Childhood Understood

Childhood Understood Synopsis

This title is available to purchase directly from the Bloomsbury Publishing website here.

Childhood Understood: Keys to Behaviour in the Early Years is your must-have guidebook for supporting children in learning about emotions, regulation and self-control.

Teachers and parents are often encouraged to manage behaviour and demand compliance with rules. This book brings a fresh and inspiring perspective to conversations around behaviour, focusing on creating environments and relationships based on curiosity and connection. Compassionate, neuro-affirming, inclusive and meaningful, this book is filled with relatable information and practical strategies that will create a space where children can thrive and their individual needs are met.

Behaviour consultant and trainer Sarah Emerson explores a variety of topics, including making sense of complex behaviours, emotionally safe connection, supporting specific challenges and being a child's safe person. Discover how children's nervous systems experience safety, why some children struggle more than others, and why 'calm' isn't always the aim.

• Responds to the current experiences of those in the early years sector who are struggling with increasingly dysregulated behaviour in the post­pandemic world.
• Brings balance to the ‘behaviour’ debate in early years education and bridges the divide that continues to exist between perceived ‘old and new school’ approaches.
• Brings neuroaffirming, trauma aware and attachment aware perspectives to conversations around ‘behaviour’ – acknowledging the importance of understanding why some children struggle more than others.
• Provides practical strategies to early years practitioners and parents facing challenges such as hitting, biting, throwing and dysregulation on a daily basis.
• Explains how the natural sense of playfulness demonstrated by early years practitioners can be an asset to conversations and practice around behaviour, reframing behaviour into something to be embraced and supported, not something to be avoided and feared.