Using puppets to support children’s prosocial thinking and action: “What would we tell Pig and Frog to do?”

Using puppets to support children’s prosocial thinking and action

“What would we tell Pig and Frog to do?”

Lorna Duley, Tara McLaughlin, and Alison Sewell

Introduction

Social-emotional development and learning in the early years is critical to help children to gain essential skills that support them to interact successfully with others and to build positive relationships (David & Powell, 2014; Denham et al., 2013; Joseph & Strain, 2003; Koglin & Petermann, 2011; Ladd, Birch, & Buhs, 1999). The development of prosocial behaviours is a key component of social-emotional learning. Ladd et al. (1999) suggested that children consistently demonstrate one of two behaviour orientations in their social interactions—either an orientation to move towards others, which can be described as prosocial, or an orientation to move against others, described as antisocial. For the purposes of the collaborative action research (CAR) project, the participating teachers viewed prosocial behaviours as key skills that could be developed in children to enable them to enjoy successful interactions with their peers and teachers. Prosocial behaviours are frequently characterised as: sharing, co-operating, helping, and demonstrating consideration and kindness towards others.

The existing body of research on prosocial behaviour suggests that an orientation for prosocial behaviour can generate significant benefits for children. It has been shown that children with an orientation for prosocial behaviour are more academically successful (Capara, Barbaranelli, Pastorelli, Bandura, & Zimbardo, 2000; Ladd et al., 1999), and enjoy meaningful relationships with peers and teachers (Avgitidou, 2001; Sebanc, 2003; Slaughter, Dennis, & Pritchard, 2002). Furthermore, longitudinal research suggests that a prosocial orientation can support positive long-term outcomes such as stable employment, participation in tertiary education, and reduced risk of mental-health issues (Jones, Greenberg, & Crowley, 2015).

Children can spend considerable periods of time in early childhood education (ECE) settings during a crucial time in their social-emotional development (David & Powell, 2014; Joseph & Strain, 2003; Koglin & Petermann, 2011), and teachers play a pivotal role in shaping the values and culture that children experience in that setting. Given the importance of prosocial behaviours, it is critical that ECE teachers have effective strategies to promote prosocial behaviour development and learning. The purpose of this CAR project was to investigate and instigate effective teaching practices that support an orientation for prosocial behaviours in children in an early childhood setting.

Method

This research project took place in a private ECE setting located in a socioeconomically advantaged urban area of a New Zealand city. This setting caters for up to 27 children who attend each day between the hours of 8.30am and 3.30pm. Children attend in two distinct groups organised by age. Changes to teaching strategies were only implemented with the older children, primarily aged 4, in group one, who attended 3 days per week as the participating teachers believed this age group would benefit the most from these changes. At the time of the research project, the kindergarten employed four qualified teachers and one unqualified part-time teacher. The four qualified teachers accepted the invitation to participate, including the lead author in the role of participant researcher and teacher. The participants had a range of teaching experience from 5 to 10 years.

The CAR project involved working through five steps that typically form an action research cycle (Kemmis & McTaggart, 1988; McNiff & Whitehead, 2010; Reason & Bradbury, 2001) as depicted in Figure 1.

In the initial observation step, the teachers gathered data about our current practices and their effectiveness to bring about prosocial behaviours. The gathered data then informed the reflection stage of the action research cycle where, through individual and collaborative reflection, we were able to recognise the values, beliefs, and principles underpinning current practices, and to recognise the situations where current strategies were problematic and/or ineffective. During the reflection stage we developed shared intentions for changing our practice. We agreed that we wanted to:

•empower children with the knowledge and confidence to solve their own social problems in prosocial ways

•encourage participation and engagement from as many children as possible

•communicate that everyone can learn and improve their prosocial behaviour just as it is possible to learn other skills

•communicate consistent expectations about prosocial behaviour

•encourage children to develop empathy by considering the feelings and thoughts of others.

The third step of the cycle involves using literature to inform, enrich, and challenge thinking. An article by Christopher Taaffe (2012) that the lead author had found particularly resonated with the participating teachers. Taaffe and his colleagues had tackled an issue of social conflict among 3-year-old children in his preschool setting by using puppets as a group-teaching strategy to role-play the use of kind speech. These researchers found an increase in prosocial behaviour in their setting and a reduction in the problem behaviours associated with social conflict. The teachers in the current research project had not previously considered using puppets to support children’s prosocial thinking and action. However, we wondered if using puppets could help us to achieve our shared intentions.

