Working With Groups of Children - Essay Example

Working With Groups of Children Introduction Working with groups of children entails close study of the behavioral nature and the level of development of the children. This study seeks to establish how interaction among children of 3-4 years age bracket promotes communication. The study also reveals how a practitioner enhances the interaction among the children within that age bracket. It also unveils the role of a parent in in the supporting of the activity of the small groups of children. The study was carried out in a classroom setting whereby a small group of children was selected and subjected to various aspects of group interactions. The deductions from the study revealed that children develop excellent communication skills from the group interactions with regard to the level of development of the children (Wilson, 2008, 87). Literature Review  These children have an easy time in conceptualizing ideas of their colleagues hence this makes the learning of various communication skills through interaction with their fellow colleagues smooth. This is because they have already grasped communication styles and techniques necessary for communication. This shows that the children can gain more from an objective and resourceful interaction from mature persons and their fellow colleagues too (Grossman, 2005, 39). However, the children peg their friendship on the physique and the closeness of their friends. The environment in which the children are operating, and the people the child interacts with are vital in gauging the progress in the development of communication skills through small group interactions. For instance if a child is subjected to harsh people and bad environmental conditions while learning, the child will retreat hence no learning will occur. On the other hand, when a child interacts with a charismatic and friendly people, he or she is likely to open up and will learn ideas presented to him or her. It was found that the environment also a determining factor in the development of a child’s communication skills (Machado, 2012, 97). Another aspect of interaction among children is that same sex children are more likely to learn from each other more easily than children of the opposite sex. This improves their social life because they socialize with less difficulty and losing such attachment slows a child’s social development and communication skill development. Moreover, this may lead to self-centeredness in a child .At this age, children learn from each other through imitation and they agitate to show their psychosocial, emotional and cognitive skills. Therefore, they manage to selectively choose colleagues who are socially compatible with them. This makes it easier for them to realize their identities out of their gradual interaction amongst themselves. Indeed this prepares them for sound decision making later in life. The child’s development contributes to learning and development of communication skills through interaction amongst children. There are three facets of child development. Cognitive Development comprises of various stages during which children acquire a wide range of skills and this marks the transition from intellectual immaturity to intellectual maturity. During this stage the children are self-centered and like activities to be done their way. Psychosocial Development is the development of purpose and personality of a child. It also encompasses the development of independency, sense of humor; sense of identity the sense of fortitude and how the requirements meet in interactions with other people. Children of the 3-4 years age bracket comprehended what constitutes the aspect of emotions. In addition, they have had the ability to distinguish negligible differences in different feelings like irritable versus angry, gloomy versus annoyed. They must struggle with uncertainty, and indecisiveness. This is the eventuality regardless of possession of the ability to think in the abstract and engage in metacognition which is the thinking about their own thought processes. Feelings may be quite intense and confusing for these children. This explains why some children tend to fail in controlling their emotions and are quick in getting irritated. This is what most teachers will always affirm. Children in the 4-year age bracket are able to engage in atleast a rudimentary thought process. In case, their interactions are programmed in a manner that communicates their usual feelings, they are able to learn more concerning their personality (Grossman, 2005, 39). They are also able to learn much about the impact of their behavior their colleagues’ response. In addition, they learn new ways of managing their feelings through the use of reasoning and problem-solving skills. Emotional Development is the children's emotional development. It is related to their cognitive and psychosocial development. This development is characterized by limited understanding of emotions. It is also concerned with lack of awareness of self. Children generally have intense emotions and they exhibit them quickly. The acquisition of emotional skills requires along period before a child develops emotionally. It takes social interaction with fellow children and free and structured play, for emotional development to take place. In addition, they learn impulse control, which results to controlled emotions and reduces the time of reaction in case of irritation. Children also learn the virtue of empathy. This makes them act with regard to their fellow colleagues’ feelings. For instance, friendship among the four children was very intimate and productive in terms of knowing one another. The time the children spent together contributed in determining the impact of group interaction on the development of communication skills among the children. Treating each child with respect and love makes each child acknowledge the unique characteristics of his or her colleagues. In addition, the children will have a chance to use their different capabilities and interests Child development theory is the basis upon which policies have been created and programs designed in order to have consistency in the study at hand. This theory shows how good relationships are created among children and how this improves a child’s personality, culture and social welfare. Children of this age bracket cooperate in carrying out activities in order to maintain their friendships. Moreover, the children relate well depending on their social competence. How well they relate to other children depends on their emerging social competence. This is due to the fact that they acknowledge each other’s idea more readily. In as much as the interaction improves communication amongst children, it is difficult for the children to maintain the bond in case one of them seeks to lead the rest. The process of parental involvement in the upbringing of a child is continuous and it leads to