Teach Early Years - Issue 14.2

situations, empowering them to support the children accordingly. Very quickly we realised that the approach also helped staff to look at and think about how routines, the environment, and life events can have a huge effect on young children and that their own behaviours towards these situations could be adapted and improved to help to pre-empt and minimise emotional upheaval. Exploring how the brain can experience an “emotional hijacking” in response to a change in routine, the unpredictable actions of another child, or even an inability to convey needs and wants because of developing language, the approach quickly showed practitioners how to look for and develop more emotionally supportive settings. Understanding that behaviour is a form of communication helped staff to rethink their responses to situations and develop simple co-regulation strategies to soothe and calm children in emotional states. From those humble beginnings Leeds City Council quickly decided to invest in an Empathy Doll for every early years setting in the city, such was their impact in offering emotional support. Many other authorities Teachearlyyears.com 43 I couldn’t have imagined nearly 20 years ago that an approach to working with very young children that I started back in 2006 would still be going strong today, and arguably be needed more now than ever before. As a former early years teacher, it had always seemed to me that there was a gaping hole when it came to helping young children explore their emotions and also in practitioner understanding of how young brains work and how big emotions can lead to behaviour. At the same time, the government in England was waking up to the same idea and released the Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning (SEAL) project, which urged teachers of all ages to help support children with their emotions. Persona Dolls had been used with children since the 1970s to support the exploration of anti-bias issues such as anti-racism and anti-bullying, so I knew that dolls were a powerful tool for interacting with children. However, the concepts covered by Persona Dolls seemed, to me, to be beyond the egocentric age and stage appropriateness of early years. I felt there was a need for something that helped very young children to explore everyday emotions impacting their everyday lives – and so the idea of the Empathy Dolls Approach © was born. In 2006 the approach was first introduced to a room full of teachers in Leeds, England. They were asked to treat the doll as, effectively, another child in their settings, the idea being that children’s emotions and feelings could be explored via the doll. Practitioners, talking on behalf of the dolls, could explore big emotions that came from everyday routines and followed suit. Now, in 2025, the approach is used across the whole of the UK and Europe. Post pandemic, Empathy Dolls are taking on an even more vital role in helping children, families and practitioners. With reduced access to parent groups and limited social interactions in recent years, many settings are reporting increased issues with settling in and observing higher levels of both child and parental anxiety. The approach continues to help children to explore and reason with everyday situations away from the stereotypical “mad, sad, glad and bad” emotion faces that adorn many an educational catalogue. It offers a chance for practitioners to stop, to observe, and to truly listen to children and how they are feeling. Just because children do not have the words yet does not mean that they have nothing to say about how they feel. As a seasoned early years practitioner, trainer, consultant and author, I am proud to have started this thing and to still be introducing it to settings and children nearly two decades later. Long may it continue. Visit playingtolearn.co.uk KIRSTINE BEELEY IS AN AUTHOR, CONSULTANT, TEACHER AND FORMER SENIOR LECTURER With an Empathy Doll, practitioners can unlock and explore young children’s big emotions, explains Kirstine Beeley … “Stop, observe, and listen”