This week, Emma Pattinson and Abi Steven from North Somerset Council Parenting Team visited our Year 2 Early Years T Level learners to discuss the impact that a child’s environment can have on their development.

This workshop focused on Parental Conflict and the impact on children, adolescent brain development, and trauma informed approaches. These are all very important topics for the future generation of early years educators to understand and be aware of.

During an Early Years course, students are taught how to approach and talk to students, however they are less likely to be taught about how to interact with parents and families. Abi and Emma helped to build the students confidence with this by answering questions and discussing different home environments.

The session began by looking at the types of childhood trauma and the impact this trauma can have on a child’s development, not just mentally but holistically. Not only this, Abi and Emma also explained how children’s brains develop throughout their adolescence.

It is important for our Early Years students to understand that children need a supported environment, and their brain development can be impacted and have long term effects if they are exposed to an environment with regular conflict and trauma. It is also important to recognise children as individuals and that they are all different, therefore signs of trauma will not be universal and could appear differently depending on the child.

When discussing Parental Conflict, Abi organised her discussion in an engaging True or False format to get the students involved and thinking hard about the questions. The students seemed nervous and apprehensive to begin with but gained confidence in their answers as the session progressed.

They discussed the signs to look for when identifying a child suffering with family conflict as well as the distress and trauma that could accompany this. Abi also brought up statistics regarding parental relationships and the impact this could have on children which surprised some students.

As a final interactive task, Abi and Emma handed out large posters to the students, with the titles Social and Emotional Development, Physical Development, Academic/Cognitive, and Behaviour. The students were asked to fill out these sheets of paper with everything they knew regarding the impact that conflict and trauma could have on these topics. This was a great way to test their knowledge and encourage them to work together to fill in any blanks.

This was a very informative guest lecture as it made the students consider external factors that may explain certain child behaviour. This is a key part of being an early year’s educator as it is important to have a holistic approach to teaching and provide additional support to any children who may be experiencing family conflict or trauma.

Thank you to Emma and Abi from the North Somerset Council Parenting Team for taking the time to visit our students and deliver this impactful guest lecture.

If you are interested in joining one of our Early Years courses in September, click here.