Developing a mapping tool to support connection and loving relationships in early years settings

Loving relationships between children and adults in early childhood education and care support children to settle more quickly into new environments, form other attachments, improve language acquisition and progress in reading and grammar. A positive, loving relationship with an adult can also provide a secure base for development and learning and a template for trusting relationships with adults. There is a lack of guidance and support for how to foster such relationships. To address this, a sociogram-based relationship mapping tool was developed to explore relationships between teachers and young children in their care. The relationship mapping tool was developed and tested with a group of teachers of children aged 4–5 years. The teachers met over a school year, discussed their practice and mapped their relationships with the children in their class. The study highlights three key findings of the benefits of using the relationship mapping tool: it made all children in the class visible to the practitioner; enabled the practitioners to learn about relational practice; it helped the practitioners to create stronger connections with children as this implicit area of practice became explicit. The mapping process enabled the participants to co-construct their understanding of the relationships in the classroom and to critically reflect on the factors that impacted on their relationships. We discuss the professional development potential for relationship mapping for teachers to have the space to collectively reflect on relationships over time and support teachers’ understanding and self-awareness regarding their relationships with children.