Association of Therapeutic Communities
PLANNED ENVIRONMENT THERAPY TRUST
Charterhouse Group
Therapeutic Community Open Forum
THE PLANNED ENVIRONMENT
THERAPY TRUST
|
"Supporting, promoting, recording and valuing therapeutic work in caring and healing environments/communities/institutions..." |
|
Church Lane,
Toddington, Cheltenham, GLOS. GL54 5DQ, United Kingdom |
||
Volunteer Opportunities - Extend your horizons and gain new skills while helping our work to grow
Keep up to date with the Archive and Study Centre News Blog
"A home for research and discussion about therapeutic community"
Jennifer A. Sanders
“Finding their feet:
The development of infants’ sense of self during
Heuristic Play sessions in a Children’s Centre”
September 2006
Submitted in partial fulfilment for an
MA in Therapeutic Child Care
This study explores infants’ developing sense of self by observing children’s play and interactions during nine Heuristic Play Sessions in a Children’s Centre. The context of the study and information about the group are detailed. Ethical implications of the study are considered. The literature review looks at the developmental process of infants from birth to 18 months with regards to their sense of self, and how the process is influenced by the care and social interactions between the primary carer and infant. The literature review and author’s reflections provide the framework for analysis of the observations. The value of using participant observations and reflective enquiry both as a method for the study, and as a component in the group is examined. The implications of the findings are considered in terms of offering support to vulnerable families. The limitations of supporting families in Children’s Centres are also considered.
Dave, my husband, Adam and Justin, my sons, for their wonderful support
Sally Randall, my manager for 10 years, for nurturing my career
Linnet McMahon, my tutor, for her inspiration and guidance
The tutors and students on the T.C.C. Course, without whom I would never have completed the dissertation
Catherine Monger who developed the group with me
Berni Davies and Naomi Semmens, my co-workers in the group
The families who gave permission for me to make the observations
Title page Page 2
Contents Page 4
Chapter 1: Introduction Page 6
Context
Rationale
Heuristic Play
Structure
Methodology
Ethical issues
Use of language
Chapter 3: Literature Review Page 18
Introduction
Jigsaw puzzle framework for understanding the infant’s developing sense of self
The newborn baby (birth to 2 months) – Getting to know each other
The baby (2 to 6 months) – Falling in love
The older baby (7 to 12 months) – Developing autonomy
The toddler (1 to 1 ½ years) – Finding their feet
Summary
Background to the group
Structure of the group
Containment – An outcome from the group
Encouraging secure attachment – An outcome from the group
Summary
Chapter 5: Observations of the group Page 42
Theme 1 - The attachment/exploration systems
Theme 2 - Finding their feet – A new perspective
The group as a whole
Summary
Chapter 6: Reflections Page 53
Reflections on participant observations
Reflections on reflective enquiry as a method of research
Summary
Have I answered my research question?
What have I learnt about the developmental needs of the child in Heuristic Play Sessions?
What are the implications of the findings for Children’s Centres?
Final thought
Appendices
Letter to families and consent form
In this dissertation I study a Heuristic Play Group in a Children’s Centre and explore how the child’s developing sense of self is nurtured in the group.
This chapter looks at the context within which the study is set and my professional role. It details my research question and why I chose to make the study. Finally it outlines how the study is structured.
Context
Children’s services, particularly services for the pre-school child, have been high on the political agenda since the Labour Government came to power in 1997. During their first term of office the government gave money to communities that experienced high levels of poverty to enable them to develop universal support services for the local families and their pre-school children. The projects, called ‘Sure Start’, were created in consultation with local service providers and families, and often grew out of existing projects such as family centres.
Over time the political emphasis for early years altered, resulting in a change to the ‘Sure Start’ ethos. The Government produced a ten year strategy for child care in which it stated that “the Government’s vision is to ensure that every child get the best start in life and to give parents more choice about how to balance work and family life” (2004:1). In response to the strategy new Children’s Centres were, and still are being developed to fulfil the Government’s vision by delivering family support services and offering affordable day care.
There are many requirements that the newly formed Children’s Centres must meet. These include:
Contributing to the Every Child Matters outcomes
Embracing the principles of Birth to Three Matters.
Ofsted inspections for the Day Care
Working within the National Assessment Framework with regards to child protection concerns.
Development of policies and procedures around the sharing of information, and around equality and diversity.
Development of an integrated multi-disciplinary team offering families a full range of services.
I work as a family project worker based in a newly formed Children’s Centre. The Centre was formally a Sure Start Project, which evolved from a Family Centre. As the organisation has changed and evolved so too has my role. My current tasks are:
To offer support to parents/carers, with a focus on the needs of ‘hard to reach families’ to enable every child to “get the best start in life” (ibid).
To work with families referred by social services where the children are either identified as vulnerable and in need of additional support in order to reach their potential, or at risk of harm.
I offer this support through individual work with families and group work with adults and children together.
The Needs of the Child
The process of change for service providers in the early years sector has been, and still is, proceeding at a rapid pace. Within this constantly changing landscape, projects must continue to support families and their children. The needs of the child can sometimes be hard to think about when so much is changing both within the organisation and in the world outside, resulting in services being target led rather than needs led. In addition a fast changing environment leaves little time and space to think about the child’s needs. It can also be difficult to think about the needs of the vulnerable child as this provokes frustration within the workers and a sense of not being able to offer enough support, or not being ‘good enough’. These feelings can mirror the family’s own experiences of children demanding more of them than they can offer, or of not being ‘good enough’ parents. An intention of the study was to re-focus thinking back to the child and their emotional needs in order to raise an awareness of how to provide ‘good enough’ support.
Rationale
Research Question
Experience has shown me that group work can be a very effective way to support families and young children. I have been involved in working in many different types of groups, but I have noticed that one particular group, a Heuristic Play Group, seems to offer both the parent and child a very unique experience. I therefore chose to ask the question, “how can play in a Heuristic Play Group be helpful to the child?”
In the study I intended to think about whether it was the special type of play in the group that was particularly helpful to the child, or whether it was the parents/carers support and observations that benefitted the child. I also wanted to think about the structure of the group and what aspects were helpful to the child. Finally I wanted to look at the emotional and social developmental needs of the children attending the group to assess whether the group was meeting these needs.
Heuristic Play
Goldschmied (2004:128) developed the concept of Heuristic Play stating that, “Heuristic Play with objects consists of offering a group of children, for a defined period of time in a controlled environment, a large number of different kinds of objects and receptacles with which they play freely without adult intervention”. Heuristic Play was initially developed for use in Nurseries and Day Care provision with the aim of providing children with an opportunity to explore everyday objects. The play was regarded as having an educational focus and was, according to Holland (in Abbott & Moylett 1997) epistemic in nature. Holland described epistemic play as being task orientated, independent of mood states, and concerned with exploration, problem solving, and information gathering.
The use of Heuristic Play spread to other settings, and Heuristic Play Groups developed. These groups took the basic idea of offering a group of children different objects with which they could explore and play freely, but it added a new dimension whereby the child’s parent or carer attended the group and observed the play. My experience of children’s play in this type of Group is that there is more evidence of ludic play behaviour (Holland in Abbott & Moylett 1997), that is play that is highly mood dependent and requires adults to be sensitive to children’s needs, than epistemic play. I believe that this is because the mother or a significant carer is also involved in the play, and I explored this in the study.
I could not find any papers on Heuristic Play Groups for parents or carers, although in Devon courses are run about the basic concept of Heuristic Play and how it can be offered in both Day Care and Family Support Settings. My interest in the group developed out of visiting Heuristic Play groups in other Family Centres following which I set up a group in my own organisation.
To summarise, there were two different reasons why I chose to study how play in a Heuristic Play Group is helpful for the child. Firstly, I wanted to study the group itself in order to identify the elements that made it such a rich experience for those who attended the group and worked in it. Secondly, I wanted to have an opportunity to think about the developmental needs of the child and how these needs can be met through group work.
Structure
To answer my question of how play in a Heuristic Play Group is helpful to the child I decided to make observations of a Heuristic Play Group, and reflect on the observations in conjunction with information from the literature review. The study contains details of the whole process of how I collected the material including the methods used, details of the group itself, and my reflections on the group. It includes the following chapters:
A Methods Chapter that explores the methods used in the study and any ethical implications that were raised around making observations of the group.
A Literature Review that explores the infant’s social and emotional development from birth to 18 months, and highlights the significance of parental care in the process.
Three chapters detailing information about the group, observations of the group, and reflections on the observations. These chapters use the literature review as a theory base for the observations and reflections.
A Conclusions Chapter detailing the possible impact of the findings in terms of family support service provision and evaluation of services.
In this chapter I shall describe the methods used to collect the data for the study, and explore the ethical concerns around the process. I shall explain what descriptive terms I used in the study, and why I used them.
Methodology
Initially, I made an internet search using the words ‘Heuristic Play, Non-directive Play, Attachment and Play’. The only information on Heuristic Play came from Goldschmied & Jackson’s book (2004). With regards to non-directive play and mother/infant attachment relationship, and play I discovered that most of studies used quantitative methods. These methods generally asked a specific question, and tried to answer it by creating a controlled environment in which patterns and changes were numerically measured and evaluated. Rudestam & Newton (1992) claim that current research in the social sciences is steeped in these empirical and quantitative traditions, and this may account for the nature of the studies I found. Rudestam & Newton (ibid. page 28) also maintain “there is a tendency in the social sciences to overemphasize the importance of ‘statistically significant’ findings”.
Qualitative Researching
To redress this balance I decided to take a qualitative approach to my study. This approach would give me a more rounded portrayal of the child’s experience, and a greater emphasis on description and discovery than a quantitative approach. My experience of past Heuristic Play Groups suggested that the play and interactions within the group provided rich and meaningful experiences for the children and adults. I hoped the study would capture the essence of these experiences and help me establish how they could be helpful, and why. According to Rudestam & Newton (ibid. page 31), “the qualitative researcher seeks a psychologically rich, in-depth understanding of the individual”, and Mason (1996:4) suggests that “it is a great strength of qualitative research that it cannot be neatly pigeonholed and reduced to a simple and prescriptive set of principles”. Ely (1991:4) believes that “qualitative researchers want those who are studied to speak for themselves, to provide their perspectives in words and other actions”; she regards qualitative research as an “interactive process in which the persons studied teach the researcher about their lives”. The pre-verbal child is unable to speak for him/herself and I needed to consider this when choosing my specific methods.
Participant Observations & Reflective Enquiry
Taking into account my objectives to give the pre-verbal child to a voice and to produce a study that explored their experiences and interactions in depth, I decided to use participant observations and reflective enquiry to collect my data. I chose to make the observations of children’s play and interactions during nine Heuristic Play Group sessions that took place weekly in our Centre. In these groups I would be a participant by virtue of co-facilitating the group, and, at the same time, an observer. The role of the adults in the group, including the facilitators, is to observe and support the children in their play, and therefore my dual task of facilitator and observer fitted together well. The observations would allow the children’s communications to be examined, and my reflections on the children would create the depth to the enquiry.