FIGURE 1. COLLABORATIVE ACTION RESEARCH CYCLE

The article generated significant discussion and informed our planning stage. During the planning stage we agreed on and developed two integrated teaching strategies derived from the Taaffe article. The first strategy was to use puppets to present the children with a social-conflict scenario, inviting the children’s participation to help the puppets to resolve the conflict with the use of prosocial behaviours. We referred to these puppet sessions as “puppet hui”, reflecting the Māori process of coming together as a group to discuss issues that concern everyone, in a setting where everyone has the opportunity to contribute their opinion (Salmond, 2004). The second strategy was to use the puppet hui as a resource to prompt children’s thinking when similar social conflicts arose during the natural context of play. These two strategies were implemented in the act stage and prompted further observation and reflection, effectively moving us through the action research cycle again.

Implementation—two integrated strategies

Strategy 1: Using scenario-based learning (SBL) with puppets

During the puppet hui we presented the children with social scenarios using puppets, based on real social scenarios that we, as teachers, had observed in the kindergarten. In each hui the puppets were involved in a social scenario that required the application of prosocial behaviours to solve a social dilemma. The children were asked to help the puppets by making suggestions about how they could solve their dilemma. During the course of the research, the children and teachers participated in five puppet hui. The first two hui focused on sharing behaviours, while the remaining three introduced prosocial behaviour in potential social conflict situations, such as a disagreement about playing a game, or declining a request to play.

During the puppet hui, one teacher acted as a facilitator of the discussion, two teachers acted as puppeteers, and one teacher recorded it on video for later reflection and review. The facilitator began by explaining to the children that the puppets were still learning and they needed the children’s help to solve social problems. Simple scripts guided the start of each hui and documented specific intentions for that scenario as agreed by the teaching team (e.g., to encourage discussion about how different characters are feeling). In the context of the hui, the puppets acted according to these intentions and the ways the teachers had observed children responding previously. The facilitator subsequently mediated the discussion among the puppets to ensure children’s ideas and suggestions were heard and acted upon in the puppet show. An extract from the fifth puppet hui provides an illustration of the process. In this scenario, two puppets—Pig and Panda—were engaged in a game of “ninjas”, when Frog arrived and suggested they all be puppies instead. The extract begins at the point where the puppets are responding to the children’s first suggestion that the game could be changed to include both puppies and ninjas:

Pig: But I just want to play ninjas.

Panda: Yeah me too.

Frog: But why don’t we all play puppies?

Pig: But I have powers.

[Children laughing]

Facilitator (teacher): Okay, so Frog wants to play puppies, Piggy and Panda, they just want to play ninjas. Okay so what other ideas have we got? Sara?

Sara (child): Maybe they could swap over to the other and then to the other, and play later.

Facilitator (teacher): Okay, so is this right, is this what you’re saying? They play the ninja game now maybe and then swap over and play the puppy game later? Is that what you think they should do?

Sara (child): Yes.

Frog: I don’t really want to play ninjas, I just wanna play puppies, I just want someone to play puppies with me, just puppies that’s all.

Pig: I just want to play ninjas.

Panda: Me too.

Pig: Yeah we just want to play ninjas.

…

Jenny (child): What if Piggy and Panda, and, and, and, play puppies after ninjas.

Facilitator (teacher): After the ninjas? So they get to finish their game of ninjas, and then they could play with Frog later? Yes? So what could Frog do right now?

…

Jim (child): Maybe they could play the game (pointing to Pig and Panda) and Koala could play puppies with Frog.

Facilitator (teacher): Did you guys hear what Jim suggested? Maybe Frog could ask Koala to play puppies, because we know that Koala loves to play puppies, don’t we from last time and then Pig and Panda can finish playing their game of ninjas.

Frog: Okay, that’s right Koala does like puppies, oh, I’m gonna go and see if I can find Koala, I’ll be right back okay.

As each scenario was played out in response to the children’s suggestions, it provided them with an opportunity to see how the puppet characters responded, potentially enabling greater insight into the perspectives, feelings, and responses of others.

Strategy 2: Prompting children’s thinking and action in natural settings

Using the puppet hui as a resource, we prompted children’s thinking and action in the natural context of their play and everyday routines. To do this, the teaching team encouraged children to think about and apply the prosocial strategies and processes modelled in the puppet hui to resolve their real social problems.

The way in which team members might prompt children’s thinking was left to each teacher’s individual discretion. For example, one teacher noted she “spoke to them about what Pig and Frog did in a similar situation … I asked ‘How did Pig and Frog solve this problem?’.” Three of the teachers described referring specifically to the puppets as part of their prompting while the other teacher described that she referred specifically to the strategies that the puppets had used in the hui, such as taking turns as a way of sharing.

Nonetheless, all teachers consistently reported the effectiveness of prompting children’s thinking back to the hui as a means of revisiting their learning. This resulted in the application of prosocial behaviours during play to resolve social conflict. One teacher summed up the strategy of referring back to the puppet hui as an effective way of saying to children “think about how to solve this social problem in a way that is fair and just”. With the scenarios on hand to revisit, we found that children were more likely to think of a prosocial way to solve the current social conflict than they had been prior to the puppet hui.

