Parents Supporting Early Learning During COVID-19

Young children learn through play. Older children likely have worksheets and assignments to complete as part of their distance learning. Parents may expect that younger children also need these kinds of focused, academic materials to keep them on a path of school-readiness. However, learning in early care and education environments is centered around play. Through play, young children develop their cognitive, social, physical, and literacy skills.

Parents have a key role in supporting learning and development. In the first five years of life, children’s brains are developing rapidly. One of the best ways to support growth and development is through serve and return, or back and forth interactions between an adult and child. Parents can and likely already do incorporate these exchanges into children’s daily activities, such as getting dressed or helping with chores.

Open-ended materials can promote creative play. Children are spending more time than usual in their home environments and may grow tired of playing with their same toys. Toys that have a specific purpose or goal, or those connected to movie or TV characters, can limit children to follow a certain script, story, or set of rules when playing. Open-ended materials, like playdough, blocks, and Legos, and even household materials, like cardboard boxes, give children a blank slate and provide opportunities for children play creatively and make decisions.

Independent play offers opportunities for learning. It is unrealistic to expect that any parents, especially those working remotely, can spend every minute of every day fully engaged in play with young children. Using the principles of serve and return, parents can support independent, child-driven play that promotes children’s autonomy and helps grow their attention span, while also giving parents a chance to focus on work and other needs. This resource from Zero to Three provides guidance on encouraging independent play.

Social-emotional development is a critical part of early learning. Though children may not understand what a pandemic is, they know that their day-to-day lives look different and can pick up on the worries and stress of adults in their lives. However, they are still developing the language and skills to express their emotions constructively. Stress responses in infants and toddlers may look like more crying and temper tantrums, irritability, and increased separation anxiety. Children 3 to 5 years old often experience regression, returning to behaviors they had when they were younger, such as losing progress in potty-training or sucking their thumb.

Additionally, in their first few years, children are developing their attention span. In the first year, children have an attention span of one to three minutes. This grows to five to six minutes for 2-year-olds, around eight minutes for 3-year-olds, and up to 10 minutes for 4-year-olds. Children quickly losing interest in an activity does not mean it was a bad activity; it is just a reflection of their developmental stage. Understanding where children’s limitations are can help prevent stress and frustration for both parents and children.