Mason (1996) suggested that the researcher becomes an interpreter or ‘knower’ of the data observed as well as being an experiencer. The knowing or interpreting would come about from my reflecting on the experiences. I planned to achieve this in several ways:
By reflecting on the experience during the actual moment
By talking with the parents and carers about the group in our discussion time at the end of the session
By reflecting on the experience with my colleagues after the group and
Whilst writing up my observation notes the following day.
The depth of my enquiry would be achieved through the reflections. Ward (1998:218) listed various meanings of reflection:
“Individual reflection on self
Reflection of another: mimesis
‘Reflecting back’ to another
The (unconscious) reflection process in supervision
Dramatization/enactment/resonance:
Mutual unconscious reflection in the group
Role play/sculpting/dramatherapy:
Conscious use of reflection in the group
The matching principle:
Aiming to facilitate reflection”.
The participant observations in the group would present me with the opportunity to reflect on myself by thinking about how I was feeling at a given moment, and to reflect on another when watching the child. I would be reflecting back to the adults in the group during the discussion where some unconscious reflection might also take place, and I would reflect back with my colleagues after the session thus facilitating their reflective practice. The use of self and reflective enquiry was a key element of my learning on the MA in Therapeutic Child Care, and I intended to use the skills in the study.
Returning to participant observations, Bullock (in Kahan 1989) noted they are an excellent method of understanding the contexts of situations and its meaning for those involved, but he acknowledged that one can never truly be a participant observer. I was aware that I possibly would be able to be as close to a truly participant observer as possible due to my dual role of observer for research, and observer as a practitioner.
Ethical Issues
I needed to explore ethical issues from the point of view of both the University and my work place. The University of Reading ethics and research committee guidance to departments stated that studies must be “based on work carried out within the normal bounds of the professional, such as observation of normal or routine tasks” (The University of Reading 2004) in order to meet the requirements of their Stage One Ethics, and therefore I needed to demonstrate that this was the case in my study.
The University committee also stated that none of the families involved should have a special relationship with the student, and that none of the families involved were clients of social services. At the time of my dissertation, as far as I was aware, none of the families were clients of social services, and I was not offering individual support to any of the families outside of the group.
In my work place, the main ethical issue I needed to consider was whether it was in the best interests of the families in the group for me to undertake the study and observations. When thinking about the best interests of the families, I explored whether the study could have a harmful effect on either the group or the individuals attending it. I also thought about how I intended to share information about the study and obtain permission, and how I would maintain confidentiality of those involved.
Did the study fall within the bounds of my normal work role?
My study fell within this category because my observations formed part of my normal work role, which included running groups for parents and carers who attend our Centre.
Another part of my normal work role involved evaluating groups. This was a necessary task for two reasons. Firstly, our organisation was required to produce evaluations of all our services for the National Evaluation of Sure Start Services, in order to prove that we met the requirements of the “Every Child Matters” agenda, and to demonstrate the effectiveness of our services. Secondly, evaluations provided an opportunity for our organisation to think about our services, and whether the services met the needs of our clients. My study enabled me to think about the group, and how and why it was effective whilst providing material for evaluation documents.
Was the study in the best interests of both the families attending and the organisation?
To answer this question I looked at the ethical framework produced by the Pen Green Nursery and Research Centre to see if my study fell within their guidelines. I decided to look at the Pen Green Centre framework for two reasons. Firstly, our organisation had developed close links with the Pen Green Centre when our management team undertook training there. Secondly, we have used principles developed at the Centre to underpin our work. Whalley (2001) outlined their ethical code stating that research at Pen Green should always:
Be positive for all the participants
Provide data that are open to, accountable to, and interpreted by all the participants
Focus on questions that the participants themselves (parents, children and staff) are asking
Be based on a relationship of trust where people’s answers are believed, and
Produce results which are about improving practice at home and at nursery, or at least sustaining it.
The aims of my study were to look at the group from the child’s perspective and try to understand their needs and communications. I hoped that this would produce a positive outcome for the adults by supporting them to be more attuned to their children. In addition, the parents/carers had an opportunity to think about the observations during the group, and read my observations at any time. The study focused on frequently asked parent’s questions about their toddler’s developmental needs, and their inner world. Looking to the future I would like the finished document to be available in the Centre for staff, clients, and other professionals to read, and I intend to explore with my manager whether we can use the findings for evaluation purposes. I reflected on these points and came to the conclusion that my study did fall within the Pen Green Ethical Framework.
Did I need to obtain the parents’ permission?
It was clear to me that I needed to obtain the parents’ permission in order to meet the Pen Green criteria of providing data this is open to, accountable to, and interpreted by all the participants, but I asked myself the question “why was this important?” Cain (1997) listed the arguments for and against asking clients’ permission when undertaking research. He noted that students are both practitioners and researchers. He talked about candour in the professional-client relationship, where the professional is open and imparts information to which the client has a right, and one of his arguments for obtaining permission was that the client has a right to know about a proposed study, and indicate whether they agree to participate.
Before I commenced the study I discussed this issue of obtaining parents’ permission with work colleagues and my manager, and they also agreed that openness and honesty is a crucial component of our relationships with families, and that I needed to obtain informed consent. However, it was acknowledged that this could create a degree of anxiety for families who attended the group although staff felt that overall the outcome would be positive for families. They suggested that the group would possibly develop a stronger focus on observing the children than previous groups, and they thought the parents would learn from this.
As a result of our discussions about consent I decided to either visit each family intending to attend the group, or speak to them individually in the Centre, in order to discuss my study with them. In addition I wrote a letter to them about the study (see Appendix) asking for their written consent. During the sessions I was aware that I needed to ensure that confidentiality was maintained about which families had agreed to be involved in the study, and which families were not involved.
Parents or carers and children as participants in the study
The parents or carers themselves had a role to play in the study through their observations and comments about their child’s play. My hope was that the study would provide an opportunity to further develop the process of the group’s reflection on the children’s play, and help to establish what was helpful for the child, and why it was helpful.
The children were also participants through their attendance, but they were unable to give their consent because of their developmental age. In view of this, when writing up the observations, I anonymised all the information in order to protect the identity of the parents, carers and children. In addition, I did not include any information from outside of the group in the narrative. I endeavoured to record the observations as honestly and accurately as possible, and I interpreted the information in terms of my literature review, and my question of “how play in a Heuristic Play Group can be helpful to the child?” in order to keep the observations within the bounds of my study.
Use of Language
In my literature review I thought carefully about the descriptive terms I used when talking about infants and their carers. The study focused on this relationship and therefore needed clarity about who was being described. It could be argued that the nature of the relationship might be different depending on whether the primary carer was the infant’s biological mother or someone else. I confined my study to the mother/infant relationship, with the exception of the toddler period where I referred to the parent and/or carer. In my professional practice it is normally the mother who is the primary carer, although as the infant gets older, other carers, (for example fathers grandparents, child minders) use our services.
In terms of the infant I used this word to represent the whole pre-verbal period under study, and I used descriptive words like newborn and toddler when focusing on a particular age in infancy. For ease of writing I referred to the infant as a boy.
We are all personalities that grow and develop as a result of all our experiences, relationships, thoughts, and emotions. We are the sum total of all the parts that go into the making of a life. (Axline 1973:182)
Introduction
In this chapter I shall look at the infant’s emotional and social development and their subsequent developing sense of self from birth to 18 months in the context of their relationship with their mother or primary carer.
Throughout my career of working with parents/carers and young children I have intuitively known that the relationship between the primary carer and infant during the first two years of the infant’s life plays a significant role in shaping the child’s developing personality. This understanding was validated when I learnt about attachment theory and psychoanalytic theories. I shall look at the work of Schore, Stern, Winnicott, Bowlby, and Brazelton and Cramer.
Schore, (1994) brought together ideas from many different disciplines including neurobiology, developmental psychology, developmental psychoanalysis, and infant psychiatry. He emphasised the importance of the relationship between the primary carer and infant in terms of the infant’s developing brain. He said (ibid.:3) “Events that occur during infancy, especially transactions with the social environment, are indelibly imprinted into the structures that are maturing in the first years of life. The child’s first relationship, the one with the mother, acts as a template, as it permanently moulds the individual’s capacities to enter into all later emotional relationships”. He also claimed “The principle that the early events of development have far-reaching and long enduring effects is one of the very few elemental and overarching postulates that is shared by all disciplines studying living organisms”.
His research demonstrated that the right brain hemisphere, the area of the brain that deals with primitive, primary emotions and affect regulation, is the dominant part of the brain during the first three years of life, with the left hemisphere, the more complex and linguistic side, not starting its growth spurt until 18 months (ibid.). He claimed that the infant’s early experiences of social and emotional interactions become imprinted in their growing brain, and this lays down the pattern for future management of emotions.
In his attachment theory Bowlby also emphasised the crucial nature of the primary carer and infant attachment relationship, and how over time this relationship acts as a template for the child’s future relationships with other people. He said that (1988:127) “During the first two or three years the pattern of attachment is a property of the relationship, for example, child to mother or child to father, and that if the parent treats the child differently the pattern will change accordingly. However, as a child grows older, the pattern becomes increasingly a property of the child himself, which means that he tends to impose it, or some derivative of it, upon new relationships”. This theory fits well with Schore’s theories about brain development where patterns are being laid, and changed, during the infant’s early life as the right hemisphere grows and develops, but that the patterns become more set in later years as this growth spurt diminishes.
Stern (1985) was concerned with how the infant develops a sense of self and a sense of others, claiming that this matter is at the heart of philosophical speculation on human nature. He made an assumption that some sense of self exists within the infant long before self-awareness and language develops. He viewed the development of a sense of self as a process, and he noticed that infants possess different senses of self according to their developmental ages. However, he maintained that each sense of self is a fully functioning entity that will remain active throughout life, and that each one will continue to grow and co-exist with the others. He too placed great importance on the first two years of life, and like Bowlby and Schore, he highlighted the important role played by the infant’s primary carer, and the social and emotional interactions between them.
Winnicott (1950) talked about the infant’s ego; that is the different parts of the infant’s personality made up from their internal and external experiences. He claimed that ego integration is the point at which the different parts have come together as a whole within the infant. According to Winnicott, this process happens during the first year of life, and at the end of this period, if all has gone well, the infant will have developed a sense of Me and Not-me. He claimed the infant would need to have experienced ‘good enough’ care from their primary carer in order to achieve ego integration.
Dockar Drysdale (1968) wrote extensively about working with children who had not reached the state of ego integration, where the children’s behaviour could be wildly aggressive and destructive, and/or their personalities could be merged with the environment. She showed how children could receive the ‘primary experiences’ that they either lost or never experienced as babies at a later point in their life, but her work also showed how difficult and long this process would be.
