of development where well-being of a child is dependent on all the elements within the ecosystem in which a child resides. Well-being in children, in simple terms, means the quality of their lives. The definition of well-being, however, varies depending on the academic and professional lens, including domains of child health, policy and legal arenas, in education, research and practice (Barblett & Maloney, 2010).

The shift to the Knowledge Age in the 21st century brings about new patterns of practices involving a period of major social, economic and political change. One of these is the shift in focus from measuring a nation’s progress solely based on economic performance-oriented goals (e.g. Gross Domestic Products) towards those that encompass social progress, quality of life and well-being such as the Gross National Happiness index in Bhutan and the Better Life Index developed by the OECD (New Economics Foundation, 2012; OECD, 2017; OPHI, 2015). A common approach to defining and measuring well-being is to consider well-being as a multi-dimensional concept. Ben-Arieh and Frones (2007a, 2007b) defined well-being in childhood as ‘encompassing quality of life in a broad sense’. This means looking at well-being from different aspects of children’s lives including economic conditions, peer relations, political rights and opportunities for development, with an emphasis on social and cultural variations. Since 2013, Martorano and colleagues have been developing and refining a Child Well-Being index for the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). Five dimensions of children’s lives have been considered: material well-being, health and safety, education, behaviours and risks, and housing and environment. The index provides a ranking order for countries according to their performance in advancing child well-being as underpinned by the framework of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNICEF, 1998).

National agenda on children’s well-being

Consistent with global imperative to improve the health and well-being of children, countries such as the UK, US and Australia have developed national policies, frameworks and standards for children’s well-being from birth (see Chapter 3 for details). For example, Australia has launched their first national plan The Nest action agenda in 2013 with a vision for all Australian children and youth to achieve six outcomes: being loved and safe; having basic necessities; being healthy; learning; participating; and having a positive sense of identity and culture (ARACY, 2014). In line with this action plan were the many initiatives to track and improve the well-being and development of children in the early years. One such initiative is the Australian Early Development Census (AEDC) which provides a national measure to monitor five areas or ‘domains’ of early childhood development in Australia:

• physical health and well-being
• social competence
• emotional maturity
• language and cognitive skills (school-based)
• communication skills and general knowledge.

These domains are closely linked to the predictors of good adult health, education and social outcomes (AEDC, 2015). As a population-based measure, the AEDC helps communities know how their children are progressing and highlights what is working well (developmentally on track) and what needs to be improved or developed (developmentally at risk or vulnerable) to support children and their families for health and well-being.

Positive Psychology, Positive Education, well-being and coping

Well-being as flourishing

Changes brought about in the 21st century have also perpetuated the shift of the standard of mental health from what is normative to what represents optimal functioning or flourishing. What is a good life? What makes a good life? These age-old questions have been the quest for many philosophers dating back to Aristotle, who enshrine happiness as a central purpose of human life and a goal in itself. In the past two decades, empirical research in positive mental health and psychological functioning has been gaining momentum which allows Positive Psychology to establish itself as a scientific field of study that aims to identify and foster the factors and traits that enable individuals, communities and societies to prosper and flourish (Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000). Researchers such as Westerhof and Keyes (2010) proposed three core components: emotional well-being, physiological well-being and social well-being as necessary for positive mental health. Emotional well-being can be understood from two perspectives; (i) the Aristotelian Greek word – feeling good or hedonic well-being, which is characterised by the pursuit of pleasure and is generally measured using positive affect; namely cheerfulness, happiness and contentment; (ii) the pursuit of functioning well in life or eudaimonic well-being. It is the psychological well-being that is required for optimal functioning and not just the absence of psychological ill-health (Huppert & Johnson, 2010; Keyes, 2007). Psychological well-being is about having a purpose and meaning whilst social well-being is about a belief that life matters and contributing as a member of society (Westerhof & Keyes, 2010). Flourishing or thriving is described in international literature as a state where people are living within an optimal range of human functioning most of the time, that is, experiencing positive emotions, positive psychological functioning and positive social functioning (Fredrickson & Losada, 2005; Keyes, 2007). Positive Psychology emphasises the experience of positive emotions as it allows us to broaden and build our personal resources for living the good life (Fredrickson, 2001, 2004, 2013). It also emphasises the meaning and growth that we can derive from negative experiences, losses and emotions. These together allow us to build resources such as the physical, psychological, intellectual and social for the good times and for the challenging times. Therefore, Positive Psychology is intrinsically associated with well-being. As a field, it examines a range of qualities and processes such as gratitude, compassion, mindsets, strengths-based approaches and coping towards personal goals and achieving resilience, which together contribute to positive mental health and optimal functioning and well-being as illustrated in Figure 1.1.

