ABSTRACT
Experience in early childhood education has shown that there is need to respond to the many types of complex social issues and economic trends affecting children in developing countries as a result of family adjustments and disruptions. In the Kenyan traditional society, the family set-up was anchored on extended family arrangements and children were mainly counseled by the grandparents, aunties, uncles and other relatives. This ensured a solid background which was healthy for the developing person. However in the contemporary society the traditional family set up has broken down. There is less contact between children and their grandparents, aunties and uncles. Parents have also become too busy and this has resulted to children being taken to school too early some barely three years old. Parents’ absence and reliance on pre-school teachers seems to create an emotional gap. Children like adults have many issues that affect their emotional growth and development. Like children of other stages, pre-school children require guidance and counseling to deal with behavioral and emotional problems in order to realize their optimum development and learning performance. The study was carried out to explore the guidance and counseling strategies pre-school teachers use in managing social-emotional behaviour problems of pre-school children. It also investigated the causes of social- emotional problems among children and the challenges teachers face. The study was carried out in Nakuru Municipality and it was guided by Erik Erikson’s Theory of psychosocial development and Skinner’s Behavioural Theory. Survey research design was used in this study to obtain information about guidance and counseling strategies, social and emotional problems and behavior management in pre-schools classrooms and during children outdoor activities. To ensure maximum variations in the characteristics of ECD centers selected for the study, purposive sampling was done to obtain 8 schools from which16 pre-school teachers were interviewed. Teachers were interviewed to find out how they deal with children having social-emotional problems. Observation was also done to see some of the indictors of social-emotional problem among children. Data was analyzed qualitatively where the information obtained was organized into themes and categories by first tidying up the data, finding the items, creating stable items, creating patterns and assembling groups of related or linked patterns that come up with an overall description of the problem being studied. The findings showed that there were a considerable number of pre-school children who had social-emotional problems that affect their behaviour and school performance. Such behaviour problems included inability to play, appearing moody and worried and being not attentive. The causes of these problems were mainly domestic conflict and poverty. Guidance and counseling strategies teachers used played a great role in helping pre-school children change behaviour and improve their learning performance. These included involving parents and talking to the children as individual or groups. Teachers faced many challenges when dealing with social emotionally disturbed children. Such challenges included, some parents not heeding to their call or denying there is a problem. The researcher has recommended that there is need for a trained teacher counselor in each pre-school. There is also need for referrals to be made for children with serious behaviour problems. This would go a long way in realizing healthy development in early childhood and hence avoid maladjusted adults in future.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION AND CONTEXTUAL BACKGROUND
- Introduction
This chapter covers the background to the study, the problem statement, purpose of the study, objectives, research questions, scope, and limitations of the study as well as significance of the study. It also discusses the theoretical framework based on Erik Erickson’s Theory of Psychosocial Development and Skinners Behavioral Theory. Finally it highlights the conceptual framework of the study.
- Background to the Study
Recent years have seen a worldwide effort to give first priority to early child- hood care and education as critical in determining the quality of human life in the 21st century (Association for Childhood Education International, 2011). The international focus in the quality of care of children in early years may have been motivated by the need to respond to a diverse of complex social issues and economic trends affecting children worldwide in developing countries. These forces, which are referred to as “complex family stressors” may be as a result of societal changes due to industrialization, more women with young children entering the work force and an increase of families with two working parents. It is also due to an increase in the number of single parents and disappearance of the traditional ways of caring for children and extended family support networks (Driscoll & Nagal) as cited by Mbugua (2004).
In the contemporary society, the extended family set-up has been replaced by nuclear families. Many non-traditional families and lifestyles have grown rapidly in number
over the past half-decade. Strong support networks and extended family ties are not as available as thought (Turner & Welch, 2011).
Amato (2005) carried out a study on how changes in U.S family structure affected the cognitive, social, and emotional well-being of the nation’s children. He investigated how children in households with two biological parents differ from children in households with only one biological parent. His findings show that, children growing up with both parents are less likely to experience a wide range of cognitive, social and emotional problems during childhood and also later in adulthood. However children growing up with one biological parent had high chances of developing cognitive, social and emotional problems. Troubled children are likely to develop problems with disobedience, anger and rule violations. School achievement is also likely to suffer (Billings & Emery, 2000).
In the Kenyan traditional society, the family setup was mainly extended families. Children were mainly guided and counseled by grandparents, aunties, uncles and other relatives. There were fewer opportunities for formal education especially among the young children and they stayed with the family members for a long time until they matured. The extended family provided services that young people and children needed. Uncles, aunts and other relatives were sources of information that young people needed as they grew up (UNESCO, 2000).
Economic demands and expectations have made parents to be quite busy trying to provide for their families. There is less contact between children and their grandparents, aunties and uncles. The alternative is for the families to result to formal education from early years. The consequences is that young children barely three
years of age are leaving home for school under the care of pre-school teachers who are themselves likely to be less competent to provide alternative parental support to these children.
This has resulted to less contact time for parents or relatives to guide and/or counsel their children. Sirera (2003) argues that, parents in the current society may be unavailable physically and emotionally to respond to the psychological needs of young growing children. This denies the growing children the guidance, which is an important ingredient for their healthy development. Muasya (2016) in her study reports that, the number of women in the formal sector in Sub-Saharan Africa has increased in recent years. The kinship networks are weakening, leading to a decline in the traditional forms of support for child care.
Due to work pressure on parents living in urban areas, most families have resorted to employment of house helps as the main caretakers for children at home further reducing the contact time children have with their parents. Majority of the house helps are basically people searching for survival and are likely to come from poor backgrounds and with less formal education. These house helps move from their families to urban areas in search of opportunities for any form of employment and the consequence for entrusting young children to them can be disastrous. Besides, most of them have not received training on bringing up children and how to take care of their emotional issues.
Children like adults face many issues that affect their social-emotional growth and development. Meggit (2006) says that, there are numerous reasons as to why children experience lack of social and emotional well-being. In the recent years Kenya has
experienced high rates of divorce and separation which hardly occurred in traditional times; loss of loved ones due to illness, accidents or natural calamities like floods and famine. In addition, the recent political and ethnic violence has resulted in the displacement of persons or loss of property. Transfer of parents from their work places results in children changing their usual environment and separation from their friends. Nickson (2014) reports that the instantaneous lack of continuity and stability can cause academic and behavior problems. The child has to get used to a new school environment and get new friends, leaving behind the old social networks formed over years.
Child sexual abuse has also been on the increase. All these issues could cause maladaptive behaviors if not dealt with early enough. It is therefore a concern that most young children especially at the early years rely on the mercy of pre-school teachers and others house helps to cater for their counseling and psychological needs. The Mother Goose Kenya (2014) in their report points out that, the nanny must be a child’s person who will love, have patience with children, understands children psychology and above all nurture the children just like the parent.