Winnicott’s theory of integration highlights the necessity for the infants care to be ‘good enough’, and Dockar Drysdale’s work shows how difficult it is to provide this care once the infant has grown up into a child. According to Schore (op. cit.) pathways in the child’s brain will have been set by their early experiences, and it is much harder for the pathways to be changed and re-set outside of this early growth period.
All these theories cast a strong light on what is happening in the inner world of the infant, on the origins of the infant’s developing sense of self, and on how the infant learns to regulate his emotions. I will look at these theories in greater depth in order to evaluate why and how the infant’s play experiences during Heuristic Play Group sessions are beneficial to the child.
My literature review will cover a wide range of complex and different ideas. I therefore need to find a way to condense and bring together the most significant theories, and to present them in a format that is easy for the practitioner to understand. To this end I have developed a framework within which I will explore the key concepts, and within which I can join together the different ideas into a coherent whole. My framework will look at the developmental needs of the infant from birth to toddlerhood.
Jigsaw Puzzle Framework for Understanding the Infant’s Developing Sense of Self
In this framework I am making an assumption that each human being is born with the possibility of becoming a unique picture according to their genetic blueprint and physiological make up, and I shall represent this picture as a jigsaw puzzle with the completed puzzle being a person’s sense of self. Many, but not all, of the pieces of this jigsaw will be put together during the first two years of life, giving the child a fairly clear or strong sense of self by the age of two. The helpful interactions and experiences that the infant has in his early life can be likened to the joining together of the jigsaw puzzle pieces. Conversely, if a child has few helpful experiences their puzzle will be full of gaps, and the picture, that is their sense of self, will be unclear. Unhelpful experiences can be likened to the wrong pieces being fitted, thus distorting the picture. Too many unhelpful experiences, namely abusive and severely neglectful experiences, will give a hugely distorted picture, and repair work (McMahon 1995 & Dockar Drysdale op. cit.) will be needed in order to create a clearer picture.
The framework takes into account Schore’s ideas of the growing brain and brain organisation (op. cit.). In the framework the joining of the pieces of the puzzle can be likened to the neuronal connections that happen in the baby’s brain when the infant experiences consistent and reliable care, and positive social interactions. The unhelpful experiences, in other words the wrong jigsaw pieces being fitted, can be likened to the creation of stress hormones and the subsequent alteration of brain chemistry that happens when an infant suffers abuse and/or trauma. Schore (1998) said that, “prolonged negative states are toxic to infants”.
I shall divide my jigsaw into four sections representing four different developmental phases, and I shall label these in developmental ages. The phases will end at 18 months when, if all has gone well, the puzzle will be showing a fairly clear picture, the infant will have reached ego integration (Winnicott 1950 & 1965) and will have developed a sense of a subjective self (Stern 1984). The growth spurt of the right side of the brain corresponds well to my phases where, during this period, the main task concerning the infant is affect regulation leading to the origins of self (Schore 1998).
The phases also provide a structure within which I can explore the different theories, thus enabling a comparison and joining together of the different ideas. Within each of the phases I will explore the different theories about what is happening in the inner world of the infant, and at the same time think about the infant’s emotional needs. In addition I will look at the infant’s social relatedness and their developing ability to play with other individuals and with objects.
The four phases I will be looking at are: the Newborn (Birth to 2 months), the Baby (2 to 7 months), the Older Baby (7 to 12 months), and the Toddler (1 to 1 ½ years). The toddler phase roughly corresponds to the age of infants in the Heuristic Play Group.
The Newborn Baby (birth to 2 months) – Getting to Know Each Other
My experience of both observing and working with mothers and their new born babies suggest that the first two months of the infant’s life is a time when the mother and baby are getting to know each other. In many ways this can be both a wonderful and difficult process with the mother and baby being vulnerable on occasions to not getting it right. In some dyads there appears an almost magical understanding between mother and baby, but in others it takes time for the mother to understand and pick up on her baby’s cues. In addition the baby himself will begin to develop strategies to engage and disengage with his mother, and each baby will have his own individual characteristics that will influence his ability to do this. Brazelton & Cramer (1991:89) noticed this when they talked of the newborn baby producing behaviour (a smile, a vocalization, or a movement) that is initially accidental, and that the parent reinforces with a positive response. Conversely, the baby will turn away from the parent, or may hiccup or sneeze if the stimulation from the parent is too intense.
In terms of the newborn’s emotional development, a prime issue for the baby is physiological regulation, (Sroufe 1996:161) and the role of the caregiver is to offer smooth routines. Winnicott (1950 & 1965) also acknowledged importance of the physical care of the newborn, but he regarded the “holding” aspect of maternal care as a physical and psychological process, with the mother’s careful handling of her baby an expression of her love for her baby. Winnicott (ibid.) suggested that the “good enough mother” would initially adapt to her newborn’s needs through her everyday care of him, and during the early weeks when the newborn is absolutely dependent on his mother or carer she would be in a state of “primary maternal pre-occupation”
Bion (1962) talked about “maternal reverie” where the “good enough mother” manages and contains her baby’s distress, thinks about it, and returns it to the baby in a more bearable form. This process begins from the start of the baby’s life and continues as the baby grows. I will look at this in greater depth in the next phase.
Stern (1985) suggested that the newborn baby occupies some kind of pre-social, precognitive, pre-organized life phase during the first two months of life. He called this phase a sense of emergent self, where different aspects of the baby’s self are becoming organised within the infant. These aspects include the new born baby’s coherence, actions, inner feeling states, and memory. The sense of self is coming into being, but does not, as yet, exist in its own right.
Sroufe (1996) maintained that the newborn baby’s early experiences are primarily important for the patterns that are being established. When referring to patterns Sroufe was thinking in terms of the infant’s expression of need and the mother’s response to his need. Murray and Andrews (2000:11) noticed that the newborn baby has a highly adaptive ability to elicit responses from their caregivers. They commented that newborn babies are totally dependent on others to care for them, and it is essential for their survival that they are in a relationship with a caregiver who is reliable and sensitive to their needs. It would appear that they are born with instinctual behaviours that are designed to encourage appropriate responses from their mothers. Brazelton and Cramer (op. cit.) also made this point when they talked about the newborn as a participant.
It is clear that the newborn baby is unable to survive without the care of an adult, and this relationship is highly significant when thinking in terms of the newborn’s health and well-being, as Winnicott famously claimed “there’s no such thing as a baby” –“…….if you show me a baby you certainly show me also someone caring for the baby……..” (Abram 1996:2).
In terms of the jigsaw puzzle framework I suggest that it is too soon to start fitting pieces during the newborn phase, but the essential task of sorting the pieces and beginning the edges of the picture must begin now. Bick (1987) wrote about the young baby’s skin holding the parts of the baby’s personality together and functioning as a boundary. In my framework the edge pieces can be seen as a boundary in a similar way, although in the framework the infant is dependent on a person, usually the mother, to fit the pieces.
I return to my idea of this phase being about the mother and newborn baby getting to know each other. The mother is learning to read her baby’s signals, and the baby is learning how to elicit a response from her. In addition to the baby having a unique genetic blueprint each mother will have her own individual personality, plus her personal history including her experience of being cared for as a baby herself, plus other life experiences, plus her own personal circumstances at the time of birth, all of which she will bring to the relationship. These things will interact together to create the climate of the mother/baby relationship and to determine the quality of future interactions between them. Brazelton & Cramer (op. cit.) discussed the individual differences between babies, noting that these differences will elicit different responses from different mothers. The nature of the relationship will be affected by the mother’s ability to match her responses to her baby’s individual needs, and by the baby’s ability to adapt to his mother’s ways of being. Over time, adaptation by the baby can lead to the infant developing an unhelpful way of behaving, a fitting of wrong pieces in the jigsaw puzzle framework, and if this adaptation is prolonged it will become part of the infant’s personality as the behaviour and responses become etched in the infant’s growing brain. Winnicott (op.cit.) described this as the infant developing a “false self”
To summarise, the main task of the mother and baby during the first two months is to get to know each other. The mother’s prime concern will be the meeting of her baby’s physical needs, and her baby’s prime concern is to get these needs met in order to survive. To this end the infant is born with instinctual behaviours that elicit responses from his mother, and these responses lead to the engagement of social interactions between the infant and mother. These interactions will set the patterns of their future relationship, and this will subsequently become imprinted in the infant’s growing brain.
The Baby (2 to 6 months) – Falling in Love
In this phase the mother’s responses to her baby will begin to influence the infant’s developing sense of self. There are two sides to these responses: the mother’s ability to manage her baby’s distress, and the positive social interactions and play between them. I shall explore these later but initially I intend to look at things from the baby’s perspective.
Thinking about the relationship from the perspective of the baby Naomi Stadlen (2004) asked the question “what do babies seem to want?” She drew the conclusion that (2004:131) “mothers describe how – more than entertainment, more than play, perhaps even more than safety, food or comfort – babies want us to make room for them in our busy lives. They want us to welcome them, to allow them to listen to what we are saying and to be listened to, to share our good times and our bad, to be shown everything that we get up to and to be included in what we do, as proper people”.
Picking up on Stadlen’s phrase of “proper people” I noticed that Stern (1985:65) said, “By the age of two to three months, infants begin to give the impression of being quite different persons. When engaged in social interaction, they appear to be more wholly integrated. . . . . . . . .and the world now begins to treat them as if they are complete persons and do possess an integrated sense of themselves”.
Both quotations suggest that there is something in the baby that draws their mother and others into a reciprocal relationship with them. I have called this period of the infant’s life the ‘falling in love phase’. I have noticed that during this phase the baby interacts in a way that suggests he is capable of giving and receiving love. He does seem to really need, and thrive on, human company, and in particular his mother’s company. He is preconditioned to look at faces and respond to social interactions, and to recognise his mother by sight, sound, and smell (Stern 1977). If the mother is able to pick up on these cues and respond accordingly she can begin to embark on a deeply rewarding relationship with her baby. Indeed, it is as if they are falling in love.
Stern (op. cit.) suggested that the prevailing view of clinical developmental theory does not reflect the image of an infant with an integrated sense of self, but rather that their ability to develop a sense of self and a sense of other will grow slowly over the first year of life. He claimed that the infant’s sense of self during this period (2 to 7 months) is not a cognitive construct but an experiential integration. He suggested that the baby experiences a sense of core self versus other, and with other, eventually leading to a sense of subjective self, through his social interactions. Put simply, the mother loves the baby as if he had already attained “true personhood” (Shatz 1995:6), but it is this love that enables him to become fully human.
