The COVID-19 pandemic has raised concerns about the mental health of children around the world.

The State of the World’s Children report by UNICEF examines child mental health and calls for commitment, communication, and action in order to promote good mental health for every child.

Building a good base for mental health starts already when we are babies. There are multiple ways how educators too can support children's mental health. On the other hand, there are also some alarming signs that are good to be aware of.

How to lay the base for good mental health?

Adults play a super important key role in the lives of small children. When children are as little as 0-5 years old, the foundation for good and strong mental health, growth, learning, and happy and healthy life is built.

Little children look for love, affection, learning, and a feeling of safety. So what small children need the most is time together with safe, friendly, and familiar adults, their primary caregivers.

A lifetime of balanced mental health is constructed on top of a good and loving relationship. A relationship that makes children feel they are cared for, and secure and that they are special, important, and loved.

How to support children's mental health?

BABIES

• Spending time together with familiar adults
• Playing together
• Cuddling, caring, showing affection and love
• Communicating with and talking
• Noticing initiatives, responding to baby sounds and expressions
• Taking care of primary needs (food, sleep, hygiene)
• Having a routine and safe, familiar environment to spend time at
• Showing emotions

TODDLERS

• Supporting the child's interest in exploring the world
• Exploring the environment outside together
• Reading books together and naming objects around you
• Playing together and having fun
• Encouraging to learn new skills
• Spending time around other children and people in general
• Encouraging, supporting, and praising when practicing new skills
• Naming and learning about emotions as well as empathy

PRESCHOOLERS

• Interacting with people
• Playing with other children
• Solving simple age-appropriate problems
• Helping with simple age-appropriate chores (eg. Please place your boots on the shoe rack!)
• Sticking to clear rules, boundaries, and routines (right - wrong)
• Providing clear age-appropriate options when making decisions about what to wear, eat or play (eg. Would you like to wear a blue or red hat?)
• Having respect for a child's personal choices, likes, and dislikes

How to improve your preschool in a smart way?

What to look out for?

The smaller the child, the more often they have difficulties with expressing and managing emotions.

According to PLAN Investing in girls' education is the best investment in the world! Investing in girls' education is an investment in a better future. When also girls get to go to school, economical equality increases.

Around the world, girls are unfortunately still discriminated against every day for just being girls – and PLAN is working hard for achieving gender equality. On October 11th it is the 10th anniversary of the Day of the girl, so let's focus on the education of girls for a moment and celebrate girls! 

Girls have the right to a safe, educated and healthy life, not only during these critical formative years, but also as they mature into women.

- PLAN International

How many children accessed early education in 2020?

Overall, the general participation in preschool programs increased from 65% in 2010 to 73% in 2019.

Participation in organized pre-primary learning varies around the world. In 2019, the participation rate was 43% in sub-Saharan Africa, while in Latin America and the Caribbean it was 93%.

Participation in pre-primary learning dropped in 2020 globally during the COVID-19 pandemic because early education closed in most countries. This left many children reliant on parents or other caregivers at home, where increased poverty, unsafe conditions, and lack of stimulation impacted negatively on their development.

In 2020, around 40% of children below primary-school age needed child care but they were unable to access child care. As gendered social norms expect, girls and young women took care of small children instead of educated early childhood educators. COVID-19 worsened the burden of childcare on women and girls.

What is early childhood education and care?

How can girls reach their full potential in learning?

Everything starts from early on. In order to develop well and succeed in life, all children need balanced cognitive, social, and emotional development in addition to good care, food, nutrition, and protection.

For balanced cognitive development, children need a safe and interesting environment to explore with their primary caregiver. For example reading books, naming objects, rhyming, singing, playing memory games and puzzles, and trying to solve little problems supports cognitive development. In short: giving the child's brain some tasks in a safe and inspiring environment with an adult.

For balanced social development, children need a primary caregiver who is supportive, loving, trustworthy, and interested in what is best for the child. Talking to the child, responding to her initiatives, discussing, asking questions, and questioning actions support the child's social development. Also, ethics of right and wrong and friendship skills are part of social development. Children should be exposed to live social contacts, the company of other children, and respectful communication.

For balanced emotional development, children need a lot of practice in a safe and supportive environment. Emotional development includes noticing emotions, expressing emotions, and managing emotions. Emotional skills play an important role when forming relationships and friendships with other people. It is important to learn to recognize and name others' emotions and some ways to respond to them. Also, it is important that children are allowed to show their emotions and not to hide everything inside.

In order to let girls develop into their full and greatest potential, in addition to balanced emotional, social and cognitive development, girls need to have good support, opportunities, and practice as well as achievable successful moments in education.

How to improve children's learning environment?

How educators can support girls in education?

All educators should make sure they support, treat, talk and see all children equally in front of them. All children should have the same opportunities, same support systems, and same possibilities despite their gender (or any other matter).

Educational institutes should offer inclusive, quality education that develops girls' personal skills, promotes gender equality through various educational materials, and also offers educational support to primary caregivers to value girls’ rights.

Even in 2020 if girls get to have an education, all education is not yet equal, so we as educators have some work to do. According to PLAN, girls do not participate equally in all subjects, such as maths. Girls are also not acquiring the present day's important ICT skills due to lower access to technology.

