Clock-Drawing - Another Tool for Easing Separation from Parents

As teachers and parents, we are motivated to educate children in self-soothing. We know that tools to create peace, particularly inner peace, can be utilized throughout their lives.

 

September is the month when our youngest children are launched into their new classrooms and schools. We cannot have too many tools to help bridge the gap of separation from parents in our toolboxes.

 

While parents speak the words, “I’ll be back later,” and preschool teachers often read “Mommy Always Comes Back,” our words often fall short.

 

Last month, I described how dictation and deep listening can be tools for easing the anxiety of separation. This month I’m writing of another tool: Clock-Drawing.

 

Time can seem endless for a young child waiting to be picked up from school. While most of a child's day is spent in play and interaction, thoughts of home surface quite frequently at school year’s start. Images of home and family surface during transitions, lying down for a nap, waking up again, and when a child is hurt. Along with the images often come strong emotions.

 

“I want my mommy (daddy, grandma, stuffy)!” is the lament often heard by teachers. Hugs and soothing words are offered and usually gratefully accepted. In addition to the comfort they receive from their teachers, children can also learn to comfort themselves.

 

Clock-drawing is one of the tools that assists a child in discovering inner peace. I discovered the concept during a time of one preschooler's inconsolable sadness.

Guidelines for Classroom Teachers

After determining when the child will be picked up, introduce the child to the classroom clock and child-sized bites of time with simple questions and information:

• Who is picking you up today?
• When the big hand is on this number and the little hand is on that one, your mommy, daddy, grandma, babysitter, etc. will pick you up.
• Would you like to make a clock of your own? Anytime you miss your family, you can match your clock to the classroom clock. When the hands on your clock and the one in our classroom match, it will be your pick-up time.

Clock-Drawing Activity

Help the child answer the following questions:

• What shape is the clock?
• Can you draw a circle?
• Can you trace one? (I’ve found the colored masking tape to be just the right size. The circumference provides ample room to write numbers inside the shape.)
• Do you know what numbers these are? (Point to the hour and minute of pick-up time.)
• Can you draw the number inside the circle?
• May I help you draw it?
• What part of the number can you draw for yourself?

Now for the fun part, drawing the hands of the clock. Some humor can be introduced here as to comparing the clock’s hands and those of the child.

 

Let’s draw the most important part together, the big hand and the little hand. After helping the child draw the hands of the clock say, "This is when you will be picked up." Then hold the drawing up to the classroom clock for comparison before giving it back to the child.

These questions provide more than information. They help to engage the intellect which can provide a less volatile state, one in which the child can feel his emotions without them overpowering him/her.

 

Some children like to put their clocks in their cubbies; others fold them and put them in their pockets. Like family photos, it is one more tool to help young children manage their emotions.

 

Clock-drawing provides a child-sized way to deal with the timelessness of his/her day away at school. I’d love to hear about other tools you have found useful.

 

 

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Separations in September

Separating from their parents can be a time of sadness for many preschoolers particularly as September approaches bringing new classes and new schools. Here's an example of how a young child was encouraged to manage her own emotions and transform them through art.

A three-year-old was feeling very sad after her mother left for work. She had been encouraged to dictate her feelings and thoughts, creating a letter for her mother. I wrote down her exact words, encouraging her to say more by asking how she was feeling or what she wanted to happen.

"Dear Mom,
I did not want you to leave. I want you to come back. I am very, very, very sad. Come back and read me one more book."

While this form of expression would work on many sad mornings, today it was having no effect. I asked her if she would like to draw a heart. She paused to think about my suggestion and told me, “I can't draw all of it."

"Draw the part you can and I'll help you with the rest," I gently encouraged. She very carefully drew one hump of the heart and then the other. I placed my finger where the heart's point would need to be. She drew the lines from the humps of the heart down to my finger. She smiled and placed a dot in the center of the completed heart.

"That's me," she said. With her permission, I wrote her name next to the dot.

"Would you like to draw lines to you from all the people who love you," I asked?

She nodded. Together we drew many lines. As we connected the lines to the dot inside the heart, she named who was sending her the love. With each love line her smile grew wider. Soon she began to laugh.

"It looks like a sun," she said, beaming like a miniature one.

For the next day's goodbye, she told me that she wanted to draw another heart. She initiated the drawing on her own, beginning with the top of the heart. I noticed a gap between the two humps which gave the drawing a different but not quite familiar shape. As she independently completed the drawing, she began to smile and then said something I didn't understand.

"It's a shoe, Elyse," she laughed, holding up her own to be sure I understood. "It's a love shoe."

Then she began to draw the lines that connected her love to her family.

Two days later, when another preschooler experienced a sad goodbye, Claire sat down at the little art table and began to draw a heart for her friend. She asked for my help in attaching it to a string and hanging it from her friend's cubby.

Teacher implementation and integration into your classrooms:

As teachers, we know full well how separating from their parents can be deeply felt in young children, particularly at the start of a new year. We're also aware of how one child's upset can have a domino effect on even those who parted company amicably from their own parents.

Classroom teachers who do not have the luxury of very small groups to work with can call upon the built-in resourcefulness all preschool teachers possess to find an effective solution. What has worked well in the classrooms of our school is having the children dictate letters for their parents. We encourage children to use their words to express how they are feeling, who they are missing and what they would like to happen.

Guidelines:

• Set up a table for the distressed children. One teacher will facilitate. (Our classroom has a 1:7 ratio, so the other teachers are available for the other children and activities).
• Place a sheet of paper in front of each child.
• Have available their favorite drawing materials: crayons, markers, oil pastels, etc.
• Let the children know that each child will be heard, ask them to draw how they are feeling, or a picture of their parent or loved one, or of themselves. This will begin their expression of and transformation of their feelings. It will also keep them occupied while you transcribe each child's words.
• The children often like to fold their letters, putting them into an envelope or cubby or directly into their pockets for when their parents pick them up.

Next month: The power of drawing an old fashioned manual clock, connecting the children to their parents’ picks up time.

No Collecting Without Connecting

Learning to connect is the essence of social intelligence. Teaching preschoolers to connect appropriately to each other is a core value of their education. 

In the Expressive Arts Program at Pacific Primary in San Francisco, we have a motto, "No collecting without connecting." It was created as a reminder for the children. While they could play and explore the many open-ended materials in the art room, if they wanted to take the loose parts home, they'd need to connect them.

We have many 'connectors' in the room where social and emotional intelligence is the core of the program: glue, wire, string, ribbon, pipe cleaners. But my all-time favorite way to connect the recycled materials, the found objects and the beloved treasures are with tape -  specifically colored masking tape.

 At three years old, they learn to: 

·   Stick the end of the tape to the edge of the table

·   Hold the circle of tape and pull down 

·   Pick up your scissors and cut the tape to the size you'd like

Sounds easy, but mastering the cutting of the sticky red, green, yellow, blue, purple, orange, black, or white masking tape take time, focus, concentration, and patience.

We learn the names of many feelings during this time:

"Oh, you're FRUSTRATED," I say, giving a name to the vocalizing of the group. "What can we do when frustrated?"

The group supplies the answers: they are creative problem solvers. We get far beyond the initial, "You do it for me!"

I smile each time I hear their excited voices, "I did it!" After twenty-six years, I never tire of the delighted children learning to cut sticky masking tape and begin connecting--to the materials, to their feelings and to each other.