I shall look at this theme of personhood alongside Bion’s theory of maternal reverie (1962) and the containment of distress (see page 23). The significant part of the process of maternal reverie lies in the mother’s ability to be attuned to her baby’s distress. She needs to be able to feel the distress as if it were her own, she must then be able to bear the distress, and finally she must be able to respond to the distress by gently reflecting it back to her baby in a more bearable form. Over time if these patterns of responses are repeated the baby will develop a sense that there is a person (or persons) who cares about them, that they are worthy of care, that distress is not too awful to bear, and in time this enables them to manage their own distress. To offer maternal reverie with meaning, the mother will need to feel that the baby is a true person in order to truly emphasise with him.
Stadlen (2004:66) looked at a similar concept, which she called comforting. She believed comforting went beyond mere soothing or helping the baby to stop crying. She suggested that when comforting the mother is not just trying to change her baby’s behaviour, but she feels compassionate toward his distress, and she wishes she could help. She went on to describe the process that takes place when a mother comforts her baby. This included an initial immediate response to the distress, followed by an assessment of how bad things are, followed by a calm action that conveyed a message to the baby that she could contain his upset, and finally a soothing of the baby through rocking motions and the making of crooning noises.
Schore (1988) described what happens in the brain during incidents that can be likened to Stadlen’s “comforting” and Bion’s “maternal reverie”. He said, “The mother empathically resonates with the child’s state, regulates it, and then communicates it back in a form that can be internalised. This regulated affective transaction facilitates the experience dependent maturation of the right brain that occurs in the first year and a half of life”. Overtime the process will actually become imprinted in the infant’s brain, providing the infant with a prototype of how he will expect people to respond to his distress, and whether distress is something that is manageable.
Bion, Stadlen, and Schore are saying much the same thing. It would appear that what is significant in terms of making a lasting impact on the brain structure and organisation is the care and sensitivity behind the action. Stern recognised this when he noted that, “strong feelings and important representations are forged not necessarily by the very acts of being fed or put to sleep but rather by the manner in which these acts are performed” (1985:104).
In my jigsaw puzzle framework these moments of “maternal reverie” and “comforting” will be pieces fitted into the puzzle helping the infant to develop a fuller sense of self. Alongside these pieces will be the pieces fitted when the mother and baby, or carer and baby, interact in games like “Peep-Bo” and “I’m going to get you”, and also during their everyday moments of conversations and interactions when the baby is in an awake and alert state (Brazelton & Cramer 1991:65). This is the other side of the coin of interactions that influence the infant’s developing sense of self. Winnicott (1971) suggested that the mother acts like a mirror during interactions, and that the baby sees himself reflected in his mother’s face. However, Brazelton & Cramer (1991) suggested that baby is being drawn into a relationship with his mother where his responses are expected, accepted, and enjoyed. They said (ibid.:115) “that by matching her rhythms, her behaviours to the baby’s, she (the mother) enters the baby’s world, offering an incentive to reach for her”. The baby is actually building up a picture of himself from her responses.
In addition puzzle pieces will be fitted during moments of sensory play and care. McMahon (1999:216) noted that, “the baby will use its senses to experience the world and to find its own ‘edges’, not only physical but emotional”. She went on to say that the baby “responds with its whole body to sounds such as rhythmical heartbeat, to being spoken to or sung to, to touch and smell and taste of the mother’s milk and her body, to being held, or exposed through being changed or undressed, or immersed in the bath”. Again the vital ingredient of these experiences is that they are delivered with sensitivity.
To summarise, the mother’s ability to provide appropriate and sensitive experiences to her infant will depend on the nature of her relationship with her baby. The baby in turn acts as if he is a fully integrated person, and his preconditioned social behaviour acts as an invitation for the mother to engage in a loving relationship with him. When working with families I never fail to be moved by the adoring gaze of a baby for his mother, and I try to raise mothers’ awareness of this in order to nurture the very special mother-baby relationship.
The Older Baby (7 to 12 Months) – Developing Autonomy
In the second half of the first year of life the infant is beginning to develop a degree of autonomy. He is increasingly able to exercise control over his body and has less need to be physically held. In addition he is able to physically move into different positions and places. In social interactions he is more able to dominate the mother’s behaviour by both initiating interaction and turning away from it (Brazelton & Cramer 1991:126). His growing autonomy and physical abilities are opening up a new world to him beyond the close relationship with his mother, father, and other significant carers, for him to explore and master.
The infant’s development is dependent on his mother’s, and/or primary carer’s ability to foster this growing autonomy. Winnicott (1950 & 1965) regarded this phase of development, from 6 months to 2 years, as particularly important. He called it the period of “relative dependence” during which the mother will gradual lower her degree of adaptation to the baby’s needs thus creating the space, and opportunity, for the infant to experience frustration, leading to a dispelling of his sense of omnipotence. This needs to happen for the infant to develop a sense of Me and Not-me. Abram (1996:130) said, “By ‘failing’ in this way, the mother, unknowingly, allows the infant to feel and experience his needs. This ‘failure’ contributes to his developing sense of self – a self that is Me and separate from mother”. Towards the end of the first year the infant will, according to Winnicott, have attained ego integration, and will have a sense of Me and Not-me, providing his early care was “good enough”.
Winnicott (1971) talked about a space being created within the mother/baby relationship when the baby feels that the mother is separated off from him, and that play can take place within this “potential space”. He regarded playing as natural, as belonging to health and facilitating growth, as leading to group relationships, and as a form of communication (1971:41). Winnicott clearly regarded play between the mother and baby as a normal and beneficial aspect of the relationship. He claimed that the “potential space” would exist when the baby has a sense of being separate from his mother, and that this happens during this period of relative dependence. However, looking at the “potential space” from Stern’s perspective (1985) it could be argued that the infant already has a sense of a core self that is developing from his social interactions from the age of two to three months. Therefore, the “potential space” could exist in the previous phase, much earlier than Winnicott first proposed. Certainly if Winnicott was referring to the playful games and interactions I mentioned earlier like “Peep-Bo” then they do belong to the earlier phase.
Winnicott (op. cit.) also identified transitional phenomena. He claimed that the infant adopts an object from the external world, like a part of a sheet or blanket, or soft toy, to represent his mother. He will do this at the stage where he begins to see his mother as not himself, and he realizes he needs to stand on his own two feet (Abram 1996). The object holds great significance for the infant.
During this period the older baby is developing a degree of autonomy and is able to instigate and control social interactions. He is able to move more freely and become interested in the environment around him, and he can use external objects to represent the good things that his mother or carer provides in her absence, thus helping him to manage a more independent existence. Brazelton & Cramer (1991:127) recognized the importance of autonomy claiming that, “autonomous behaviour on the part of infants at this age is a sign of a healthy relationship and the lack of it, an apparent symbiosis or fusion, is a sign of impaired attachment”. The infant’s ability to initiate interactions and the extent of his desire to explore the world will depend not just on his natural intrinsic motivation, but also on his internal working model of how he expects his mother and/or carer to respond to him.
To summarise, the needs of the older baby are to explore the wider environment around them and to develop greater autonomy. However, in order to do this successfully he needs to have experienced reliable and sensitive care in the earlier phases of his life. He may use a transitional object to help him manage the anxiety resulting from his mother’s failure of total adaptation to his needs, and it is important to his development to experience, and to cope with, this failure.
For the mother, father, and carers there is a fine line between encouraging the baby to explore and keeping him safe from danger. The baby needs to feel that he will be sensitively responded to in times of distress, but he also needs to be encouraged to develop autonomy. Sroufe (1996:161) maintained that this phase involves the establishment of an effective attachment relationship, and that the role of the caregiver is to be responsively available. I suggest that all the maternal responses throughout the infant’s life will have been leading towards this relationship, but the nature of the relationship, whether secure or insecure, will become evident during the next phase of the infant’s development.
The Toddler (1 to 1 ½ Years) – Finding their Feet
Schore (1994) placed great importance on this phase, and in the forward to his book (op. cit.: xxiii) Grotstein claimed that “he (Schore) brought to our attention the unusual importance of a particular stage of infancy, 10-12 months to 16-18 months, the practicing subphase of separation and individuation, a period of heightened activation of the sympathetic aspects of the autonomic nervous system, and the need for the mother to attune properly to the infant’s excitement at that time”. Sroufe (1996) regarded the period as one of exploration and mastery and identified the parent/carer’s role as providing a secure base. He claimed that establishment of the attachment relationship will have begun during the previous phase. Finally Stern (1985) claimed that at the end of the last phase and during this phase the infant will be developing a sense of subjective self, that is a growing awareness that not only does he has his own thoughts, feelings, and intentions, but that other people also have theirs.
What does this mean for the toddler and his development? My experience of observing and working with families and their toddlers is that this is a significant time. Usually the toddler has found his feet, and he is keen to explore the world, making this a time of great excitement for him and his parents and carers. Mahler (1975:71) recognised the significance of the infant learning to walk claiming that “the plane of his vision changes; from an entirely new vantage point he finds unexpected and changing perspectives, pleasures, and frustrations”. It can also be a time of tension for the toddler who is driven by two forces. Stern (1991:93) called these two forces the attachment system, and the exploratory system. The exploratory system pulls the toddler into the environment in order to explore it, and the attachment system pulls him back towards his mother or carer in times of felt danger, including separation from them. The forces are kept in balance by the carer’s ability to provide a secure base. If the base feels secure to the toddler, in other words the mother/carer and infant have a secure attachment relationship, the toddler will be able to explore the environment more freely. (McMahon 2001)
John Bowlby (1969) first noticed that infants exhibited different behaviours to their primary carer in times of felt danger, and that these developed according to their carers’ responses to their distress. He labelled the relationships as either secure or insecure, with two further subgroups in the insecure category. According to Bowlby, a secure attachment relationship indicates that the toddler will have developed an inner working model based on past experiences that his mother or primary carer is available and responsive to his distress, thus the world is a safe place to explore. A toddler with an insecure ambivalent attachment relationship will have developed an inner working model based on past experiences that his distress is met with inconsistent responses, and that he needs to maximise his expression of distress to obtain a response. The attachment relationship will be characterised by conflict and over identification leaving little room for exploration. A toddler with an insecure avoidant attachment relationship will have developed an inner working model based on past experiences that his mother or primary carer will be available to support him providing he does not become overly distressed. He will have learnt to deal with his distress himself. He may choose to busy himself by exploring the environment but it will be with one eye on his carer checking her availability, and with less sharing of affect. In subsequent observations a further category of behaviours were noticed (Bowlby: 1988), where the source of comfort to distress was also the source of danger. In these circumstances the toddler will have no effective strategy of maintaining felt safety. The care giving base will not only feel insecure but sometimes feel dangerous, thus leaving the infant with both an internal and external sense that the world is dangerous and little can be done to make it feel safe.
