Abstract:

Although Early Childhood Development is perceived as an inclusive method that focusses on programmes and policies that cater for children between the ages of 0 – 7 years, this desk-review paper focusses on young children who are between the ages of 0-5 years. These are the children that are often neglected as the priority is often given to children who attend pre-primary classes. This is despite the major tenet of ECD that children’s rights are to be preserved to ensure that children develop fully emotionally, cognitively, physically and socially. In addition, during this age young children begin to learn concepts, skills and attitudes that lay a solid basis in preparation for learning beyond pre-school. Hence, during this phase, particularly during the first 1000 days, children need to be exposed to conducive nurturing environments for their optimal development. As some skills are not innate, during early childhood years, children have ample opportunities to learn, develop, acquire and master certain skills in order for them to interact with peers and practitioners. Therefore, self-regulation is one of the skills that children need to master during their childhood education and when learning through play. This may also encourage children to become healthy, handle difficulties, recognise and respect differences as they interact with peers during play-based learning. In the long run, self-regulation may enable them to prosper in a multifaceted world, have prolonged mental health and have good interpersonal relationships. Goleman’s emotional competence framework will be adopted as a lens for this paper because this theory focusses on elements of emotional intelligence. As this is a desk-review paper, it is evident from the literature that some research has been done about operationalizing self-regulation, promoting self-regulation and development of self-regulation across early years, however, little is done in terms of examining how children’s self-regulation can be a conduit for play-based learning pedagogy. The paper discusses the importance of self-regulation in early childhood education centres when play-based learning pedagogies are adopted, the challenges that may be encountered when the self-regulation is not mastered and the strategies that may be adopted by the practitioners to promote self-regulation among young children.

Keywords:

Early Childhood Development, Emotional intelligence, First-1000-days, Play-based learning, Pedagogy, Practitioner, Self-awareness, Self-regulation.