Resolutions for the Unique Child

It’s that time of the year again.  Recently I heard someone say that they save making any resolutions until later in January, not on New Years Day. Whether you make resolutions, or not, or whenever you choose to make them, as the New Year begins, it is a good time to reflect on the work we do within our profession of Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC). A fresh start is often a time for a rethink. In this blog, Dr Sue will tease out three aspects of our profession:

• Practice
• Provision
• People

These strands are component parts of our pedagogy. What are we doing? Why are we doing it like that? How are we making a difference? What if we did something differently?  Every decision we make about any of these aspects will ultimately impact on the unique child/children that we work with. Sometimes this can be overlooked. How might we keep the child in our focus?
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Often we work in a way that we always have, things have become a habit and nothing has really happened to change what we do. It can be scary to stand back and take a critical view. However, reflection is an important professional exercise, and our children and families rely on us to be informed and reflective so that they get the best from us.

My start point to thinking about this piece was to look up the definition of ‘resolution’.  This was useful as there are two different meanings both of which are very helpful –

Resolution 1 – a promise to yourself to do or to not do something:

I made a resolution to give up chocolate

Resolution 2 – the act of solving or ending a problem or difficulty:

a successful resolution to the crisis

So making a resolution is not just about deciding to do something.  The wider definitions here enable us to think more deeply about our work with the unique child/children.

So how can we apply this type of decision-making to the three focus aspects here? 

– Practice
– Provision
– People

My suggestion would be to filter each one through five filters:

– Expectations

– Outside Influences

– Other people

– Personal feelings

– Assumptions

While you are working on this, remember that a resolution can be to do, or not do something.  And it can also be about resolving a conflict. Filtering our professional life in this way means that we must be brave and look at things objectively. This is scary and not easy to do.

To do this effectively requires three levels of analysis from us –

• Reflection – we often do this. It’s like looking in a mirror to see how things appear.  This can be surface level only though
• Reflective – we need to take a deeper look at the reflection.  Thinking about it and perhaps taking different perspectives
• Reflexive – To be reflexive is perhaps the most difficult level as it requires of us to be honest with ourselves about how we influence situations and the thinking of others

So when we are making decisions, resolutions, for the unique children we work with there is quite a lot to take into account. Three questions to start the process might be:

1. Are we putting the unique child and their family at the centre of our decisions about practice and provision?
2. How can we do this more effectively?
3. How can we implement developmentally informed practice and provision?

As we move forward into 2026, let’s not just wish each other Happy New Year, but also use this new year as a time for reflection and growth.

 

About the author

Dr Sue Allingham started her career as a teacher and an Early Years Lead before becoming a Local Authority Early Years Adviser. Moving into research, Sue gained an MA then a Doctorate, both in Early Childhood Education. She is now an Independent Consultant, Author and Trainer, with publications on Transitions in the Early Years and Emotional Literacy in the Early Years.

 

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