Schore (1988) noticed that the development of the attachment working model corresponds to the growth of the prefrontal cortex in the brain claiming that the brain is, “a self organising system”, but that “self organisation of the developing brain occurs in the context of a relationship with another self, another brain”. His research has shown that the two go hand in hand; as the attachment relationship develops, the nature of the interactions become imprinted in the infant’s growing brain.
Bowlby’s work concentrated on the primary carer’s ability to provide a secure base for the infant in times of felt danger. According to Schore, the caregiver not only provides a secure base for the toddler, but they regulate the toddler’s explorations into the world. (1994). He claimed that it is the caregiver’s watchful eye and facial responses towards the toddler whilst he is playing, plus the caregiver’s responses to him during his reunion with her, whether it be because he is distressed or just in need of emotional “refuelling” (Mahler in Schore ibid.:99), that assists the infant in regulating his internal state of arousal. He went on to say that the reunion transactions have long-term enduring effects on the infant’s developing ability to appraise environmental stimuli, and that this ability will continue throughout their life.
Stern explored the primary carer infant relationship in terms of the infant’s developing sense of self, and he too regarded this phase as important. He claimed (1991) that by 12 months of age the infant realises that he has his own private mindscape, with a mindscape containing intentions, desires, feelings, attention, thoughts and memories occurring in his mind but which are invisible to others, and that this mindscape can be shared with someone else. He suggested that the infant has a vague sense that his mother or primary carer may be able to perceive his feelings, and that his face provides a means of her thus ‘reading’ him. He called this sense of self “the sense of subjective self”, claiming that it begins towards between the seventh and ninth month of life when the infant gradually realizes the inner subjective experiences are potentially shareable with someone else, and continues to develop through this phase (1985:124).
To summarise, the nature of the attachment relationship between the infant and the primary carer affects the quantity and quality of the infant’s explorations. The primary carer’s responses to reunions whilst the infant is exploring, or if the infant becomes distressed, will become etched in the infant’s developing brain. These experiences, along with the sharing mindscapes between the primary carer and infant, can be likened to the fitting of pieces in the jigsaw puzzle framework, and will help to determine the full picture of the infant’s sense of self.
Many of these events and interactions will take place within the theatre of play. Winnicott suggested that play between the mother and infant takes place within the “potential space” between them (1971). He claimed that play could give the infant a feeling of things making sense leading to a growing sense of autonomy, and that play could act as a bridge between outer and inner reality through the use of a transitional object. He believed that the infant who is ready for symbolic play is developing a sense of self (McMahon 1991). This is clearly happening when the baby uses a transitional object in the earlier phases, and in this phase when the toddler uses imitation in reciprocal play (McMahon 1992). Winnicott described the toddler as sometimes playing ‘alone in the presence of someone’ who is reliably there when needed and who at times reflects back what happens in the playing” (McMahon 2001:104). However, as well as reflecting back what the toddler is playing, the primary carer may enter into the play and share the experience with the toddler, thus the toddler and carer are sharing a mindscape (Stern op. cit.).
Summary
It has been difficult trying to bring together all the different experiences that add to the infant’s developing sense of self, in particular it has been difficult to fit these into different phases because each phase is inter-dependent and linked to the others. Psychoanalytic theories traditionally saw infant development in terms of critical stages in which issues come to ascendancy and are resolved during each stage (Stern 1985:20), whereas Bowlby (1988:135) claimed that the infant develops along one or another of potential pathways, some of which are compatible with healthy development, and some of which are incompatible. My jigsaw puzzle framework has looked at the infant’s developing sense of self from another angle where all experiences will help or hinder the process, and different experiences will have different degrees of importance at different times. I have looked at a wealth of experiences and interactions. Some of these have been the positive, mutual sharing of interactions during play and social experiences, and some have been the infant’s experience of how their distress was responded to. All of these experiences will influence the infant’s growing brain, but the degree of influence will depend on the frequency of the experiences, when the experience takes place in terms of the infant’s age, and the quality of the experience.
I intend to use the framework and the theories I have explored as a template for my observations. I will collect the toddler’s experiences from my observations of them with their carer during the group, and I will evaluate what is happening for the toddler in terms of the different theories. I may then be in a position to demonstrate how play in a Heuristic Group can be helpful for the child.
This chapter looks at the background to the Heuristic Play Group that runs in our organisation, and give details of the group under study. It explains the structure of the group illustrating the points with observations from the group under study. Finally, two outcomes of the group are identified with links to theory.
Background to the Group
Heuristic Play Groups have been running in our Centre for over three years, with each group consisting of approximately 10 sessions. Families either requested a space in the group themselves, or were referred to the group, or were invited to attend the group. It was usually the mother who attended with her child, but fathers, couples, grandparents and friends have also been involved. The infant was normally walking, or nearly walking, when they started coming, and they were between the ages of 12 months to 18 months.
The group was developed with the dual objectives of:
Offering children an experience of non-directive play using everyday objects such as different textures of materials and floor coverings, boxes, baskets, CD’s, bags, shells, wooden and metal bowls, tins, tubes, chains, bags, keys, paper, cellophane, pegs, bottles, curtain rings, jewellery, spoons, and much more.
Giving parents or carers the opportunity to observe, think about, and share in their toddler’s play.
The group I observed for my study ran for 9 sessions and it consisted of twelve families and three staff. It ran weekly for an hour and a half. All the families who attended the group gave their permission for me to observe their child. The mother attended with her child in all but two of the families. In those two families a grandmother came to one session with the child, and the child’s mother came to the other sessions. During one session both parents attended the group with their child.
Structure of the Group
Setting Up
Before the families arrive for the group the room is cleared of furniture except for beanbags and a couple of small tables, one that is used to make a den, and one on which objects are placed. The beanbags are situated along the edge of the room. Most the objects are arranged in clusters inside the boundary of beanbags, although some items, like the low table or den, are just outside of this boundary. Each week a different combination and pattern of objects is produced according to both the mood and personality of staff and what was noticed from the previous week.
Observation
During the staff reflections at the end of week 2 we noticed that the group felt very busy. There was too much stuff everywhere on the floor and things were getting caught up in some of the children’s feet. In addition, I felt really tired when it came to the packing away time and I sensed that this was because the children were very tired. It felt like it was all too much. We therefore decided to set out fewer items the following week and arrange them in clusters, thus creating gaps for the children to walk through.
This example illustrates how the setting up of the objects might change from week to week, and the thinking that goes into the process.
What Happens During a Session
When the families arrive for the sessions they are invited to sit on a beanbag with their child alongside them, or sitting on their lap. The next 50 minutes are the children’s ‘playtime’, and they are free to go off and explore the objects whilst the adults remain sitting on their beanbag. During this period the adult’s role is to encourage and support their child’s play without taking the initiative, and this is achieved through the adults observations of, and responses to, the children’s play. In addition adults are asked not to engage in conversations with other adults. This gives the child a sense that their parent/carer is available to support them. Some children choose not to explore the objects but prefer to watch what is happening, and some children need comforting from time to time. In both situations the adult’s role is to be with their child and meet any needs as they arise.
Parents and carers are made aware of their role within the group before they attend. With regards to the group under study I visited or spoke individually with each family about the study before they came to the first session, and at the same time I explained to them about the structure of the group and their role within it.
At the end of the ‘playtime’ the adults and children are encouraged to pack away the objects together, after which the children are given a snack. When the snack is over a worker sits with the children and provides them with a few simple toys and activities whilst the adults have a drink and group discussion time where everyone can think together about the children’s experiences.
What Happens after the Session
The staff team spend about ¾ hour at the end of the session reflecting on the group and noting anything that may need to be said or changed for the following session.
Observation
During the staff reflection time at the end of Session 7 a worker wondered whether Savannah was getting bored in the group as she seemed a little lost and was occasionally ‘pushing the boundaries’. In addition she said that it felt like the children looked bigger this week.
During the session I noticed that Esteban was pushing the boundaries by climbing on his mother’s beanbag in order to switch an electric plug on and off, and his mother had to pull him away from it on several occasions. During the parent’s discussion time Liam’s mother noticed that Liam had stood on the table in readiness to jump off it, and she had to tell him to sit down on a couple of occasions.
I asked the worker how the group had made her feel and she replied “uncomfortable”. I too had felt slightly uncomfortable and suggested that perhaps that was how several parents had been feeling. I wondered whether it was uncomfortable for the parents when children pushed boundaries or were different from previous session. During the group discussion with the mothers I did acknowledge that this week the children appeared to have quite a mixture of different feelings but I did not specifically name any.
My colleague and I decided that we might need to revisit the discussion about the children’s behaviours and possible feelings behind it next week if similar situations arose during the session.
This example illustrates the work undertaken in the staff reflection time. The group had felt “uncomfortable” because children were pushing the boundaries. We discussed the possibility that a child might be feeling bored, and my initial thought was that we needed to change something. After reflecting on the children’s different behaviours we came to an understanding that some children might have been feeling angry, upset, or anxious, rather than bored. We made a decision to take this insight to the parents in the next group discussion if this felt appropriate. The process of reflection helped us gain a deeper understanding beyond our initial feelings, and provided an opportunity for future work. This illustrates how reflective practice can influence future provision of services, and provides a possibility to engage in ‘opportunity led work’ (Ward 2002).
Containment – An Outcome from the Group
The group has very clear boundaries: the physical boundary within the room, the boundaries around the routine during the session, a boundary or expectation about the role of the parent or carer within the group, and the time boundary. These boundaries provide a safe and ‘contained’ space where, it is hoped, the children can freely play and explore, and where the adults are helped to support their child in his/her play. As illustrated in the previous example difficult feelings can be thought about and talked about during the discussion time.
The experience of firm boundaries and acknowledgement of feelings can be likened to the emotional containment felt by children in a therapeutic children’s home during group meetings between staff and children. Collie (in Hardwick & Woodhead 1999:59) said that, “on a more symbolic level these groups replicate the mother’s containment of the infant’s primitive feelings and phantasies”. In the same way the Heuristic Play Group facilitates the mother or carer’s containment of her child, replicating the containment of earlier developmental phases. In the Heuristic Play Group this containment is facilitated through the clear boundaries or rules of the group, but the child’s experience of containment will be dependent on the adults’ ability to think about them as a person with feelings. This process matches the experience of a baby and his mother. The baby will experience physical containment when his mother holds him in her arms, but his emotional experience of containment will depend on his mother’s ability to think about him as a person with feelings.
Encouraging Secure Attachment – An Outcome from the Group
The group encourages secure attachment relationships because the parent or carer is physically sat at the child’s level for the purpose of observing their child, and is therefore available to comfort and support their child when required to. The process of observing their child during the ‘playtime’, and reflecting on their child’s play during the discussion time helps to increase the parent or carer’s attunement to them. The literature review identifies a secure base plus parental attunement as being vital ingredients in a secure attachment relationship. The following example illustrates how this happens in the group.
