Finding connections between spirituality and play for early childhood education

ABSTRACT

In an attempt to provide holistic education and care, expand the view of young children’s development to include the spiritual, and make connections with the found benefits of play for all areas of development, this article looks at 33 surveyed U.S. early childhood educators’ perceptions on nurturing spirituality through open-ended and free play. Data collected from the open-ended questions of an online survey were analyzed looking at 22 mentions of play as a mean to support spirituality. Findings show that 45.5% of surveyed teachers mentioned play as a way intentionally used in the classroom to nurture children’s spirituality. It is posed that developmentally appropriate approaches to early childhood education would be enhanced by including spirituality in their understanding of the child, as well as intentionally nurturing spirituality in educational settings, by providing free, child-centered, child-directed play and opportunities for children to experience spiritual moments, defined as feeling wonder, awe, joy, and inner-peace.     

Let’s play at the park! family pathways promoting spiritual resources to inspire nature,pretend play,storytelling, intergenerational play and celebrations

Contemporary interest from scholars examining spirituality have suggested that young children have an innately rich spiritual dimension that can be nurtured when they are given opportunities to express it or when such expressions are recognised. Based on direct observations in natural settings, this article addresses the importance of children’s spirituality and how outdoor play spaces, especially community parks, can contribute to a child’s spiritual development through enriching activities in nature, pretend play, storytelling and intergenerational play. The article also aims to encourage consideration of a variety of strategies that can be used to support the holistic development of a young child and nurture children’s spirituality. Supporting a child’s spiritual development with playful activities in outdoor spaces can help to identify the child’s interests, strengths and creativity through relationships that shape bonds with both families and community.     

Children’s prayers from a Hospital Chapel

Children’s prayers, from prayer books left in the Chapel of a Children’s Hospital between 1998 and 2002, were studied for what the children’s God-talk would reveal about their perceptions of God. Of the 3893 prayers written during this period, 346 were confidently identified as being authored by children. The sample of 346 prayers, which gave rise to 558 expressions of prayer, was explored through a content analysis, used quantitatively to summarise and describe the data, and a thematic analysis, informed by methods from Grounded Theory. The psychological and spiritual significance of the prayers is drawn out, demonstrating the richness and relationality of children’s spirituality. The predominance of prayers written by female writers, suggests that the extent to which relationality is present is related to gender. Questions concerning possible gender-related differences in girls’ and boys’ spirituality are raised and implications for practice are considered.     

The identification of four characteristics of children’s spirituality in Australian Catholic primary schools

In taking its theoretical impetus from hermeneutic phenomenology, the qualitative research reported in this paper aimed to identify characteristics of children’s spirituality in Australian Catholic primary schools. The videotaped life expressions of two groups of six children in each of three Australian Catholic primary schools formed the texts of this study. A reflection upon the texts, guided by van Manen’s lifeworld existentials, resulted in the identification of four characteristics of these children’s spirituality – the felt sense, integrating awareness, weaving the threads of meaning, and spiritual questing. In the light of these findings, some pedagogical implications for nurturing spirituality through the primary religious education curriculum in Catholic schools are proposed.     

Play Therapy – respecting the spirit of the child

Play Therapy is an appropriate form of counselling for children; it is based in a therapeutic relationship where communication is developmentally appropriate and easily expressed. Using a variety of methods from non-directional to co-operative play, the therapist acts to affirm, articulate and co-regulate emotional expressions and joins the child in finding meaning, and understanding of the environment. Play Therapy is presented in this paper as an expression of spiritual connection. The relationship of mutual respect and positive expectation between therapist and child allows new understanding to emerge. The interaction between these two areas of knowledge, Play Therapy and children’s spirituality is examined through case study notes and experience of Play Therapy as an early intervention response to children at a time of community disaster. The author is a Clinical Play Therapist as well as a lecturer in children’s spirituality, so this work emphasises the importance of the spiritual nature of the child and the use of a spiritual connection with the therapist for children recovering from psychological distress.     

