I am a teacher, currently working in Early Years in a maintained nursery unitl. I have been in two meetings in the past month (both safeguarding related), where other professionals (one from the police and one from family support background) have said that nursery children are too young to engage in learning and exploration of Protective Behaviours work. I was both surprised and challenged to prove them wrong!
This week, I have done some activities at nursery, the outcomes of which are evidence that children of nursery school age are more than able to access and engage in the PB process!
Firstly, I used the bear cards to find out how the children were feeing that day. We were outside at a picnic table in the sunshine and I invited the children to choose a card which showed how they were feeling. Here are some of their words.....
L - chose a sad looking bear; "I feel like this today because my knee hurts and my elbow is really, really sore." [Injuries suffered after a fall off her scooter that morning.]
B - chose a worried looking bear; "I feel nervous because I'm going to feed the cats at Hannah's..."
Y - chose a dejected looking bear; "S....need to share....." [This child speaks very little English and I wondered if the child would even understand the activity. Y watched others join in for several minutes before joining in. S is the child's big sister who perhaps doesn't share very well at home!]
H - chose a really jolly looking bear "....because the sun's shining."
CM - chose two cards, a chilly looking one and a very happy bear; "Being here without a coat is ....brrrr....[then holds up happy card] This is how I feel today because my Mum's going to Curry Friday and she likes that!"
The other activity we did was a circle time based on an activity sheet about Even if.... I asked the children to close their eyes and envision a big lion in a cage. How could you keep yourself feeling safe even if you had to go into the cage and feed the lion? Their answers were absolutely incredible.
J - "I would ask somebody else to do it instead."
T - " My Daddy would come in with me....and my R (brother) because my R loves lions."
S - "I would go invisible."
C - "I would ask a tiger to come and help me."
G - "I would go in people's houses so he won't follow me." [This child has fled domestic violence}
L - "I would dress up as a lion so it would think I am its friend."
M - "I would press a magic button and the white thing would go round and it wouldn't be able to find me."
A - "I would dress up as a soldier with a gun and I would shoot the lion if he tried to hurt me." [This child has witnessed domestic violence].
S - "I would turn into a statue."
I believe this demonstrates that small children even as young as 3 years old are more than capable of learning about developing their emotional awareness, and exploring the PB process.
It is incredibly exciting working with such small children in this way and I would encourage any practitioners to challenge the perceived notion that preschoolers are "too young for PB work".
Just try it!!!
