Consistency in children's classroom experiences and implications for early childhood development

Abstract

In order to promote positive developmental trajectories, children need predictable teacher-child social interactions that are consistently sensitive and responsive. In environments where children are surrounded by warm, supportive, nurturing adults whose behaviors, actions, and emotions are relatively consistent, children cultivate the confidence to explore their surroundings in ways that facilitate development across multiple domains. In this chapter, we emphasize the within-day consistency in children's experience of classroom emotional support and summarize the research linking emotional support consistency to children's behavioral and academic gains from preschool through elementary grades. We further explore teacher-child relationships as mediators and child temperament and self-regulation as moderators of child outcomes. We offer two established theoretical frameworks for understanding the role of teacher's emotional support consistency on child outcomes: (a) Attachment theory suggests the provision of consistently warm and supportive caregiving facilitates an environment where children more readily explore and learn; (b) resource depletion theory suggests that children who devote attentional resources to monitor a changing or unpredictable social environment may not have sufficient cognitive resources available to dedicate toward learning tasks. We conclude with consistency measurement considerations and an invitation to conceptualize consistency in multiple ways, offering family mobility patterns as an example.