Findings and discussion

The teaching team concluded the puppet hui were an effective means of communicating expectations for prosocial behaviour and engaging children’s attention on this topic. In the context of the hui, the teachers felt that children were positioned as experts and there were many opportunities for peer learning. Moreover, we found that prompting children to revisit the puppet hui in the natural context of play served to diffuse tension and to reduce emotions present in a conflict situation. This naturalistic teaching strategy also empowered children to resolve their own social problems in prosocial ways, encouraging peer mediation and supporting the development of a shared language around prosocial behaviours. Taken together, the teaching team reported that the strategies had shifted their teaching practices—practices that have been sustained in the year following the project. Key themes drawn from our teaching experiences are discussed below.

Communicating consistent expectations in a shared language

The teaching team found that the planned puppet hui were an effective way to communicate consistent messages to children about prosocial behaviour expectations. We reflected that this was in part due to our detailed discussions to prepare for the puppet hui, to prepare to react appropriately in situations where children’s responses would be unpredictable. As one teacher explained it, “we can ‘wing’ it because we are all on the same page with it … we all know what our overall objective is … we’ve had these conversations”. We also felt that the consistency of communication around prosocial behaviours was supported by having all the children and teachers present at the puppet hui, so everyone shared the experience and heard the same messages. As one teacher explained it: “It feels like … it’s a real collective.”

The teachers reported that these shared experiences made it easier for them to support children in the natural context of play. For example, one child introduced the idea of compromise during a puppet hui and explained how the puppets might compromise. Subsequently, a teacher reported an interaction where two children were involved in a conflict as they each wanted to play a different game. When the teacher asked them how they could solve the problem, one child suggested they could compromise, going on to apply this idea by suggesting that rather than either of them getting their own way they choose a different game together. Both children resolved the situation, in part because they had shared understandings from the hui, and they had access to the same language and vocabulary about prosocial behaviours.

Consistent and predictable teacher communication and expectations about pro­social behaviour contributes to the creation of a positive social-emotional environment for children (Howes & Ritchie, 2002; Kemple, 2004; Webster-Stratton, 1999). Moreover, Howes (2000) found that an experience of a positive social-emotional climate at age 4 was a predictor of children’s social competence, including a measure of prosocial behaviour, 4 years later.

Engaging and empowering children

An important intention of the puppet hui was to provide a mechanism for supporting children to learn about prosocial behaviours in a way that ensured their engagement and active participation. The video recordings made at each puppet hui provided evidence of the level of engagement demonstrated by the children. We were able to observe the looks on children’s faces, their attentive body language, and the way they maintained their attention on the puppets and with the group discussion. We observed that this attentive focus was maintained throughout all five puppet hui, rather than being a novelty factor that dissipated after the first few hui. In addition, the teaching team observed children re-enacting the scenarios using the puppets themselves, and in one instance even using the puppets as a tool when communicating with a peer in a conflict situation.

The strategy of positioning children as experts who needed to make suggestions to help the puppets was an important part of empowering children and promoted peer learning. Accordingly, the teacher in the role of facilitator ensured that every child who wanted to contribute to the discussion had a chance to be heard by the group. Review of the video showed that more than half of the children had made contributions. Furthermore, we noted that children who would not normally contribute during mat-time were contributing to the hui.

A further important part of empowering children to use the ideas they generated in the puppet hui in their everyday play was encouraging them to make connections to their prior knowledge gained through their participation in the puppet hui (e.g., asking, “What would we tell Pig and Frog to do?”). Doing so empowered the children to solve their own problems. In some instances, children were supported in this problem-solving process by their peers who made suggestions for solutions in the same way they had done when helping the puppets.

The teachers reported that making reference to the puppet hui had the effect of diffusing tension and reducing the intensity of children’s emotions in the context of naturally occurring social conflicts. An example from one teacher’s reflective journal illustrates how we found this to work in practice:

There seems to be an instant reduction in emotion, it feels calmer and there are thoughtful faces staring at me instead of angry or upset ones … they are more engaged in thought.

Prompting children to revisit the puppet hui supported children to move beyond responding with their emotions, so they could start thinking through potential options to solve the problem. As one teacher explained it:

… it is easier to think clearly through potential solutions when you are not involved and perhaps having had this experience, it is easier to also think clearly in a real social conflict.

