Keyword: Adult Child Relationship
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Parenting in the Early Years
This list provides resources on effective parenting practices and provides information on how parents can help their child stay healthy, be safe, and be successful in many areas.
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Community Resources for Illinois Families
This list provides information about community resources for families in Illinois.
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Collaborative Care: Teaming to Support Infants and Toddlers With Disabilities
Like most families, families of children with disabilities use a variety of early care and education programs such as center- or home-based childcare to meet their needs and provide valuable and inclusive learning experiences for their children.
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Teaching Your Child to Problem Solve
Families juggle so many tasks every day. Often one of these tasks is supervising young children as they play and solve problems that come up when they try to play alone (e.g., “she’s not sharing” or “he hit me”). In fact, doing this can often prolong or make completing other tasks, such as laundry and…
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COVID-19 Parenting Pep Talk: Be With Your Child’s Big Feelings
For many of us, changes in routine and lack of choices have brought on feelings of sadness, anger, and frustration. Though we may be experiencing these difficult emotions, as adults we can understand that changes to our daily routines are to help stop the spread of COVID-19.
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COVID-19 Parenting Pep Talk: Make Time for Connection
Before the COVID-19 situation, many of us, myself included, were used to taking our young children to childcare or preschool on working days. Now, we may be working from home or different hours, and we may have lost many of our predictable daily routines. In addition, many family, friends, and coworkers are no longer part…
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COVID-19 Parenting Pep Talk: (Re)focus on Positive Guidance
In spring 2020, our world was turned upside down by the COVID-19 pandemic. In Illinois, our stay-at-home order has caused drastic changes in daily routines for everyone. With schools, many childcare centers, and most other places closed to stop the spread of COVID-19, we have found our daily routines profoundly changed.
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Keep Young Children Learning at Home During Trying Times
Many families with young children are seeking resources about learning at home with young children as the COVID-19 situation evolves in our communities. This is a trying time for programs and families as they work together to keep young children safe, healthy, and learning.
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Learning at Home During Trying Times
Many families with young children are seeking resources about learning at home with young children as the COVID 19 situation evolves in our communities. This resource list provides information from the Illinois Early Learning Project and other reliable sources to help during this time.
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Positive Guidance for Young Children: Be Thoughtful
Young children are learning to manage their behaviors and feelings. Your responses matter to children in these moments. Sometimes adults need to stop behaviors that are unsafe or extremely disruptive and help children understand how to behave appropriately.
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Positive Guidance for Young Children: Take a Break and Calm Down
Young children are learning to manage their behavior and feelings. At times, they may be “out of control” and need an adult to help them calm down and learn how to express their emotions in appropriate ways.
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Positive Guidance for Young Children: Plan Ahead
Young children are curious and actively explore the world.
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Positive Guidance for Young Children: Be Consistent
Young children are learning to manage their behaviors and feelings. They may need many reminders of what appropriate behavior looks like. Clear directions from adults in a calm, firm tone of voice help children know what to do.
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The Impact of Trauma on the Lives of Young Children (Part 2)
On this podcast we are joined by Dr. Deserai Miller.
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The Impact of Trauma on the Lives of Young Children (Part 1)
In this podcast we interview Dr. Catherine Corr from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
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Supporting Families with Young Children Experiencing Homelessness
This tool kit is a resource to help early childhood, school, and community professionals understand how they can support families who may be experiencing homelessness or housing insecurity. IEL also has a resource list, When Children Are Homeless or Housing Insecure: How Preschool Teachers and Caregivers Can Help, which includes additional resources for educators, caregivers,…
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The Newborn Period
This Early Learning Moment provides an overview of the Newborn Period as explained in Illinois Early Learning Guidelines for Children Birth to Age 3.
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Self-Regulation: Foundation of Development
This Early Learning Moment provides an over view of the Self-Regulation: Foundation of Development section in the Illinois Early Learning Guidelines for Children Birth to Age 3.
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Lots of Dandelions
Nature play presents opportunities for teachers to introduce scientific concepts. In this video, we see a teacher join Fawn and Edwin, both age 4, as they blow the seeds from dandelions growing on the playground.
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Social and Emotional Development
This section of the guidelines describes how infants and toddlers develop relationships with the people around them, develop a sense of self, and learn to be sensitive to the wants and needs of other people.
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‘Look at Your Lines!’
Teachers help children develop their science skills by creating engaging activities that activate children’s curiosity and desire to discover the properties of materials. A visual art activity, such as the finger painting activity we see in this video, can be an opportunity to explore science concepts.
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Maybe We Can Make a Road!
In this video, two children are playing at a sensory table filled with gravel, miniature road signs, and toy cars. The teacher introduces two unique words, terrain and yield, to the children as she plays side by side with them.