As a result of this, girls do not receive the education needed for becoming leaders in the economic field. According to PLAN the percentage of females studying engineering, manufacturing, construction or ICT is below 25% in more than two-thirds of countries globally.

Concrete tips on how to support equality in education:

Give some more freedom to girls. It might help them find new capabilities and interests and try something new!

• Give children the freedom to choose (what toys to play with)
• Give all children the possibility to free play (with whoever they want to)
• Do not suggest or hint (what is a good color to paint with)
• Do ask (what is your dream, what do you want to learn about?)
• Do not push for certain roles (when practicing a theatre play)

Give examples of great, successful girls and women around the world. They might inspire her too!

• Read books that have girl heroes
• Watch a movie or cartoon with a female main character
• Introduce famous women that have succeeded in life (presidents, scientists, novelists, actors, managers, poets, doctors, and athletes...)

The Challenge

In many countries, the government has given prime importance to Early Childhood Education. This will no doubt raise the bar for quality education across the whole market.

1. Play-, activity- and inquiry-based learning is in focus

• Learning objectives guide the planning and implementation of activities.
• Assessment is all about examining and developing the children's learning.

2. Parents need to be empowered

• Parents have an important role in the child’s learning.
• New ways for them to participate and take responsibility need to be developed.

3. Preschools and childcare centers face increased competition

• The renewal underlines the achievement and accountability of prescribed curricular standards.
• Parents ask for proof of their children’s learning and want to see Return on Investment.

New competencies and new working methods are now required to achieve the desired outcomes in preschool. The use of new technology is also a prerequisite for making the change successful.

Why play?

Play motivates the children and simply brings joy. In early childhood education and care, it is necessary to understand the value of play for children. Play has also pedagogical significance in learning as well as in children’s holistic growth and well-being.

Play is a key practice in early childhood education and care. It is important for teachers to observe children’s play and either guide it from outside or participate in it. The presence of teachers in play situations supports interaction among the children and prevents conflicts.

Children’s learning environments need to be flexible, as play and games can take place anywhere depending on the children’s imagination and wishes. Play and therefore learning happens everywhere, not only during guided activities or circle time. Children might learn various things while for example taking a stroll in the forest (tree species), building a Lego tower (counting blocks), or dressing up a doll (body parts). Check our recent blog to learn more about Playful Learning.

A structured end-to-end-learning process is required

The whole learning process needs to be revisited to support holistic learning:

• Upgrade the learning objectives
• Create pedagogical activities that match the learning objectives
• Let children learn by play
• Document the learning moments
• Reflect on the learning with the children
• Engage families in learning
• Assess learning with portfolios
• Ensure quality with statistics

Learning from best practices can significantly speed up the planning and implementation. In Scandinavian countries, children are given intensive support – not academic teaching - until they are “school-ready”. This has shown a significant impact

"It's stoooorytiimeeee!" and everyone gathers around you. It is because children love stories. They do!

According to an article in New York Times, reading is super important to a toddler’s intellectual, social, and emotional development. When you read books with toddlers, they take it all in like little sponges: vocabulary and language structure, numbers and math concepts, colors, shapes, animals, opposites, manners, and all kinds of useful information about how the world works.

How to document in early education?

How to create a fun and engaging storytime with children?

A. Create a calm atmosphere

Reading books with toddlers is also one of the best ways to get them to slow down, sit down and focus for a while. It does not matter if the children can not stay absolutely still or quiet, as long as they do not disturb other children's story time experience.

Make sure that all children have a comfortable spot to sit or lay on, preferably on the floor with maybe some soft cushions. Also, ensure that everyone sees the book, so it is a good idea that the educator sits on a chair higher than the children.

B. Engage children

Before starting the book you can sing a song together just to get everyone's focus. Better yet, choose a song that is connected to the theme of the book! Or you could also come up with a theme song that anticipates that story time is starting! Then children know that when they hear the song, it is time to calm down and listen to a story. Routines are gold.

It’s ok if children interrupt and ask questions during the story because interruptions show that the children are listening. If children don’t seem engaged by the story or words, you can ask what they see in the pictures. Point at things and let children explain what is happening!

Make eye contact with the children, but don’t look for any particular reaction. It may sometimes seem that children are not listening, but they are absorbing the experience in their own way and might surprise you later..!

Storyline Online - King of Kindergarten

C. Use gestures, actions, sounds, and facial expressions freely

It is great fun if you can engage all the children in the story while listening in their seats. For example, if a gobbling is opening a door in the book, ask all the children to pretend they are opening the door with you. Or if there is a windy day in the story, ask all the children to blow like a wind! As well as, when someone is going to sleep, encourage the children to close their eyes quietly too.

When reading, try to identify with the characters in the book by converting your voice, making appropriate gestures, and versatile facial expressions. Also, do not hurry with reading too much.

My Hero is You storybook about COVID-19 for children

How to choose good books for story time?

A. Respect the children’s preferences

Each child has their individual tastes and opinions. One could be all excited about fairies, as the other one about talking trucks. Encourage children to express what they like about their books, and find more books like those.

Also, you can ask all children to bring their favorite books from home and you will have lovely and interesting books to read for a couple of weeks at least! Each child can have a day in the spotlight when you are reading his or her special book at storytime.

B. Expand the children's world