the intellectual development and maturity of a child. In our study the parent’s role is pivotal in that they guide the child in communication and performance of various activities. This is extended to the group interaction whereby the child puts into play the various skills he or she has learnt from the parents (Zeanah, 2006, 69). Furthermore, the parent plays a role of assisting the child improve in academics by giving guidance in school assignments. This improves the child’s communication skills as the knowledge gap is narrowed. This enables the child to have a good foundation with regard to social life and relating to his or her peers. This strengthens the bond of the group. Children of this age are usually curious about experiences with their fellow classmates hence feel happy when they get time for sharing ideas and carrying out other activities together. Children in this age bracket learn on how to choose their friends hence they create strong groups, which outdo their rivals. The process of making friends can be a joyful activity one day but an awful the next day. This is inevitable because it is all part of learning on making everlasting friendship. In addition children prefer small groups where they can be noticed more easily as opposed to large groups. Indeed, the children’s sense of identity is strong as they do learn on how to defend themselves and their points of view in an argument. Parental training, parental education and parental intervention are programs that are aimed at assisting parents to equip their children with the required skills for communication. In accomplishing this goal, parent education, parent training and parent interventions are applied on equal measure because they are almost similar in their effectiveness. However, there is a slight difference between the three programs. Parent training and interventions are one kind of parental education. Parent training and interventions have certain skills, but parent education gives general information concerning a topic. In fact educating parents on the course of action they are to take and giving general suggestions is not sufficient because parents need elaborative explanation on various aspects concerning their children. This includes instructions that can help them learn and practice on how to nurture their children in order to achieve greater academic and intellectual success (Zeanah, 2006, 69). The main purpose of this guide is to inform family literacy practitioners and other educators who work with families, about the benefits of targeted skill training for parents. These benefits help in encouraging parents to be involved in their child’s development and growth and they also provide illustrations of these initiatives. These programs result in parent intervention studies and offer cultural and literacy considerations in working with diverse children populations. They also give suggestions for the types of trainings and activities that have proven successful in equipping the children with the best parental guidance (Wilson, 2008, 52). Parents of young children burdened with the responsibility of engaging their children in reading and other activities. Parents can provide critical academic support for teachers who feel pressured to meet the demands of preparing preschool children for elementary school or for meeting state standards. Resources are often limited for teaching small groups of children who have reading difficulties at any age level. However, these children can receive additional instruction at home in case parents are aware of the needs and support their children require. This will improve the child’s language and literacy development especially if parents received specific guidance about what to do. Effective parental support could include using story book reading to teach language, drawing on different strategies such as asking questions (Myers, 2010, 29). Methodology  The sessions were planned and scheduled as per the time allocated for the study and data was collected through observation and use of questionnaires. Physical assessment and question-answer techniques were also employed in the study to assess the effect of a small group interaction on the children’s communication skills. The study was carried out by pairing up children in readiness for various activities. Then the pairs were changed on a continuous in order for the children to interact with different colleagues so that the study could be substantive, exhaustive and objective. Thereafter the combination that worked well in terms of temperament and social compatibility was noted. Then the group of four was invited to devise on new ways of interaction. They were asked questions regarding their feeling in the event of infliction of pain by fellow children (Hughes, 2010, 19). It took the facilitators a long time to have this small group of children take part in the study. Playing is essential, given that children learn by practicing things. The activities in the study include physical movement, and games, board games, and drawing. In addition, reading of stories relevant to the group meeting's topic, manipulative, sensory stimulants like sand, clay and other structured play activities. What is crucial is that each activity has a reason in service of the group objective for a given group meeting (Weisz, 2010, 29). The older the child, the less impulsive he or she will be, but the distinctive kid is rather unconsidered. Thus, small groups should be structured and the facilitator should be an active manager of the group interactive process. Groups, which constitute of adults usually, have highest levels of structure in the initial stages of development of the group. The level of structure is gradually reduced, as the group develops cohesion. However, the relationship between the formation to group unity in kids and young teenagers has not been studied. However, given that children have less developed impulse regulation, it is expected that some level of noticeable structure will be necessary throughout the life of the group in quest. Since some children possess impulse control skills, reduction of structure is desirable since the group becomes bonded. On the other hand, the groups of children, who experience delays in impulse control like in the case of anger management problems, require high levels of structure (Fatout, 2006, 20). The emotional make up of children especially their cognitive development shows circumstantial thinking among children. They tell stories in order to convey their points and express deeper feelings and opinions too. Therefore, facilitators should also include storytelling in their programs (Merges, 2011, 61).  