Fostering Positive Relationships in School-Age Care

• Mixed-age groupings in school-age care create opportunities for cross-age instruction and cooperative learning.
• Flexible after-school programs can dynamically group children of different developmental levels, interests, skills, and learning styles, promoting diversity and inclusiveness.
• Positive adult-to-child relationships built on mutual respect are vital for creating a supportive environment, reducing stress, improving academic achievement, and fostering healthier peer relationships.
• Adults can build positive relationships by making children feel welcome, recognizing their accomplishments, treating them with respect, actively listening, responding with interest, and being consistent.

Positive Peer Relationships

• Friendships broaden horizons, create self-image and social support systems
• Establishing and maintaining friendships is a key goal of social-emotional development
• Friendships provide companionship, confidants, allies, and support.
• Early friendships in school involve shared interests and convenience
• Older children's friendships involve shared values and rules.
• Children form larger peer groups in pre-teen years
• Groups can highly influence each other.

Key Content Areas

• Arts
• Math, science, cooking and nutrition
• Large and small muscle motor activities
• Social studies
• Language and literacy
• Social-emotional development
• The goal is not to replace school instruction but to include content through meaningful social experiences.

The Arts

• The arts encompass creative expression, storytelling, and cultural participation
• Children who have intentional instruction in the arts display more creativity, accept criticism better, ask more "what if" questions, talk more freely, use descriptive language, have enhanced spatial reasoning, solve problems better, have more self-esteem, and encourage freedom of expression.

Domains of the Arts

Visual Arts

• Includes self-expression, visual and tactile art, print and craft media, analysis, and interpretation.
• School-age children can create images or visual representations of events or feelings
• Allows children to express complex feelings without always having to discuss them directly.

Dance

• Includes body awareness, fundamentals of movement, creative expression, and multisensory integration.
• Interpretive dance allows expression of emotions through movement.

Music

• Includes sound, pitch, rhythm, singing, playing, musical games, listening, and creative movement.
• Playing a musical instrument allows for creative expression of feelings.
• Music composition allows expression of emotions and feelings via song lyrics.
• Listening to music serves as a great outlet as children can express their mood

Drama

• Includes acting, pantomime, improvisation, characterization, and play production.
• Acting and storytelling allows a child to express emotion
• Pretend play is a healthy form of escape from daily stressors

Culturally Responsive Experiences

• Culturally responsive experiences help children see themselves represented in the program.
• Important to expose children to people, ideas, and experiences worldwide.
• Provide inclusive experiences that help children define a sense of self, family values, beliefs, or experiences.
• Art and creative experiences should always be a choice, and there should be no wrong answers.
• Each child encounters experiences in their own way and at their own pace.

Mixed-age groupings promote cross-age instruction and diversity in after-school programs. Positive adult-child relationships built on respect foster a supportive environment, reduce stress, and improve academic achievement. Early friendships broaden horizons and create social support systems.