Browsing by Author "Elomaa, Essi"

The aim of this study is to examine conflicts that arise between adults and children in a certain kindergartens pre-school group that is devided in two parts. The study will determine in which circumstances and why the conflicts arise, how adult solves conflict situations and what kind of support adult gets. The study aims to describe the factors that affect to the conflicts between adults and children and the associated behavior. The theoretical background of this study tries to determine what kind of institution pre-school in Finland is and how the children are like in pre-school age. The theoretical background will also study the interaction between an adult and a child, the different styles of education between adults and the co-operation between the adults. The study was carried out for one kindergartens pre-school instructors in one group that was divided in two smaller parts. There were five instructors in the group and all of them were interviewed separately by using semi-structured interview base. Two of the interviewed instructors were early childhood education teachers, two of them were early childhood education childminers and one of them was early childhood education special needs teacher. The interviews were transcribed and analyzed using theory-based content analysis. The results showed that the conflict arose the most in guided situations, such as the transition from one task to another, as well as free play situations. The reasons behind the conflicts were considered to be children's normal feelings, personality and temperament as well as the kindergarten’s ever-changing conditions and hectic everyday life. In addition, children’s deficient or poor self-regulatory skills and social-emotional skills were considered to cause conflicts. Some instructors shared the view that the children coming into conflict with the adult were often boys and had special needs. Adult sought to resolve the conflict through discussions with one or more children. Adults emphasized sensitive and empathetic education styles and encouraging children. Adults felt that they received the most support for conflict situations from their own team, and support most often took place in the conflict situation itself. Adults felt that there could be more support for conflict situations and the most prominent need for support was to increase human resources.