Language and Communication with Children

Language is an essential part of our identity, providing a key means of self-expression, enabling us to form relationships and bonds, to communicate needs and express our opinions. Language helps to support the child's learning processes in all other areas in the kindergarten, including social- emotional skills, as well as simply navigating through their days at kinder- garten. Acquiring language skills, for instance, is related to the ability to focus, take turns, problem solve and successfully interact with others. It serves as a foundation to promote learning in all developmental fields. Language provides a way for the children to ex- press themselves and to reflect, to be understood, to cooperate with others, as well as the ability to understand cues and read and process emotions, all these aspects forming the base for future learning.

Being able to communicate with those around you and being understood is vital for your child's time in kindergarten and considered a basic need. When there are communication barriers or we feel misunderstood, it is common to feel uncertain or frustrated. This can occur, for instance, when a child's home language is different from the new language spoken at the kindergarten. While children are, of course, able to read body language and communicate without spoken words, being immersed in a context where an un- familiar language is spoken can be an intimidating experience. It is also important to keep in mind that children are, to an extent, dependant on the adults in their environment. This becomes evident when children lose the ability to understand and actively communicate with the people around them, those people the children need to cooperate with in order to feel safe and comfortable. The transition to a setting with a new language can be one of those situations. The potential loss of means for verbal communication in the new language can be a challenging experience for the child and it could possibly lead to feelings of insecurity, loneliness, low self-esteem or exclusion. Seeing and understanding your children's reaction to unfamiliar situations like this might seem unclear as their feelings can be expressed in different ways. For some children, it results in retreating and shying away from inter- actions, for others, it leads to anger or resentment, potentially frustration and aggression.