Topic

Affective bonds

What Stimulates: Compassion, Empathy, and Love

Preparation and materials:

  • None

Recommended ages:

  • 0 to 3 years old
  • 3 to 5 years old
  • 5 to 8 years old

Why is this activity important?

Showing love and affection to your child is essential for their healthy development. How a child feels about himself, how confident he is, and how well he handles stress teaches a child to have a safe and loving relationship with his parents and caregivers. For newborn babies, take every opportunity to show them love so you can bond, which is so important in a baby's life.

How you can do this:

FOR AGES 0-3

Here are some examples to strengthen the bond between you and your child. So feel free to try as many as you like, choosing the ones you feel most comfortable doing: As you breastfeed, hold the baby close. Wrap your arms around the baby's body. Look into the baby's eyes while breastfeeding.

Kiss and hug the baby.

“Caress” the baby by placing your nose and face very close to and on the baby's neck and shoulder, and affectionately caressing the baby with your face. Let the baby touch and hold your face while you do this.

Give the baby a massage, stroking the baby's body warmly and gently.

Place the baby's skin directly against your skin. This could be on your chest, neck, or torso.

Make your baby smile. play. Wiggle your eyebrows. Stick out your tongue. Make all kinds of funny expressions, finding the ones your baby likes the most and makes him smile

Do something loving with your partner. Whether you realize it or not, your baby is noticing the bond your parents share and absorbing the way they interact. Their behavior is learned and they learn their bond. Strengthen bonds with your partner. This is what the baby will model as it grows.

When the baby looks at you, smile back. When the baby cooes or makes sounds, talk back to the baby.

Indicators of Opportunities and Achievements

Smiling at the baby so that he responds with another smile, exchanging glances during breastfeeding, slowly moving the face to follow the movement, picking him up to caress, talk and play, even when he is not crying , are some of the important stimuli to create a favorable environment and conditions for development. At Pastoral da Criança we call these stimuli Indicators of Opportunity and Achievements, which are also a way of monitoring how the baby is developing. To learn more about IOCS, see the 6-year gestation e-Guide. Follow the topics Playing with the baby's face and hands, Playing in the lap and Playing where? He thought! and enjoy playing together. At e-Toys and Play you have these and many other play tips!


FOR AGES 3-5 YEARS

Create a warm, peaceful and relaxing environment – it can be in the garden, in the living room or in any other space where you enjoy being together. Tell your child you are going to read/tell a story about love. It can be from a book, from a religious or spiritual text, or from your childhood. It can also be through short animated videos for children or a movie. When the story/movie is over, ask the child what the story was about, who the characters were and what they liked best.

Invite your child to draw a picture of what love means to him. Let the child talk about his drawing and explore more with him: When do you feel love? How do you show love?

Hand in hand with the child. Speak to them in a gentle tone, get down to their eye level when talking or playing with them.

Lie down next to the child to talk or play with them. Young children feel emotionally and physically safe when you are around, strengthen that sense of security.

Finish by expressing how much you love them.


FOR AGES 5-8 YEARS

As for ages 3-5, create a warm, peaceful and relaxing environment in which they feel comfortable. Talk to your child about what love means and let them communicate with you. your own words.

  • When you hear the word love what do you think/imagine?
  • When do you feel love? How do you show love?
  • Acknowledge what they say by looking at them, nodding your head, or smiling.
  • Ask questions about what they say so they can develop their opinions more deeply.

Share your own understanding of what love is, when you feel love, and who or what makes you feel loved/loved.

Share or look together what your spiritual tradition/religion says about love.

Think of a special way to show love for each other on a daily basis.

Share a love message or drawing with someone.

Tip on how to do this group activity

Start by sitting in a circle and spend some time talking to the group about love. You can choose a love-shaped toy or drawing and pass it around the circle, ask each child to name something or someone they love. Talk about how you can show love to the people in your classroom and to your teacher.

Instead of drawing what love is, you can create paints or play dough (there are many recipes in the e-Toys and Plays with Kids) and invite them to create something for someone they love.


Activity: Affective bonds

During the first moments of a child's life, it is very important that the baby feels close to you. If a baby has a strong attachment, it serves as a positive foundation for all other outcomes in his life.

Love is a central concept in the world's religions and is a feeling that children have. This can include many types of love, including human-to-human love, or to a higher reality. The activities in this topic propose to demonstrate and encourage love in concrete ways for children. First, in receiving love like a child. Second, basic ways to express love as a child. Third, by recognizing in early childhood all the ways in which humans show love for one another. These serve as a basis for understanding more abstract types of love later in life. Feel free to integrate your ways of expressing love into the activities, according to your faith context and perspective.



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