The Impacts of Stress and Support on Early Childhood Educators’ Emotion-Focused Teaching Practices: Lessons Learned during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract Early childhood education (ECE) settings are key contexts through which young children develop foundational social and emotional skills. ECE educators play a critical role in this process by teaching children about emotions through emotion-focused teaching (EFT). As well, positive teacher-child relationships are associated with better developmental outcomes for children. However, educators’ own wellbeing can impact the extent to which they are able to support the children in their classroom. This was particularly true throughout the COVID-19 pandemic while educators were responding to the heightened needs of children and families as well as personal stressors. The current paper uses a case study approach to explore how the stress and support experienced by ECE educators ( n = 5) is related to (a) their use of EFT practices and (b) the warmth of their classroom. The results indicate that stress levels vary across teachers and across time-of-day. Teachers did not report experiencing any support from their colleagues or program. Stress was not associated with EFT practice-use; however, teachers who used more EFT practices had a warmer classroom environment. Empirical recommendations for promoting the wellbeing of ECE educators and their use of EFT practices are provided.