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Look at It Go!
Messy play is a rich opportunity for conversation with peers and teachers. Exploring open-ended materials invites children to observe, make predictions, and use complex vocabulary to describe their experiences.
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Look What This Can Do!
In this video, we see Mario and his mother, Norma, as they play in a playroom at a local community center. Norma shows Mario different ways to use the toys. When Mario bangs the toys together, Norma encourages his inventiveness by commenting on the creative ways Mario uses the toys to make noise.
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Sing Pío, Pío, Pío
A strong foundation for early literacy learning is created when caregivers and children read together, starting in infancy. Every time a caregiver reads, sings, and talks with a young child, they are building the child’s vocabulary and language skills.
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What Can You Tell Me Baby?
Language development begins very early as children listen to the voices of their caregivers and the sounds and rhythms of the language being spoken around them. Very young infants even try to participate in communication by looking at their caregivers and making sounds.
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Let’s Write a Grocery List
Caregivers can engage children in early writing experiences such as list making to support their early literacy skill development.
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Toot, Honk, Splish
Reading books is an important way a caregiver can support the development of a young child’s language and literacy during the infant-toddler years. As children grow, they become more attentive and able to participate in book sharing.
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Try and Try Again (audio)
This podcast, based on a blog written by Dr. Rebecca Swartz, provides information about how adults can help young children develop persistence to try and try again when they encounter everyday challenges. To see the main text of the podcast, you can read the original blog post. Related IEL Resources Blog: Try and Try Again
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Try and Try Again
Families, teachers, and caregivers want young children to be successful. It can be hard to watch a child struggle or become frustrated.
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Family Mealtimes: Benefits for Child Well-Being
This list contains a variety of resources associated with how family mealtimes enhance a child’s well-being.
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Supporting Resilience in Children Exposed to Domestic Violence
This list contains a variety of resources associated with supporting resilience in children exposed to domestic violence.
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Supporting Children with Autism in Child Care and at Home
This resource list contains a variety of resources associated with supporting children with autism in childcare and at home.
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Helping Children Develop “Impulse Control”
Excitement, joy, anger, frustration, and disappointment are all part of growing up.
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You Made It
This video takes place in the gross motor room of a university laboratory child care and preschool. This room is used for gross-motor activities by all classrooms in the center during inclement weather. Max (21 months) is trying to get up the climber, and the teacher helps him get to the top.
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Roll Them Up
This interaction shows the teacher trying to decipher what Jayden is trying to do and what he wants.
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Ready? Boing!
This interaction shows how the teacher appropriately engages the children by asking Spencer to participate and redirecting Mason when he takes the bear.
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Press Here
Jayden (20 months), Mason (21 months), Spencer (20 months), and the teacher, Sui Ping, are sitting on the floor engaged with an activity box. Sui Ping is demonstrating for Mason how to make the small bear “jump” off the toy by pushing a button. The other two boys are also trying to play with the…
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Waylon and Grandpa: A Continuous Contingent Interaction
The kind of communication we see here between Waylon and Grandpa is sometimes called continuous contingent interaction.
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Papa and Wayne: A Simple Game With Baby
In this video we see a spontaneous playful interaction between 6-month-old Wayne and his grandfather (Papa). Many families play games like this, which are important both to children’s sense of belonging and their ability to communicate with others.
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Screen Time and Young Children
“Screen time” refers to time spent using a device (e.g., television, game console, tablet, computer, smartphone). In this Q&A, we respond to several questions about screen time and young children.
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Supporting Adult-Child Relationships
Young children thrive when the adults around them show they care.
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Parent-Child Relationships
In this document, we respond to a variety of questions about parent-child relationships.
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Continuity of Contact
One of the many insights being shared with us from recent research is that different kinds of “stimulation” in the early years contribute to important brain development that has long-term implications.
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Insight as Part of Teaching Young Children
Many of a teacher’s decisions are based on routines and the normal schedule of activities that require little if any analysis or reflection.
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Encouraging Words
Encouragement can help children feel good about themselves and develop self-confidence.
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Please Don’t Go! Separation Anxiety and Children
It is often hard for a parent or other loved one to leave a young child who cries and clings. Here are some things to remember about separation anxiety.
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Making the Holidays Memorable and Meaningful
Here are some ways to focus on the meaning of every holiday season.
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Fuss Management: Comforting the Irritable Child
When you take a calm, problem-solving approach, you help your child learn to calm himself when he is irritable.
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Say What You Mean! Talking Straight to Children
Sometimes we want to make things go smoothly with our preschoolers—so smoothly that we shy away from telling them clearly what we really mean.