Birth to three matters - Communities and Local Government

main factors enabling such self-assura n ceto develop re l ate to being valued by andh aving secure at t a c h m e nts to at least ones i g n i f i ca nt pe r s o n . Both pare nts andp ra ctitioners can co nt ri b u te to deve l o p i n ga child’s self-assura n ce. As At h ey (1990: 207 )s u g g e s t s, ‘The time is ri g ht for pare nt s,g ra n d p a re nts and pro fessionals to wo rktogether in order to increase the qualityof mind in young childre n .’We should be concerned that somechildren do not become self-assured,nor acquire social confidence andcompetence. Later in life it tends to bethese children who are rated by theirteachers and by their peers astroublesome and disruptive. They seekattention and emotional support insocially unacceptable ways and are unableto settle down calmly to learning inschool. Their teenage and early adult livesare said to be punctuated by problemssuch as drug and alcohol abuse, accidents,violence, adolescent pregnancy, psychiatricdisorders, family disruption andenvironmental risks.By reviewing a number of studies, Clarkeand Clarke (2000) claim that the basis oftheir difficulties often lies in theirirritability (which the Clarkes link totemperament and their often chaotic livesat home), poor cognitive skills, and in theirlack of emotional security or strongaffectional ties to anyone. The High/Scopeearly childhood education programmeclaims to prevent numerous anti-socialbehaviours in later life (Berrueta-Clementet al 1984). Two of the key aspects of theHigh/Scope programme are the fact thatparents are involved as well as thepre-schoolers themselves, and that theprogramme aims to promote the children’s(and the parents’) sense of agency. Oneaspect of a sense of agency is the abilityto regulate oneself – managing one’semotions (this does not mean repressingthem – see Goleman 1996), gaining controlof one’s actions and having strategies forcoping with heightened arousal.Self regulation was the main focus ofa study by Kochanska et al (2001). Theyassessed 108 children at 14,22, 33 and45 months of age in ‘do’ (keep doing aboring/ unpleasant task) and ‘don’t’ (don’tdo something enjoyable) tasks to find outhow compliant the children were. Theyfound that girls were generally morecompliant than boys and when childrenshowed eagerness to comply with theirmothers’ requests (committed compliance)this was found to relate to theirinternalisation of maternal rules.Akande’s research (1992) provides ideasfor helping parents to promote children’sviews of themselves as valuable,responsible and capable of learning andin research on mothers’ approaches tocontrolling young children’s socialinteraction and expressions of autonomy,Donovan et al (2000) found that motherswho adopted either high power-assertionstrategies, using negative control,and those who had earlier demonstratedlow rates of intervention in children’scrying, had young children whosebehaviour would be more likely to escalate55