Tips for Helping Families Support Children’s Emotions during COVID-19

Springtime for Child Care Resource and Referral (CCR&R) agencies typically brings a multitude of outreach events with many opportunities to engage families and child care professionals. The pandemic has changed how CCR&R agencies provide services and outreach. CCR&Rs have quickly responded to the ever-changing health crisis and the uncertainty within the child care field, and have found innovative ways to engage families and educators.

Children’s Emotions Matter 

What hasn’t changed is CCR&R agencies’ compassion for children and promoting their social-emotional health and well-being. The first five years of a child’s life present an opportunity to promote social-emotional skills that build a strong foundation for school and life. At the same time, it is a vulnerable period of development. Young children have experienced many changes due to COVID-19 – social distancing from trusted caregivers and loved ones, parents suddenly working from home, transitioning back to child care as programs re-open. Changes like these can be stressful and supporting children’s emotions is critically important.   

Engaging Families with Activities to Support Children’s Emotions 

CCR&R agencies and child care professionals are important channels for reaching families with resources to help them support their children’s emotions. CCR&Rs and providers can adopt innovative strategies to give families information and tools that support children’s emotional needs at home. 

Child Care Aware^® of America (CCAoA) selected brain building tips from Vroom^® and created a quick, easy-to-use resource that empowers families as they attend to their young children’s emotions. “Let’s Talk about Feelings: Brain Building Tips for Encouraging Healthy Emotional Development in Young Children” is a one-page, digital resource that was customized for CCR&Rs and child care programs to share with families. The resource provides science-based tips that help nurture the development of important skills for understanding and communicating emotions. Each tip gives parents a simple activity to do with their child during a shared moment, which can lead to the development of amazing connections in children’s growing brains!  

 Ways to Share Family Engagement Resources through CCR&Rs 

Try these tips to engage families with this friendly, science-based resource, Let’s Talk about Feelings: Brain Building Tips for Encouraging Healthy Development in Young Children.

• Embed the new resource or link into your agency’s electronic newsletters for families.
• Offer it as a supportive resource to families during hotline calls, online chats and emails.
• Provide it as a downloadable resource on your agency website.
• Share the resource with child care programs to support their work with families.
• Encourage child care programs to share the resource as a family engagement tool.
• Integrate it into parent workshops, virtual events, live video chats and more.
• Share it on social media. Download the Vroom Tip™ social media tile below to start sharing.

For information on other brain building resources, visit www.GrowYoungBrains.org.