Spiritual resilience: Understanding the protection and promotion of well-being in the later life

Spirituality is important to a large percentage of the older adult population and serves as a key factor of resilience. Using qualitative research, we conducted and analyzed interviews with 64 participants willing to discuss their experiences with adversity. Participants ranged in age from 52 to 93 with a mean age of 74. For the purposes of this study, we analyzed 46 of the 64 interviews, selecting participants who indicated that spirituality was an important resource for managing hardship. The researchers examined the connections between spirituality and resilience. Using in-depth interviews, we explored the interplay between spirituality and resilience and the importance spirituality plays in dealing with adversity and hardship. A grounded theory analysis of the 46 interviews was performed. Major findings include participants’ use of spirituality as a tool to promote and maintain resilience in late life in five key domains: reliance on relationships, spiritual transformation, spiritual coping, power of belief, and commitment to spiritual values and practices. Results are presented as an interpretation of the participants’ perceptions of their spirituality, and indicate their reliance on spirituality to overcome hardship. In addition, we discuss the connections between spirituality and resilience and how these connections play out in the lives of older adults when considering their generational and cohort status. The roles these two constructs play in the lives of older adults are considered.     

Evaluating children's use of symbol in some recent research

This paper explores a number of examples of what appeared to be recurring symbolic expressions of spirituality found in my recent research into the spiritual experiences of children in Victorian State primary schools. These expressions appeared in drawings and in conversation. In this paper I use hermeneutic phenomenology and a multidisciplinary approach to the literature, to explore the nature of symbol, in particular, the symbols of island, snake and mountain. I examine the children's use of these symbols, with their multiple meanings and function, to gain a greater understanding of their individual and collective spirituality and well‐being. This study can have applications in religious education. Through their symbolic expressions children may be enabled to explore meaning in their lives, and advance in their spiritual development. Moreover, examination by children of their own symbols may provide a bridge to understanding and exploring core ideas of religious faith, which are mainly expressed in metaphoric language. Exploring symbols can provide a way for children to exercise the imagination, grounded in bodily experience, to achieve open and enriching spiritual outcomes.     

Drama,intimacy, and vulnerability: the spiritual challenges of digital culture

The ever-increasing engagement of children and youth in social media and gaming activities online has created new challenges for scholars and practitioners of children’s spirituality. Bringing psychosocial and media studies research on the phenomena of adolescent ‘drama’ and morality, cyberbullying, and the vulnerable adolescent’s desire for intimacy and community into conversation with ideas about and practices for children’s spiritual nurture is essential work. Questions about the positive and negative influences of digital participation on moral imagination, levels of aggression and prosocial behaviours in social media communication, and the extent to which intimate relationships can be developed online are key concerns to be explored in this article.     

Spirituality and mental health among children and youth – a Swedish point of view

There is growing evidence that spirituality and spiritual development are important for the health and mental well-being of children and youth. In individualistic and secularised countries, resources and language adequate for securing this right to spirituality is shrinking. Sweden is regarded as one of the most secularised and individualised countries in the world, and the article argues that Sweden could be described as ‘spiritual illiterate’. Increasing mental ill-health among youth is discussed in relation to a heightened privatisation of religion, ‘state individualism’, and a growing performance culture. It is argued that strong cultural ideals like independence and self-realisation repress children’s and youth’s spirituality and spiritual development. Further research is called for in order to explore the complex interplay between individualisation, spirituality and mental ill-health among children and youth in today’s Sweden.     