Observation
Jessica was holding one end of a piece of ribbon and Liam was holding the other end. They were both pulling it but Jessica was unable to keep a hold of it and she let it go leaving Liam with it. At this point she became extremely distressed and started to sob. Her mother was sitting very close by on a beanbag. She opened her arms and when Jessica fell in to them sobbing she held her close to comfort her. In time Jessica’s crying stopped.
In this example Jessica’s mother provided a secure base for Jessica. She was physically close to her and available to comfort her when it was needed. She demonstrated attunement to her feelings and needs by holding her until the crying subsided. It felt like Jessica really needed comforting at that moment in time, and her mother’s care provided Jessica with a sense that during the group her distress will be responded to.
Summary
In this chapter I have given details about the group and highlighted two outcomes from it. In the narrative about containment I have illustrated that it is not just what happens in the group that matters, (i.e. the structure and rules) but how it happens, (i.e. the thought and care behind it). This point is further illustrated in the next two chapters.
In this chapter I shall look at some of my observations of the children’s play and interactions from the group. I will examine how these incidents linked with my theory base in order to establish whether they were helpful to the child and why.
I have sorted the observations into two general themes, and I have also made some comments about the group as a whole.
Theme 1 - The Attachment/Exploration Systems
In the toddler section of my literature review I explored Stern’s theory about the two forces that drive a toddler’s behaviour, which he called the attachment system and the exploratory system. I examined Bowlby’s work on attachment and the role of the primary carer in providing a secure base from which the toddler can explore his world. I highlighted Schore and Mahlers’s theories about the importance of the parent/carer’s response to their toddler at times of distress, or when the toddler approaches them for emotional “refuelling”, in helping him learn to regulate his internal state of arousal. Finally, I emphasised the value of play and how it provides an opportunity for the parent/carer to enter into the child’s world and reflect back feeling states. In Chapter 4, I showed that a process of the group was that the parent/carer provides a secure base during the sessions from which the toddler can explore the items in the room and interact with other children and adults. These theories are illustrated in Observation 1 of a girl aged 15 months.
Observation 1
During Week 2 Willow spent time away from her mother exploring objects before returning to her for emotional “refuelling”, and this to and fro continued throughout the session. During the following session the same pattern emerged, however, it felt like Willow explored the objects with more intent and on several occasions she returned to her mother with objects in her hand to share them with her. In Week 5 Willow spent a lot of time coming and going from her mother. Whilst exploring the objects she found some keys and stretched up to ‘unlock’ the door handle but she couldn’t reach so she used the hinge of the door instead in an attempt to ‘unlock’ it. Following this activity Willow returned to her mother, climbed on the beanbag and sat next to her. It felt as though Willow needed to get close to her mother. In Week 8 Willow went over to the door in the far corner of the room and was looking at the glass. Willow’s mother wondered whether she was examining the reflection of the children in the glass, and I wondered if she was looking out of the window at the world beyond the room.
These observations of Willow demonstrate how effectively she used her mother as a secure base for emotional refuelling, and to share in her play. Willow felt safe to freely explore the inside of the room, and her play with the keys and looking at the door suggested that she was playing with the idea of, or exploring the possibility of, the world beyond the boundary of the room. Her play carried an air of intent in Week 3, and she shared her pleasure about exploring with her mother by bringing objects to her. She was able to access her mother as a secure base when she needed to when she climbed on the beanbag to get close to her. The play provided an opportunity for Willow to share her mindscape with her mother (Stern 1991).
Observation 2 illustrates both the confidence and neediness of a 17 month old girl.
Observation 2
Savannah and her mother were late arriving to the session in Week 3, and on arrival Savannah immediately walked into the middle of the room and stood still watching the children. It felt like she was a bit lost. During the previous session it had felt like Savannah had made a long journey when she returned to her mother after exploration in a different part of the room.
In contrast to Weeks 2 and 3, in Week 6 Savannah appeared more confident, and she quickly found the little table that she had played on in previous sessions and immediately climbed on it. This action encouraged two other children over to Savannah and she greeted each one with a “hello”. One of the children climbed on to the table next to her. He wanted Savannah to stand up and he tried to lift her on to her feet, but Savannah wasn’t having any of it and remained firmly sat down. When she climbed down from the table Savannah returned to her mother and climbed on her. At this point she seemed to need close physical contact with her mother. My feelings were that during the session Savannah had been both confident and needy of support.
Whilst writing up this example I became aware of the size of the room, which could seem big to a toddler especially taking into account all the people present and the different objects.
As with the previous observation Savannah used her mother for support when she needed it. She demonstrated both confidence and vulnerability. During the parental discussions at the end of the sessions several mothers said they were surprised at how their children behaved in the group and mentioned that they were less confident than they thought they would be. This is illustrated in the next two observations of two children aged 18 months and 20 months respectively.
Observation 3
In the parent’s discussion at the end of Week 7 Emma’s mother commented that Emma was quite clingy during the session, and that this is different from how she is outside of the group. I had noticed that during the session Emma’s main concern was often with the people around her, namely her mother and her mother’s friend and daughter. On one occasion Emma sat on her mother’s lap holding her hands, and leaning back with her head hanging down. She then pulled herself up with the help of her mother bringing her head against her mother’s chest.
In terms of Stern’s attachment and exploration systems it could be suggested that Emma’s behaviour was mostly driven by her attachment seeking needs rather than her desire to explore. Her play with her mother suggested she needed to check that her mother would keep her safe in the game they were playing, and that she could also get close to her.
Observation 4
Esteban’s mother said that Esteban was very different in the group than at home. During his first session Esteban stayed very close to his mother and maintained physical contact with her for most of the time. He was very watchful and serious, and his mother sat still and allowed him to choose whether to play or watch. During the following session Esteban got into his play more quickly, although his sphere of play was concentrated in an area around his mother. He found a tin and placed it upside down so he could stand on it. In my opinion this made him appear bigger and stronger.
During Week 5 I was sitting next to Esteban. Initially he looked at me with what felt like a very serious gaze, and he held this gaze for some time. I responded with a smile. After this exchange I felt his gaze on me on a couple of other occasions, and I acknowledged his gaze with a smile. Esteban reacted by snuggling into his mother in a way that said “look, I’ve got my mother, I’m alright”. A short while after this communication, when I felt Esteban’s eyes were on me, I initiated a game of Peep-Bo. Esteban appeared serious at first and then smiled in response to my game. When the play had finished Esteban picked up a piece of cellophane and looked at his mother through it. She responded by gently lifting it up and they both laughed.
Esteban was absent for Week 6, and was quite anxious when he arrived for Week 7. Esteban’s anxiety was demonstrated when he refused to take his jacket off and wanted to stay close to his mother.
During Week 8 Esteban made good use of mother as a secure base by initially staying close to her before moving away from her to play. My sense was that he had thought about what he wanted to do before venturing away from mother. Towards the end of the session he climbed on to the low table. This was something he had watched other children do. He had a piece of wood in his hand, and he knocked it against the wall. He seemed to enjoy the sound it made. Another child joined him in the activity and there was a sense of a shared moment or interaction between them as they both laughed.
I reflected on Esteban quite a lot wondering whether the group was helpful for him. I felt concerned that he appeared anxious when he arrived for Week 7, and concerned when his mother commented, on several occasions, about how different he was during the sessions. I reflected on why some children are different in the group than at home, and whether this meant the group was helpful or unhelpful for the child.
My reflections on Esteban led me back to Bowlby’s theory on attachment, and the idea that children develop a secure attachment because their needs are continually being met. He claimed that it is this security that provides the child with the confidence to explore the world around them. In this theory the support from the parent or carer must come first, and in Esteban’s example this was clearly happening. As I noted in my literature review it is during the toddler period of development when the tension between the need to check out the attachment relationship, and the desire to explore, is at its greatest. For some children the two desires seem to be well balanced, but for other children, like Esteban, the pull towards one system is greater than the other. In terms of Bowlby’s theory the task of the parent or carer is to continue to support the child’s attachment needs, and periods of stress will allow for this to happen, provided the parent or carer is able to offer attuned responses. Esteban experienced periods of anxiety during the group, and he also experienced his mother’s secure and containing presence supporting him during these moments. I believe this was very helpful for him. In addition his interactions with me during the Peep-Bo games, and with his mother when they looked at each other through the cellophane, provided an opportunity for us to engage in the type of games that Brazelton & Cramer (1991) suggested helps the infant build a picture of himself from the responses of another.
The experiences of an 18 month old girl in the next observation clearly illustrate the principle of the need for the child to develop a sense of security before they are able to freely explore, and how the parent provides this security through their responses, their affirmations, and their ability to provide a secure base.
Observation 5
During the first session Florence was initially watchful and mindful. Her mother had expected her to be a little unsure and was content to sit with her in the group and allow her to decide when to go off and explore. They were sitting quite close to me during the session. Florence stared right at me with a serious look on her face, and I looked back at her and smiled. After several more interactions I initiated a Peep-Bo game, and as I slowly uncovered my face Florence smiled. She was standing with her hand on her mother’s knee. After smiling at me Florence looked towards her mother in an enquiring way, possibly checking with her mother that I was “okay”. He mother nodded her head to Florence and smiled in affirmation. A little later whilst Florence was sitting on the beanbag between Mum’s legs I passed a basket of items to her. She took out a couple of curlers and spent some time fitting one inside the other.
During the staff discussion at the end of Week 2 my colleague commented that Florence had looked at her on several occasions and she responded with some smiles. During the session I noticed Florence was sitting on the floor next to Mum exploring some objects.
In Week 3 Florence recognized me and initiated an interaction where she gazed at me and then looked away, and I mirrored the sequence and smiled when I returned my gaze. During the interactions Florence looked towards her mother twice who smiled in response to her enquiry. The exchange between us went on for sometime, and I am uncertain who ended the interaction.
In Week 6 Florence was off and exploring the room and objects from the moment she arrived, and her mother noticed this and mentioned it in the group discussion. Throughout the whole session she explored a much wider area of the room than she had during previous sessions, and when she returned to her mother she sat on the bean bag next to her rather than sitting on her lap. I noted that the session had been very significant for Florence.
In Week 8 I noted that there had been a change in Florence week by week, and that this session was no exception. During the session Florence put a bag over her arm. She walked around the room several times with the bag on her arm, following the same route each time. In addition, she found her voice and I heard her babbling to her mother.
It was a joy to share in Florence’s experiences in the group. When she first attended she appeared uncertain and cautious, and her walking was unsteady. By the final session she was confident enough to choose objects and make her own way around the room. She was also verbally sharing her pleasure about her experiences with her mother.
