Elements and Performance Criteria
- Support children to build and maintain trusting relationships
- Listen attentively and show children their views are valued and acknowledged
- Acknowledge and support children's preferences for particular adults and peers
- Help children to understand and accept responsibility for their own actions
- Encourage children to express and mange feelings appropriately
- Support children's various levels of interaction and participation with others during play
- Plan experiences for children to support and cooperate with others
- Encourage children to respect each other's individual needs, abilities and interests
- Encourage children to regard differences positively and to discuss these differences
- Support children who have difficulty interacting with others, to establish and maintain friendships and group membership
- Acknowledge and encourage appropriate, supportive and effective communication between children
- Provide experiences and opportunities that promote children's moral development and pro-social skills
- Provide opportunities for social interaction
- Plan and provide opportunities for different forms of social interaction between children with respect for each child's needs, interests and development stage
- Encourage children to interact with a variety of people and to initiate and develop contact with others, as appropriate
- Arrange the environment to encourage interaction and also accommodate a child's need for privacy, solitude and/or quiet
- Celebrate special occasions in culturally sensitive ways
- Respect children's choice to watch and observe
- Structure experiences and equipment in ways that promote cooperation and conflict resolution
- Foster and respect children's own grouping choice
- Talk about and respond to children as group members as well as individuals
- Identify and monitor children's social skills and development
- Promote and support the use of social skills relevant to the transition to school for children of an appropriate age