Figure 1.1 The relationship between Positive Psychology constructs, resilience, coping and well-being

As can be seen in Figure 1.1, Positive Psychology contributes to coping and adaptation as well as to well-being and resilience. The two-way arrows between coping, well-being and resilience highlight that each can influence the other bi-directionally.

Positive Education in the pre-school years

The development of Positive Psychology has enabled new models of intervention which aim at fostering mental health and promoting well-being in education. Seligman and colleagues in their seminal article (2009) defined Positive Education as ‘education for both traditional skills and for happiness’. It is a response to the gap between what we all want for our children – happiness, positive physical and mental health – versus the traditional focus on academic achievement as a measure of success in school. It is not a focus on mental health instead of academic achievement but is a focus on mental health in order to set the stage and give students the opportunity for academic achievement. This aligns with Abraham Maslow’s (1943) hierarchy of needs indicating that emotional support should be a prerequisite for higher-order functions such as learning. Positive Education is a proactive approach utilising what we have learnt from the science of Positive Psychology to teach the whole-student, that is, teaching academic skills along with mental health and well-being skills. In other words, Positive Education wants to bring Positive Psychology’s goals of well-being and mental health support for not only those in distress or crisis but everyone into the school setting (Alford, 2017). It aims to create educational environments that enable students to engage in established curricula in addition to knowledge and skills to develop their own and others’ well-being (Oades, Robinson, Green & Spence, 2011). This requires a commitment from all staff members in schools and their communities (see Chapter 9 for an example of a cross-generational community partnership to build thriving learners). Cherkowski (2018), a researcher in positive teacher leadership, proposed that teacher leadership as an ‘intentional reflective process of learning to grow well-being for self and others’. This aligns with the increasing international research on the importance of well-being in schools and highlights how teachers, particularly those in leadership positions, can play a role in building collective capacity for growing well-being as central to school improvement.

Well-being in education, particularly in the early years has had a long history and recently has become central to policies, frameworks and programs concerned with enhancing the quality of children’s lives and establishing positive life trajectories (McGrath, 2009; OECD, 2007; Pollard & Davidson, 2001). For example, in Australia, its Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF) (DEEWR, 2009) has a vision for children’s learning where ‘all children experience learning that is engaging and builds success for life’. Well-being is one of the five outcomes identified in the EYLF as central to children’s learning and development with expectations that ‘children become strong in their social, emotional and spiritual well-being’, and that ‘children take increasing responsibility for their own health and physical well-being’. Through teaching valuable life skills that assist early years learners to strengthen their relationships, build positive emotions, enhance personal resilience, promote mindfulness and encourage a healthy lifestyle, it is hoped that education can provide students with an increased capacity to learn effectively, as well as offering them a strong foundation on which they can build a successful life as caring, responsible and productive members of society (Waters & White, 2015).

Different concepts and constructs in Positive Psych...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• Foreword
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• 1. Capturing the well-being construct in the pre-school years
• 2. Development in context
• 3. Social Emotional Learning (SEL) in the early years curriculum
• 4. Early years visual coping tools: operationalising social and emotional competencies in pre-school children
• 5. Measuring coping in a pre-school population
• 6. The relationship between coping, stress and mental health in a pre-school population
• 7. Teaching coping skills in the context of positive parenting
• 8. Approaches to pre-school Social Emotional Learning: targeting empathy, resilience, prosocial and problem behaviour through coping strategies
• 9. Embedding SEL within the curriculum: partnerships with communities
• 10. Putting it together: developing well-being in the early years
• Index