Educaring^® Principle: Sensitive Observation

“A central concept in RIE is that we use sensitive observation in order to understand the child. Observation is a human default mode. It’s part of our survival system. But when we’re talking about understanding children, we have to tune our attention a little bit differently. When a child needs some help from us, we use what we have as our first impulse to try to intervene on their behalf. And sometimes that doesn’t work. And so when our first instinct doesn’t work, we step back a little bit and we start consciously observing to see what might be needed. We pay attention in a more focused way to the cues the child is putting out to the clues in their communication. The goal of sensitive observation is to increase our attunement with the child, to give the child the genuine sense of being understood, and when the child feels understood, then there’s more likelihood that we’re going to be operating in harmonious ways with the child. So the purpose of sensitive observation is improved communication and more well-targeted interventions.”

Ruth Anne Hammond, RIE Associate