Promoting Young Children's Emotional Health and Wellbeing by Sonia Mainstone-Cotton

Author:Sonia Mainstone-Cotton
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781784503116
Publisher: Jessica Kingsley Publishers
Published: 2017-03-05T05:00:00+00:00

Sensory play through nurture work – exploring emotions and feelings

In my role as a nurture worker I use sensory play every day; I mostly work with four-year-olds in reception classes. Using sensory play is a wonderful way to build up a trusting relationship with a child and can help to enhance their wellbeing. It is a fantastic way to help a child explore and develop their senses and to be in touch with their feelings and emotions. Often the sensory play activity I take into classes for the one child I am working with is then eagerly sought out by the rest of the children in the class.

Through using sensory play a child is able to safely explore different sensations and sensory play is a great vehicle for helping children understand their feelings. While using sensory play I will often talk to children about how it feels, for example, is it soft, hard, gooey, sticky? It is a great way to increase their vocabulary but also helps them to think about how it makes them feel. Do they like it? Does it make them feel scared? Does it make them laugh? Do they feel happy when they are playing with it? What feelings does it give inside their body? Does it make them feel warm inside or wobbly? Some sensory play can be really calming and soothing, I have observed children who are highly agitated and distressed really calm down when they are sitting down with a box of rice. Running their fingers through the rice helps them feel calmer, the sensation and the feel of the rice (or sand) brings about the same feelings, a sense of calmness and peacefulness.

Some children find sensory play very difficult, there are children who become really distressed at having dirty hands, sticky hands, etc. You are still able to do sensory play with these children by being sensitive to their concerns. You can make sensory bags/bottles with children, where you put sensory materials into a freezer bag or bottle and seal it. This allows children to play and explore but without the mess going all over them. You can then slowly introduce the child to more experiences that they can cope with, allowing the child to sit back and watch while you put your hands in the sensory material. Allow them to explore sensory materials at their pace, this may be tentatively dipping a finger in to start; by watching you enjoying it and exploring they will learn how it can be played with. One child I work with was very unsure about sensory play, over a few months, she slowly increased the amount of time she would tolerate being near the sensory play. Recently I took in crazy soap and by the end of the session she had her hands in the soap, she spread it on her arms and was laughing with delight.

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