The Little Prince – an introduction to spirituality: a moving experience in religious education for primary school children in a secularised world

In our research the right of the child for spiritual development is central. Grimmitt’s distinction in ‘teaching in’, ‘about’ and ‘from religion’ is extended with the concept of ‘teaching for’ – a concept that connects religion with children’s attitude of wondering as an ‘ontological calling’ in their life. The question whether a non-religious story can function as a rich learning environment for ‘teaching for’, is explored in a ‘picture voice’-research design. In a small pilot study with four children in primary school age an episode of the story of The Little Prince was presented as a ‘rich learning environment’. We conclude from this pilot that the narration of a non-religious story, together with the child’s drawing of the story’s ‘critical incident’ and a subsequent conversation (‘picture voice’) functions as a stepping stone for the development of spirituality.     

‘Inhliziyo ekhombisa uthando’: Exploring children’s conceptions of spirituality

In this study we explored young isiZulu children’s conceptions of spirituality. The children (n = 8; females = 5; male = 3) were nine to eleven years old and attended a primary school in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. They drew pictures depicting their sense of spirituality and answered questions on vignettes or scenarios that contained a moral dilemma. The children also engaged in conversations with a picture, and wrote a letter to God. Thematic analysis of the data yielded three themes that characterised the children’s emerging conceptions of their spirituality: conceptions of a transcendental being; spirituality as a search for personal meanings; and influences on emerging conceptions of spirituality. For the young children, being spiritual was about connecting with a transcendental being and with significant others in their lives through expressions of love, respect, hope, faith, compassion, closeness, fairness, and empathy. Children appear to acquire a sense of spirituality mainly by internalising experiential interactions within their social and material environment.     

Children’s spirituality and the practice of meditation in Irish primary schools

Abstract

This paper uses an interdisciplinary approach to explore the child’s experience of meditation in Irish primary schools and its impact on children’s spirituality. Using a phenomenological, hermeneutic, mystagogical methodology, it describes how children experience the practice of meditation, the benefits they consider they gain from it and the nature of its impact, if any, on their spirituality. Seventy children, aged 7 to 11, were interviewed. The study is original in that the interview protocol contained novel processes designed to elicit from children their experience, if any, of the transcendent in meditation and in its depth of analysis of the spiritual fruits of the practice. The study concludes that meditation does have the capacity to nourish the innate spirituality of the child. It offers a heuristic model outlining the key elements of the child’s experience of meditation, stresses the importance of personal spiritual experience and supports the introduction of meditation in primary schools.     

Embodied spirituality

This article explores the concept of embodied spirituality from early Celtic traditions through the British medieval mystic Julian of Norwich to the present day. A ‘high theology’ of the body in early Christianity and early Christian understandings of the relation among body, soul and spirit gave way to the influences of Greek thought with its bifurcation of spirit and matter and St. Augustine’s notion of Original Sin, leading to an implicit (and often explicit) emphasis on ‘dis-embodied spirituality’ in Western Christianity. This separation of the spirit from the body has affected much of Western and Middle-European cultures for centuries. Research from multidisciplinary perspectives provides insights into the role of the emotions in body–spirit connections; the interplay of body, soul and spirit is discussed from various spiritual traditions. Finally, children’s embodied spirituality is viewed in light of these various insights and understandings.     

Making room: a place for children’s spirituality in the Christian church

A relatively uncharted territory until recently, the concept of children as innate spiritual beings has garnered significant attention among scholars over the past two decades. The more that is learned about children’s spirituality, the more apparent it becomes that the Christian church in the United States generally fails to provide sufficient space for children to explore, develop and share their spirituality. This potentially leads children to suppress or disconnect from their spirituality in later years and also deprives a Christian community of the ability to learn and grow from children’s unique experiences of God and spirituality. This paper examines the underlying theories that foster environments among Christian churches where the ennoblement of a ‘grown-up faith’ and the resulting power adults hold because of that, inhibit the ability for children to be regarded and approached as capable of spiritual and faithful beliefs and understanding apart from adult intervention.     

Developing spirituality – an equal right of every child?

