Harvard University Serve and Return: 5 Steps for Brain-Building
Photo Credit: Unsplash User Sue Zeng
Watch the 6-minute video to see how the Children’s Home Society has worked with Harvard University’s Centre for the Developing Child to incorporate FIND into their practice with families in their programs. Dr. Phil Fisher who, with his colleagues at Harvard University, developed the FIND program, have worked with the Children’s Home Society and the families they serve, in a pilot project to fine tune the workings of the project in real home-based situations. Watch the overview video at: Filming Interactions to Nurture Development (FIND) The 5-step process developed by FIND is outlined below.
Child-adult relationships that are responsive and attentive—with lots of back and forth interactions—build a strong foundation in a child’s brain for all future learning and development. This is called “serve and return,” and it takes two to play! Follow these 5 steps to practice serve and return with your child.
1. Notice the serve and share the child's focus of attention
Is the child looking or pointing at something? Making a sound or facial expression? Moving her arms and legs? That’s a serve. The key is to pay attention to what the child is focused on. You can’t spend all your time doing this, so look for small opportunities throughout the day—like while you’re getting him dressed or waiting in line at the store.
WHY? By noticing serves, you’ll learn a lot about a child’s abilities, interests, and needs. You’ll encourage her to explore and you’ll strengthen the bond between you.
2. Return the serve by supporting and encouraging
You can offer comfort with a hug and gentle words, help him, play with him, or acknowledge him. You can make a sound or facial expression—like saying, “I see!” or smiling and nodding to let him know you’re noticing the same thing. Or you can pick up the object he’s pointing to and give it to him.
WHY? Supporting and encouraging rewards a child’s interests and curiosity. Never getting a return can actually be stressful for a child. When you return the serve, the child knows that his thoughts and feelings are heard and understood.
3. Give it a name!
When you return a child’s serve by naming what she is seeing, doing, or feeling, you make important language connections in her brain, even before she can talk or understand your words. You can name anything—a person, a thing, an action, a feeling, or a combination. If a child points to her feet, you can also point to them and say, “Yes, those are your feet!”
WHY? When you name what a child is focused on, you help her understand the world around her and help her know what to expect. Naming also gives her words to use herself and lets her know you care.
4. Take turns…and wait. Keep the interaction going back and forth.
Every time you return a serve, give the child a chance to respond. Taking turns can be quick (from the child to you and back again) or go on for many turns.
Waiting is crucial. Children need time to form their responses, especially when they’re learning so many things at once. Waiting helps keep the turns going.
WHY? Taking turns helps children learn self-control and how to get along with others. By waiting, you give the child time to develop his ideas and build his confidence and independence. Waiting also helps you understand his needs.
5. Practice endings and beginnings
Children signal when they’re done or ready to move on to a new activity. They might let go of a toy, pick up a new one, or turn to look at something else. Or they may walk away, start to fuss, or say, “All done!” When you share a child’s focus, you’ll notice when she’s ready to end the activity and begin something new.
WHY? When you can find moments for a child to take the lead, you support her in exploring her world—and make more serve and return interactions possible.
The FIND team note that “serve and return interactions make everyday moments fun and become second nature with practice. By taking small moments during the day to do serve and return, you build up the foundation for children’s lifelong learning, behavior, and health—and their skills for facing life’s challenges.”
FIND have also partnered with the University of Washington to use FIND as a skill-building tool with an Early Head Start home visitation program working with low-income fathers.
FIND is currently being implemented as part of the Washington State childcare quality rating and improvement system (QRIS), Early Achievers. This project involves training Infant Toddler Consultants as FIND coaches. These coaches engage child care providers in the FIND program to promote serve and return interactions in the child care setting. Video editing is provided by specially trained staff at CHSW. Over the course of the project, the CHSW team was trained as consultants in order to ensure long-term local capacity for sustainable implementation. Consultation is now provided by the CHSW team with support from the FIND development team.
FIND coaches take a 10-minute film of adult-child interaction, which is then edited down to select examples of positive “serve and return” interactions. The coach reviews these with the adult participant, breaking down each interaction into its component parts and discussing the impact on the child demonstrated by their positive reaction.
The pilot programs have enabled the development team to respond rapidly and simplify materials and operating processes. The team continues to work with partner programs to further develop the program and offers a six-month training program for coaches.