These findings are consistent with literature that suggests puppets can be effective tools for learning in early childhood. Literature suggests that puppets can help to sustain young children’s interest and attention, and therefore can be a useful mechanism for the acquisition and reinforcing of key concepts (Matson, Fee, Coe, & Smith, 1991; Myck-Wayne, 2010; Salmon & Sainato, 2005; Webster-Stratton, Reid, & Hammond, 2001). Puppets can also help children to explore a different perspective and to gain an insight into the thinking and feelings of others (Landy, 2002; Webster-Stratton & Reid, 2003). Additionally, we found puppets had the advantage of flexibility to respond to children’s suggestions and the group discussion, rather than having a predetermined outcome as would be the case, for example, when using a book to provoke discussion. Furthermore, puppets can provide a safe context for children to express ideas and to engage with thinking about social conflicts while not emotionally involved (Kemple, 2004; Webster-Stratton, 1999). The findings in the present study are consistent with the contributions from neuroscience that suggest it is hard for learning to take place when emotions are heightened (Rushton, Juola-Rushton, & Larkin, 2010).

Shifts in teaching practices

Implementing the puppet hui as a planned group-teaching strategy to support children’s prosocial thinking and action represented a significant shift in teaching practice for the teachers in this research. At the outset of the research, all the teachers expressed the view that the most effective way to support children’s learning about prosocial behaviours was by using naturalistic teaching strategies in the context of children’s play. Planned group-teaching strategies were perceived as being teacher-led where children can become positioned as passive recipients of the teachers’ knowledge. Historically, planned group learning experiences have not been popular teaching strategies in the New Zealand ECE sector where the emphasis has been on “free play” with the control and direction of learning residing with the child (Stover, 2016). Moreover, teachers expressed concern that a group-teaching situation would be “out of context” where the learning is abstract and therefore children would not necessarily make the connection about how to apply this learning in real situations.

Due to these initial perspectives, the scenario-based learning (SBL) approach used in the puppet hui paired with the in-context prompts represented a significant shift in thinking and practice for the teaching team. Scenario-based learning requires learners to apply knowledge and to learn to solve a scenario that simulates a genuine experience (Errington, 2003). In this research, the teachers used the SBL approach to ensure children were positioned as active participants in the learning situation, thus ensuring their existing knowledge and contributions were able to be heard and respected. Moreover, Errington (2003) argues SBL strategies can promote not only learning acquisition but also an awareness of how to apply that knowledge in action in real situations. The teachers found this to be the case in this research as children were able to apply the knowledge gained in the puppet hui to solve real social conflicts.

As a complementary approach to the puppet hui, the team used naturalistic teaching (NT) strategies. The effectiveness of using NT strategies, embedded in the context of children’s play as a means of supporting children’s peer interactions, has been established in the research literature (Brown, Odom, & Conroy, 2001; Chandler & Lubeck, 1992; Snyder et al., 2015). NT strategies involve following children’s lead in natural environments while giving individualised support to facilitate the learning of new skills that can be meaningfully generalised across a range settings (Snyder et al., 2015). NT strategies have been identified as an effective way to support children’s engagement and motivation in learning (Snyder et al., 2015). Specific to prosocial behaviour, Spivak and Farran (2012) concluded that deliberate and intentional verbal prompts, when combined with teacher empathy, were the more effective NT strategies for encouraging prosocial behaviour in comparison to passive strategies such as simply modelling.

The strategies used by our team during the project became increasingly intentional and provided meaningful follow-up to the SBL in the context of play and everyday routines. Intentional teaching has been described as planned and purposeful actions to support children’s learning (Epstein, 2009) and has been recommended as an important framework for teachers to consider in New Zealand (McLaughlin, Aspden, & Snyder, 2016). Our experience with such an intentional and integrated approach is consistent with Epstein (2009) who argues that teacher-guided experiences can present children with “materials and experiences that they were less likely to encounter on their own and systems of knowledge they cannot create on their own” (p. 46).

In the present study, the teachers intentionally presented children with an opportunity to connect their ideas about prosocial behaviours such as “sharing” with the application of those ideas in real situations, which is not always obvious to children. Wells (2001) contends that knowledge only becomes truly known or an understanding when it is connected and applied to solve real problems. The intentional and planned SBL strategy using puppets made possible the connection between knowledge and its application in the real world of play. By the end of the research, the teachers were convinced of the value of integrating planned group strategies using an SBL approach with NT strategies. We believed the combination of these two strategies was a significant improvement in our teaching practices to support children’s thinking and action about prosocial behaviours.

Conclusion

Through the process of taking part in the CAR process, we were able to examine and challenge our current teaching practices, making it possible for us to be open to adopting different ways of supporting children’s prosocial thinking and action. As a result, puppet hui using an SBL approach combined with prompting children’s thinking in a play context have become an integral part of our teaching and learning programme that we continue to use with all ages of children. In addition, we have adopted the use of puppets in a variety of other ways with children such as children taking Pipi Penguin puppet home for visits. We have also created a simple book based on the puppet hui scenarios so we can revisit learning and prompt discussion with small groups of children. We believe the opportunity to take part in the CAR process has enabled us to challenge and strengthen our teaching practice. We now offer our findings to invite teachers to reflect on their teaching strategies to support children’s prosocial behaviour learning.

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