ABSTRACT

Children’s spiritual development is influenced by those with whom they interact and by the world around them. An important context for young children is the kindergarten, which has a high level of responsibility for their (spiritual) education. At kindergarten children encounter people with different religious and spiritual attitudes, which may be fundamental to the development of their own spirituality. Research results regarding how two kindergartens in Austria deal with this diversity and how children address it are summarized. One result of this qualitative ethnographic research project is that, depending on their religion, children have different opportunities to develop their spiritual communication and spirituality based on religious traditions and rituals. Developing kindergartens in line with the metaphor of safe spaces where diversity is recognized and discussed can contribute to the creation of equal opportunities for children’s spiritual development.     

Taking a children’s rights perspective on children’s spirituality

Abstract

The right to spiritual development has had little attention in public educational policy. This is more challenging, considering the fact of increasing religious diversity and the focus on spirituality and religion in that context, as well as the way the spiritual is mentioned in documents on children’s rights. This article traces the development from the first documents on the rights of the child and responses to these documents. It is argued that educational policy and practice should pay more attention to the way children’s spirituality is included in the documents. This is an issue of general education as well as of moral philosophy. The article concludes with a claim: spiritual development is a matter of survival and flourishing as human beings, and considering this in the framework of children’s rights could mean exploring spiritual sources in one’s own faith as well as in other faiths.     

Prosocial Attitudes toward Money from Terror Management Perspective: Death Transcendence through Spirituality

Based on Terror Management Theory (TMT), we suggest that spirituality and prosocial attitudes toward money have a similar defensive function in resisting existential anxiety. In mortality salient (MS) situations, both spirituality and prosocial money attitudes afford symbolic immortality by self-transcendent connections. In four studies, we found that activating death awareness weakened people’s subjective love of money (Study 1) and predicted increased spending willingness on prosocial rather than proself goals (Studies 2, 3, and 4). More importantly, MS effects on money attitudes were smaller when people’s trait spirituality was high (vs. low; Studies 1, 2, 3) and when people were primed to experience spirituality (vs. happiness control condition; Study 4). For low spirituality people, the association between MS and prosocial spending also depended on the capacity of money spending to contribute positively to one’s feelings of self-worth (Study 3). Theoretical implications and future directions are discussed.     

Promoting Honesty: The Influence of Stories on Children's Lie‐Telling Behaviours and Moral Understanding

Moral stories are a means of communicating the consequences of our actions and emphasizing virtuous behaviour, such as honesty. However, the effect of these stories on children's lie‐telling has yet to be thoroughly explored. The current study investigated the influence of moral stories on children's willingness to lie for another individual. Children were read one of three stories prior to being questioned about an accidental wrongdoing: (1) a positive story, which emphasized the benefits of being honest; (2) a negative story, which outlined the potential costs of lying; and (3) a neutral story, which was unrelated to truth‐telling or lie‐telling. Initially, most children withheld information about the event. Older children were better able to maintain their lies throughout the interview. However, when asked direct questions, children in the positive story condition were more likely to tell the truth than those in the negative and neutral conditions. No significant differences were found between the negative and neutral story conditions. The present study also investigated the relationship between children's conceptual understanding and behaviour. The findings revealed that children's knowledge of truths and lies increased with age. Children who lied had significantly higher conceptual scores than those who did not lie. Furthermore, the type of story children were read had a significant impact on their evaluations of true and false statements. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Drama,Spirituality and the Curriculum

The field of drama and moral education has been given some theoretical attention in recent years but little if any theorising has been applied to the area of drama and spiritual education. In UK schools, however, the spiritual education of children is seen as one of a school's core functions and a spiritual dimension has often been important in the global history of drama and acting. Various and conflicting definitions of spirituality and approaches to spiritual education exist. In this article, I begin with an attempt to make connections between these approaches and recent epistemologies of drama education. I then outline a possible theoretical framework for defining spirituality, influenced largely by anthropological and cultural studies, and exemplify it by drawing upon examples from existing practices in the fields of theatre and educational drama. I then conclude by speculating as to how these ideas might find practical expression within a drama curriculum.