Analysis of Findings It was found that small groups enable children to form bonds with peers in a favorable environment that affords them a chance to talk about their mind-set and ideas overtly. This reduces the possibility of negative responses from other children like teasing, and discussion of individual differences. In addition, these groups make children to understand that their concerns are common to every other person. Therefore, this makes them to be more receptive of their colleagues because they know that their fear and other issues are shared by their colleagues. Through these small groups the children are able to easily channel their personal feelings and other issues to their colleagues than adults. Moreover, they enable practitioners to access more children at a lower cost to parents than in hospitals. These small groups enable counselors deliver service a large number of children on the one-one basis. Family unit plays a critical role in development of the communication skills of the child because behavious inculcated by the parents upon the child are usually evident at school (Harrison, 2007, 45). Parents of young children should take courage to engage their children in reading and other co-curricular activities. Parents can provide critical academic support for teachers who feel pressured to meet the demands of preparing preschool children for elementary school and meeting state standards. Resources are not sufficient for teaching small groups of children with reading difficulties at any age level. However, they could receive additional instruction at home in case their parents are aware of what is needed to support their children’s language and literacy development. If parents already have specific guidance on what parental intervention entails then effective parental support may include the use of storybook reading. This will help in the teaching of language, use of different strategies like use of questionnaires and providing additional information about the story. However, parents do not initiate these strategies as they read with children. Furthermore, parents may not use story reading time to teach children language and literacy skills, such as letter names and sounds of letters parents can learn through trainings on how to effectively engage children in practices that support school-based literacy activities. This can be done through constructive interactions (Machado, 2012, 97). Parent interventions can increase children’s outcomes in literacy-related skills. Meta-analysis can be used to confirm the latter fact on reading skill development. The intervention that taught parents strategies and skills for working with their children on specific literacy activities like learning the alphabet, letter-sound correspondence, blending beginning and end sounds, and learning sight words demonstrated that parents’ use of these skills and strategies had a strong, positive relationship to children’s reading development.Meta-analysis focuses on interventions aimed at increasing the quality of shared book reading. Use of open-ended questions and soliciting verbal responses from children increased expressive language ability. However, parent-led dialogic reading interventions were not as effective for the low income and educational attainment families and older preschoolers (Mayesky, 2009, 77) A child’s language skill development is related to the topic in which the parents were trained. Parent training programs should not be viewed in competition n be tailored to serve different functions for diverse populations of children.Indeed,when parents are taught on warm interactions, and cognitive responses in language, this is likely to boost the child’s verbal responses as children mimic what the parents do. Examined literacy skills of low-socioeconomic status children whose mothers were trained in dialogic reading, elaborative reminiscing techniques, and were assigned to a control group. When comparing the quality of children’s retelling of the story, children whose mothers were in the elaborative reminiscing group scored better on oral language assessments than children with mothers in the dialogic reading strategies group. However, they found that the elaborative reminiscing results were similar for children from ethnically and linguistically diverse families. Elaborative reminiscing was easier because parents only needed to implement the dialogic strategies during conversations, as opposed to implementing the strategies while reading and conversing. The findings from this study demonstrate that parent interventions can improve children’s language and literacy skills. It is good to identify a target skill as a blueprint in order to have the greatest effect. Furthermore, a parenting intervention may improve specific aspects of a child’s language and literacy development rather than all skills that apply in this area (Grossman, 2005, 39). Conclusion and Recommendation It is hard for the kids to comprehend the effect of their behaviors on friendships hence they need parental guidance though peers can also be of help. They need to have a wealth of experience of interactions with their peers in order to polish their social skills. In addition it is prudent to avail collaborative interest centers to children in order to encourage the development of communication skills among children through their interactions. It is also prudent to have the children indulge in story-telling in order for them to realize their identity hence have the confidence to communicate more freely before their fellow peers and elders. Furthermore, meta analysis aspect has been proved effective in improving the communication abilities of children. This is because as the children share book reading, they are able to discover their strengths, weaknesses, and talents. It is true that small groups of children enhance the learning process in communication as opposed to big groups because in the former, children themselves are able to gauge their capabilities in communication easily than in the big groups. Bibliography Fatout, M. (2006), Children in groups: a social work perspective. Westport, Conn, Auburn House. Grossman, K. E., Grossmann, K., & Waters E. (Eds.) (2005), Attachment from infancy to adulthood. The major longitudinal studies. London, Guilford Press. Harrison, J. (2007), Understanding children: foundations for quality. Camberwell, Vic, ACER. Hughes, F. P. (2010), Children, play, and development. Los Angeles, Sage. Machado, J. M., (2010), Early childhood experiences in language arts: early literacy. Belmont, CA, Wadsworth. Mayesky, M. (2009), Creative activities for young children. Clifton Park, NY, Delmar. Merges, J. (2011), Social enjoyment groups for children, teens and young adults with autism spectrum disorders: guiding toward growth. London, Jessica Kingsley Publishers. Myers, J. E. B. (2010), American Professional Society On The Abuse Of Children. The APSAC handbook on child maltreatment. Thousand Oaks , Sage. Weisz, J. R., & Kazdin, A. E. (2010), Evidence-based psychotherapies for children and adolescents. New York, Guilford Press. Wilson, J. (2008), Child-focused practice a collaborative systemic approach. London, Karnac Books. Read More