Theme 2 - Finding their Feet – A New Perspective
In my literature review I quoted from Mahler about the significance of the infant learning to walk. She suggested that at this time the infant experiences a new vantage point and finds unexpected and changing perspectives. Alongside this new perspective the toddler also experiences a greater sense of separation from his parent or carer as he is physically more able to leave their presence. However, Stern’s two systems, the attachment system and the exploratory system, highlight the emotional dilemma for the toddler. The world has suddenly become much bigger and the toddler is drawn towards it on the one hand, but on the other hand they appear to need even more reassurance from their parent or carer than before they were walking. The next observation looks at the group from the perspective of two non-walking infants both aged 13 months.
Observation 6
In his first session Nigel seemed like the baby of the group as he was not yet walking. However, during this session he was off and away from his mother almost from the moment he arrived. He appeared to have no sense of anxiety about the new environment. He crawled into the corner out of sight from his mother and was interested in what he could see through the glass panel. On another occasion when he was with his mother, he appeared equally delighted to be in her company when she lifted him high in the air as he was when he went off to explore the room.
By Week 5 it felt like Nigel was “crawling at a jog” such was his enthusiasm to explore. During one such foray he climbed on to the lap of another mother, drawn, it seemed, by her big welcoming smile. In terms of Stern’s systems it could be argued that Nigel’s pull was strongly towards the exploratory system. However, when another child started to cry he gently touched her leg and then returned to his mother for a cuddle.
Like Nigel, Cam also seemed quite young in the group, but he tended to stay closer to his mother in order to explore the objects. On one occasion during Week 5 he was playing alongside a colleague’s legs thinking that she was his mother. It was only when he looked up and caught her eye that he realised that she was not his mother, and he scrambled off to find her. Later in the session he hurt his hand and needed lots of comfort from his mother. After receiving the comfort he needed from his mother he sat on the beanbag to the side of her enabling him to watch the group and also keep an eye on his mother.
Nigel and Cam both had a strong sense of the secure base that their mother offered them in the group. Nigel returned to his mother when another child cried, and Cam returned to find his mother when he mistook another woman for her, and when he hurt his hand. For a lot of time during the sessions Nigel showed a strong pull towards the exploratory system, and Cam needed support from his mother at times, and was keen to explore at other times. Each individual child within the group had different needs in terms of how much support they required from their mother during the sessions. However, my sense was that the experiences of the two younger children were slightly different from the older children in the group. For example, their explorations and attachment needs appeared to be governed by more basic feeling states or drives, where as the older children, like Esteban and Savannah, demonstrated more mature feelings of anxiety and intent. In developmental terms the older children would have acquired a stronger sense of self, and would also be experiencing the group from an upright perspective. Walking gives the toddler a new perspective on the world making it both more exciting, and, at times, more frightening. By learning to walk the toddler develops a greater sense of their physical self in the world and this supports their developing sense of emotional self. This is illustrated by Niamh, a 14 month old girl.
Observation 7
During the first session Niamh did not spend much time watching but was keen to practice her newly learned walking skills. She walked around the room picking up objects and returning them to her mother. During Week 2 the clutter on the floor was frustrating for Niamh and she was stood on something but couldn’t lift her feet off it. In Week 5 Niamh seemed closer to her mother at the beginning of the group than previous sessions, and in the discussion at the end of Week 6 Niamh’s mother suggested that she explored more during that session than previous ones, but was also more clingy.
By learning to walk, a whole new world is opened up for the toddler but they also need extra support from their parent or carer. The observation of Conner, a 14 month old boy, illustrates this.
Observation 8
During Week 2 Conner communicated his delight by clapping his hands and smiling. Towards the end of the session he began to whine and cry a little as if something was not quiet right for him. He went to his mother and she gave him a big cuddle. This prompted me to think about the infant who has just learnt to walk and is full of delight at their newly found skills, but then they suddenly lose their balance and need the physical secure base that the parent provides them with. I noticed that at the beginning of the session Conner was holding on to his mother’s knee. He was steadying himself before he had the confidence to go off and play, and this is similar to an infant who holds on to his parent before letting go in order to walk.
Finally, I thought about the toddler’s different perspective in terms of the new position they have on the world when they learn to walk and experience things from an upright position, and how in the group the children sometimes created a new perspective for themselves. For example, Savannah climbed on the table and Esteban stood on an overturned tin. This type of play enabled the children to see and feel things from a different angle. In the group some children copied the behaviour of adults, and this gave them the opportunity to experience how things felt from another perspective. Stern (1985) claimed infants develop a subjective sense of self, and the children’s play experiences in the group facilitated this sense of self. Observation 9 of Ellie, a 19 month old girl, illustrates this.
Observation 9
Ellie was showing a paintbrush to another child and she used it to brush the child’s hair. This prompted some laughter from several mothers close to me. Following this incident I had to get off my beanbag and Ellie immediately sat on it. She laid back in it for several moments and surveyed the room. Ellie was copying the adults and testing out how it felt to be an adult in the group. In other words she was exploring things from an adult perspective.
The Group as a Whole
So far my observations have concentrated on individuals within the group, but the example of Nigel needing comfort when another child cried illustrates that the children were influenced by the behaviour and experiences of other children, and that a powerful group process was taking place. It felt as if the group itself passed through different stages and phases in the same way that individuals within the group did, and these phases were affected by the different experiences of the individuals. On occasions there were different phases within individual groups as Observation 10 illustrates.
Observation 10
In Week 1 the group seemed to pass through three distinct phases. There was the settling in phase where the children tended to stay close to Mum and watch, there was the next phase which was characterised with higher energy and more noise and movement, and the final phase where children were quieter again and tired.
Observation 11 shows how the atmosphere of the group changed from week to week.
Observation 11
Week 2 was much noisier and busier than week 1 and it almost felt chaotic with too much stuff on the floor. Week 3 felt calmer again but the transition from tidying away to snack was difficult. In week 5 it felt like some of the children were regressing and were staying close to their mothers for longer periods, but on the other hand the level of exploring seemed to be greater than in previous weeks. During the final few weeks there appeared to be higher levels of distress and children started needing drinks during the ‘play time’.
As the group progressed over the weeks a pattern emerged of the children becoming more needy, or perhaps feeling more able to communicate their needs, and also exploring more freely. This pattern matched the experience of children like Savannah, and highlighted a paradox that the more secure the children felt in the group, the more they were able to communicate their feelings, which it turn created a sense that they were more vulnerable or insecure. The fact that they were also exploring more freely suggested that they were in fact feeling secure.
Summary
The observations illustrated the importance of the toddler having a secure base from where they could explore the objects, and other children and adults, in the group. With reference to my literature review and the infant’s developing sense of self the many different experiences from the group provided the children with jigsaw pieces for their emerging picture of ‘self’.
In this chapter I shall reflect on my methods of research and my findings. I shall think about my role as a participant observer and my dilemma about choosing what information to use in the study. I shall reflect on reflective enquiry as a method of research, and I shall discuss what I have learnt from doing the study.
Reflections on Participant Observations
The roles of doing participant observations whilst facilitating the group fitted together well because both tasks shared the same aim of observing and thinking about the children’s play. Two difficult aspects of the observations were deciding what examples to use for the study, and ensuring that the narrative was accurate. When thinking about the integrity of qualitative studies Vartanian (in Ely 1991:220) said “in order to see ‘what is’, it is important not to be clouded with ‘what I guess it’s going to be’”. In terms of writing up the observations after the group, and deciding what incidents to use in the study my judgement may have been clouded with ‘what I guess it’s going to be’. This was because I was conducting my research from a position of ‘knowing’, and I acknowledge this could have prejudiced me. My position of ‘knowing’ existed because I had run Heuristic Play Groups in the past and had an idea about the type of situations I expected to happen. In addition, I had completed my research for the literature review and also had an expectation of what might take place from a developmental point of view.
In order to help me decide what examples to include in the study I chose incidents that either felt significant at the time, or came to my attention during the group discussion or staff reflection time. I also tried to record the observations as accurately as possible, and to record what I felt was happening rather than what I wanted to happen. In adopting these two approaches I tried to conduct my research from a position of ‘not knowing’.
By adopting a position of ‘not knowing’ I was able to keep the emphasis of my research on description and discovery, and, as I described in Chapter 2, put myself in a position of learning and understanding about those whom I studied. I personally learnt a lot whilst making the observations and writing them up. For example, I was surprised to discover the extent to which the children’s attachment system was activated in the group. The children generally spent more time exploring, and I expected this, but I was surprised about how often they needed support from their mothers. Their behaviour and communications suggested that the support from their mothers (or primary carers) was very important, and that the secure base they provided enabled them to explore their environment more freely.
The other area of personal learning was in the use of self in the participant observations. By reflecting on my own feelings during the observations I increased my ability to recognise when I experienced a projection of feelings from the group, or from an individual within it. I can now take these skills into my practice enabling me to develop a deeper understanding of what may be happening in the inner world of the children and adults with whom I work. For example, I gave a lot of thought as to why Esteban was different in the group and whether it was actually helpful for him to attend, before I realised that these concerns may have belonged to his mother. An insight such as this could provide future opportunities for further discussions with his mother.
Reflections on Reflective Enquiry as a Method of Research
Using reflective enquiry in the study proved to be a rich learning process and left me feeling like there was no end to the depths that I could have explored. Reflecting on reflective enquiry makes me think of a mirror room in which one can see infinite images of infinite depth, and the word reflection makes me think about Winnicott’s ideas about mirroring (1971). He claimed the mother reflects the infant’s feeling states back to him and this helps the infant build a picture of himself. Brazelton & Cramer (1991) suggested that the mother’s attunement to her infant enables her to reflect back not the exact feelings but a sense of them, and this creates an opportunity for the infant’s sense of self to grow from within. The mirroring or reflecting back as described by Winnicott (ibid.) and Brazelton & Cramer (ibid.) supports the growth and development of the infant’s sense of self, and the process of reflective enquiry or thinking deeply for the study resulted in my personal growth and gave me a fuller sense of myself.
I have described how reflective enquiry can lead to new insights and growth, and how reflection with others leads to even greater insight and growth, as do the reflections between a mother and baby. Thinking about the study I am left wondering whether the families and staff colleagues who shared in the process of reflective enquiry also experienced new insight and growth, and if they did I suggest that future studies should have a high degree of parental involvement.
Summary
In this chapter I reflected on my role as participant observer and why it was important for me to approach this role from a position of ‘not knowing’. I looked at reflective enquiry as a method of research and my own personal learning and growth from using this method. Finally, I noticed a parallel process between the use of reflective enquiry and subsequent growth in the researcher, and the reflecting or mirroring between the mother and infant leading to growth in the infant. In both situations, the researcher or mother must notice what is happening before they can effectively reflect back, or reflect on, the experience.
To conclude the study I have asked the following questions:
Have I answered my question of how can play in a Heuristic Play Group be helpful to the child?
What have I learnt about the developmental needs of the child in the group?
What are the implications of the findings for our organisation and other Children’s Centres?
Have I answered my Research Question?
