Early Childhood Education and Care: Building Positive Relationships through Nonverbal Communication

This chapter discusses the process of building positive relationships with children through nonverbal communication skills in early childhood education and care. It covers nurturing relationships non-verbally, communicating authority and security through non-verbal behaviour, challenges in sending and interpreting nonverbal messages, and children's acquisition of nonverbal communication skills. The chapter also provides information about effective skills to develop relationships with children and communicate with their families.

Running head: EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION AND CARE
EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION AND CARE
Name of the student:
Name of the University:
Author note:

1EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION AND CARE
1. Key points:
The chapter three of the book has provided information regarding the process of building
positive relationship with children through nonverbal communication skills. The key points
include-
 Nurturing relationship non-verbally- In this course non-verbal communication is used to
communicate particular messages. It includes 5 specific criteria such as warmth,
acceptance, genuineness, empathy and respect
 Communicating authority and security through non-verbal behaviour- It describes the
power of the tutor to ensure the security, safety and well-being of the children.
 Challenges in sending and interpreting nonverbal messages- Due to the use of two
different non-verbal communication in different channels such as facial expression and
voice tone, sometimes leads to the difficulties in recognizing the corresponded message
and resulted in mixed message.
 Children acquisition of nonverbal communication skills- It has described the different
process through which children could learn nonverbal communication such as learning
through imitation, social interaction and teaching and coaching.
In addition the chapter has provided information about effective skills to develop
relationship with children, communicate with their family (Kostelnik et al., 2018).
2. Favourite quote:
My favourite from the chapter is “Fortunately, you have legitimate power or authority, to
provide for the safety, security, and well-being of the children in your care.” This particular
quote has described the responsibility of career while caring the children along with teaching

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nonverbal skills of communication. It has described that the carer or tutor has the power to
ensure the safety, security and well-being of the children. Thus, it is important for a carer or tutor
to utilise the power and create a learning environment which ensure all the aspects of secure and
safe learning (Kostelnik et al., 2018). Thus. I have chosen the particular quote as my favourite
quote.
3. Favourite learning concept:
My favourite learning concept from the chapter is learning through social interaction.
With increasing engagement with the wider community the children could enhance their ability
to learn non-verbal communication. Social involvement could help them to learn from the
nonverbal communication of other children as well. They could learn from the behaviour of
different person. Social engagement could help them to learn from a particular comment. Such
concept of learning is not limited to a specific resource (Di Rezze et al., 2016). Thus, through
social engagement children could deliver verbal and nonverbal messages regarding their space.
4. Strategy:
I would like to use the strategy of turning into children while teaching the children about
nonverbal communication. I will observe my interaction with a child and interaction of the child
with other child in order to understand the appropriate way of approaching the particular child. It
would help me to identify different gestures and movements in order to deal with the child. It
could help me to understand the behaviour of the child in different situation and I could be alert
regarding the change in behaviour of the child (Neill, 2017). Using such strategy could help me
achieve positive outcomes as it would allow me to interact in a way in which the child is most
comfortable.

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5. Question:
The chapter has provided adequate information regarding the teaching nonverbal
communication to the children. It has informed about the way to approach the family members as
well. However, the chapter did not address the contribution of the parents in the learning session.
Though it has been informed that how the carer or tutors should communicate with the family
members or parents but participation of the parents in learning or parent’s education is absent in
the chapter. Thus, the questions have been raised-
 How the parents could be engaged in the learning session to teach nonverbal
communication to their children?
 What could be done to educate the parents to help their children learn about nonverbal
communication?
WAGER Ranking:
Warmth: I would like to rank myself 9/10 in warmth as I am friendly enough to communicate
with the children and I always try to be responsive and make them comfortable by speaking in a
pleasant tone.
Acceptance: I would like to rank myself 10/10 in acceptance as I have the ability to accept the
children with their personal attributes and family background.
Genuineness: I would like to rank myself 8/10 in genuineness as I always try to be honest and
truthful with the children, however, sometimes due to the behaviour of some children it becomes
difficult to build positive relationship.

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Empathy: I would like to rank myself 9/10 in empathy as I positively approach perspective of
other people that are different from my own.
Respect: I would like to rank myself 10/10 in respect as I always express that the children are
capable to learn competently according to their age and it helps the children to engage in the
learning session and explore themselves.


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References:
Di Rezze, B., Rosenbaum, P., Zwaigenbaum, L., Hidecker, M. J. C., Stratford, P., Cousins,
M., ... & Law, M. (2016). Developing a classification system of social communication
functioning of preschool children with autism spectrum disorder. Developmental
Medicine & Child Neurology, 58(9), 942-948.
Kostelnik, M., soderman, A., Whiren, A., & Rupiper, M. (2018). Guiding Children's Social
Development and Learning: Theory and Skills (9th ed., pp. 71-90). Cengage.
Neill, S. (2017). Classroom nonverbal communication. Routledge. ISBN 9781351380843, p 204.