In my literature review I provided a detailed account of the processes that need to take place to support the infant’s developing sense of self, and I likened this to a jigsaw puzzle where helpful experiences contribute to the infant’s evolving picture of ‘self’. From my observations of the group I described some of the incidents that happened, and I examined why they were helpful to the child by referring back to the literature review. This allowed me to paint a picture of the group, illustrating how the play and social interactions were helpful to the child.
What have I learnt about the Developmental Needs of the Child in Heuristic Play Sessions?
In the reflections chapter I explained that I had some preconceived ideas about what I expected to happen in the group before I undertook the observations. These preconceived ideas, or assumptions, came from different sources, including informed thinking and training, past experiences, and unconscious values. Some of the unconscious values might have been helpful, and some might have been unhelpful and could include prejudices. By attempting to undertake the participant observations from a point of ‘not knowing’ I think I avoided bringing unhelpful unconscious values to the study because I was aware that when I made the observations, wrote them up, and interpreted them, I needed to keep an open mind.
By keeping an open mind I uncovered some surprising findings. For example, that the infants needed considerable support from their mothers during the sessions, and that this need appeared to be higher amongst the older infants. On the face of it this finding goes against attachment thinking that suggests that the more the child experiences attuned responses, the more secure they will become. There was no opportunity to explore this in the study because my literature review stopped at 18 months. I suggest that if I had examined Stern’s ideas on the infant’s sense of verbal self (1985), Schore’s theories about the development of shame (1994), and Winnicott’s age of concern (1950), (theories that relate to the older toddler period from 18 months of age) I might have found some answers. In the observations chapter I briefly referred to this phase when I suggested that the older children communicated more mature feelings states, including intent and anxiety, and therefore needed a higher degree of maternal assurance.
My study asked how play in a Heuristic Group was helpful to the child. In my introduction I suggested that the play might be mainly ludic in nature, (mood dependent and requiring sensitive support from adults) rather than mainly epistemic in nature (task orientated and concerned with exploration, problem solving and information gathering), and this proved to be the case. I suggested that it might be the presence of the child’s parent/carer in the group that changed the nature of the play. In the reflections chapter I illustrated the value of participant observations and reflective enquiry in terms of personal growth and understandings, and I suggest that in the group these principles were also of value. I therefore conclude that it was not just the presence of the parent/carer that created the unique and helpful play experiences for the children, but their involvement in their child’s play. This involvement was possible because of the observational component in the group and the reflective discussions after the play. The staff also played a role in this by adopting the same principles of observation and reflection.
Finally, I learnt that the children needed a secure base from which to explore their environment, and that the parents/carers communicated this in their facial responses to the children. Facial communications were fostered because of the reflective nature of the group, the atmosphere of quiet within the group, and the positioning of the adults at the child’s level. As a result the children also engaged in communicating with each other. In the baby section of my literature review I described the importance of the adult’s visual response to their baby in terms of their developing sense of self, and it would appear that in the group the adult’s visual responses supported the infant’s developing awareness of others, leading to a greater sense of self.
To summarise, I have learnt that it is important to keep an open mind in order to understand children’s communications, and with an open mind you may learn surprising things. I have learnt that the uniqueness of the group probably lies in the observations and reflections, and this facilitates a high degree adult involvement in the child’s play and interactions. Finally, I recognised the value of visual interactions between the adults and children in fostering the infant’s developing sense of self.
What are the Implications of the Findings for Children’s Centres
In the study I described how participant observations provide an opportunity to see things from the child’s perspective rather than from the perspective of service providers and/or early years workers, providing they are undertaken with an ‘open mind’, or from a position of ‘not knowing’. I demonstrated that reflective practice creates opportunities for growth, and is therefore an effective way to work with families and children.
The implications of these findings feel significant. The insights that participant observations give could be used to develop services that are needs led rather than outcome led, and the use of reflective practice in early years family support work, and in day care, would result in more effective services for the children and their families. However, in my introduction I explained that the process of change for service providers in the early years sector has been, and still is, proceeding at a rapid pace, and this makes it hard to think about the needs of the child. There is little time and space for such luxuries as ‘reflective practice’, and as funding for some of the original Sure Start Projects is cut the opportunities will be further reduced. The findings of my study suggest that ‘reflective practice’ should no longer be seen as a luxury but as a necessity if Children’s Centres are to make a difference to the lives of vulnerable families.
I discussed the uniqueness of the group and suggested that a reason for this is the parents/carers involvement in the play. I indicated that reflective enquiry leads to growth and deeper understanding. I propose that in Children’s Centres greater parental involvement in observations, studies, and evaluations would prove to be beneficial for the adults and children.
Final Thought
My final thought is that the study has proved to be too big. I have been left with many observations and themes that I could not include in it. My literature review needed to cover the infant’s development up to the age of two rather than 18 months. In addition, during the sessions there were many other incidents that were helpful to the child that I did not record. Finally, I would have liked more parental involvement. This has left me with the feeling that I could, and should, have done more! This feeling matches how it can feel working in support services for families with young children. Workers are expected to do so much but have limited resources, and this can leave them feeling frustrated that they could, and should, be doing more.
Axline, V. M. (1973) Dibs: In Search of Self, London: Victor Gollancz Ltd.
Abram, J. (1996) The Language of Winnicott – A Dictionary of Winnicott’s Use of Words, London: Karnac Books.
Bick, E. (1987) ‘ The Experience of Skin in Early Years Object Relations’, in Harris Williams, M. (ed.) The Collected Papers of Martha Harris & Esther Bick, Strath Tay, Perthshire:Clunie Press.
Bowlby, J. (1969) Attachment and Loss, London:Routledge.
Bowlby, J. (1988) A Secure Base: Clinical Applications of Attachment Theory. London: Tavistock/Routledge..
Bowlby, R. Attachment - Three Educational Videos, London: Boundary House, Wyldes Close.
Brazelton, T. B. & Cramer, B. G. (1991) The Earliest Relationship – Parents, infants, and the drama of early attachment, London: Karnac Books.
Bullock, R. (1989), chapter 2, ‘Social Research’, in Kahan, B. (ed.) Child Care Research, Policy and Practice, Open University Press/Hodder & Stoughton.
Cain, P. (1997) ‘Using Clients’, Nursing Ethics 4, 6: 465-471
Copley, B. & Forryan, B. (1997) Therapeutic Work with Children & Young People, London: Cassell.
Davis, M. & Wallbridge, D. (1981) Boundary & Space – An introduction to the work of D. W. Winnicott, London: H. Karnac (Books) Ltd.
Dockar-Drysdale, B. (1968) The Provision of Primary Experience, London: Free Association.
Dockar-Drysdale, B. (1993) Therapy & Consultation in Child Care, London: Free Association.
Ely, M., Anzul, M., Friedman, T., Garner, D. & Steinmetz, A. (1991) Doing Qualitative Research – Circles within Circles, London: Free Association Books.
Farnfield, S. (2001), chapter 3, ‘Assessment & Implications for Intervention Using an Attachment Perspective’, in McMahon, L. & Ward, A. op. cit.
Gerhardt, S. (2004) Why Love Matters – How affection shapes a baby’s brain, Hove & New York: Brunner-Routledge.
Goldschmied, E. & Jackson, S. (2004) People Under Three, Young Children in Day Care, 2nd Edition, London: Routledge
Hardwick, A. & Woodhead, J. (eds.) (1999) Loving Hating & Survival, Arena/Ashgate
H.M. Treasury (2004), Choice for Parents, the Best Start for Children: A Ten Year Strategy for Childcare, H.M. Stationery Office.
Mahler, M., Pine, F. & Bergman, A. (1975) The Psychological Birth of the Human Infant – Symbiosis & Individuation, London: Hutchinson & Co (publishers) Ltd.
Mason, J. (1996) Qualitative Researching, London: SAGE Publications.
McMahon, L. (1992) The Handbook of Play Therapy, London: Routledge.
McMahon, L. (1995) Developing Skills in Therapeutic Communication in Daily Living with Emotionally Disturbed Children & Young People, Journal of Social Work Practice 9, 2: 199-214.
McMahon, L. (1999), chapter 9, ‘Healing Play’, in Hardwick, A. & Woodhead, J. Loving, Hating & Survival, : Arena/Ashgate.
McMahon, L. & Ward, A. (2001) Helping Families in Family Centres – Working at therapeutic practice, London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
McMahon, L. (2005) Learning, thinking and feeling: providing food for thought in children’s centres. Family Centres to Children’s Centres: Coming of Age? Barnado’s New Fulford Family Centre Conference.
Rudestam, K. E. & Newton, R. R. (1992) Surviving your Dissertation – A Comprehensive Guide to Content and Process, London: SAGE Publications.
Schore, A. N. (1994) Affect Regulation and the Origin of the Self – The Neurobiology of Emotional Development, Hove: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Schore, A. (1998) Affect Regulation: A Fundamental Process of Psychobiological Development, Brain Organisation and Psychotherapy, in School of Infant Mental Health Video, Baby Brains – Psychobiological Development of the Infant & Implications for Therapy Practice, London: Net Care Publishing.
Shatz, M. (1994) A Toddler’s Life – Becoming a Person, New York: Oxford University Press.
Sroufe, L. A. (1996) Emotional Development – The Organization of Emotional Life in the Early Years, New York: Cambridge University Press.
Stadlen, N. (2004) What Mothers Do – Especially when it looks like nothing, London: Piatkus Books.
Stern, D. (1977) The First Relationship – The developing child, Glasgow: Fontana/Open Books.
Stern, D. (1985 ) The Interpersonal World of the Infant – A View from Psychoanalysis and Developmental Psychology, U.S.A.: Basic Books.
Stern, D. (1991) Diary of a Baby – What your child sees, feels & experiences, London: Fontana.
University of Reading School of Health & Social Care, Ethics and Research Committee Guidance to Departments, Unpublished.
Ward, A & McMahon, L. (eds.) (1998) Intuition is not Enough – Matching learning with practice in therapeutic child care, London: Routledge.
Ward, A. (2002) ‘Opportunity Led Work: maximising the possibilities for therapeutic communication in everyday interactions’, Therapeutic Communities 23, 2:111-132.
Whalley, M, (2001) Working with Parents, London: Hodder & Stroughton.
Winnicott, D. W. (1950) The Maturation Processes and the Facilitating Environment – Studies in the Theory of Emotional Development, London: Karnac Books
Winnicott, D. W. (1965) The Family & Individual Development, London: Tavistock Publications.
Winnicott, D. W. (1971) Playing & Reality, London: Tavistock Publications.
Association of Therapeutic Communities |
PLANNED ENVIRONMENT THERAPY TRUST |
Charterhouse Group |
Therapeutic Community Open Forum |
|
RadioTC International |
| Church Lane, Toddington, Cheltenham,
GLOS. GL54 5DQ, United Kingdom |
||