How observing develops and affects well-being throughout childhood

From a developmental perspective, skills or capacities, such as ‘relaxing’, are commonly considered necessary for children to achieve optimal development and reach their full potential. From this perspective ‘relaxing’ can be considered a capacity that could help children to cope with emotional and behavioural problems and lower their levels of stress and anxiety. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first attempt to map the existing evidence of cultivating ‘relaxing’ as a key core capacity with an explicit focus on children, and understand age-related development, links to wellbeing and other core capacities, and the levels and application of ‘relaxing’ among significant adults in children’s lives. These contributions will help inform real, positive and efficient changes in general policies and practices for child development.

Drawing from a multidisciplinary evidence base, what is the empirical and theoretical knowledge of children’s listening and how does it interact with overall well-being throughout childhood? This review study is a first attempt to map the existing theoretical and empirical literature about a possible core capacity for well-being: listening. It focuses on the development of listening throughout childhood, listening in formal and informal learning, listening in family and community settings, and possible links between listening and well-being. Relevant empirical studies were identified that further explain the development of listening comprehension throughout childhood. Relevant streams of literature identified included listening to music and positive effects on child wellbeing, children’s extensive listening in schools, and the effects of undesirable listening environments.

Reflecting, or thinking about one’s own thinking, is understood by the Learning for Well-Being Foundation as one of the possible core capacities which may influence well-being in children. This study explores the academic literature for theoretical and empirical evidence in support of this conceptualization. Drawing from a multidisciplinary evidence base, what is the empirical and theoretical evidence of children’s reflecting and how does it interact with overall well-being throughout childhood? The objectives of the review are to map the evidence of the development of reflecting in children, describe possible gaps in the literature and search whether any studies explore reflecting as a core capacity, or study the relationship between reflecting and child well-being. In doing so this paper focuses on the possibly diverse development of the core capacity in children, on the capacity in parents, teachers and other caregivers and the role they play in the development of the core capacity, and on the evidence from the academic literature.

There are many studies on how children ask questions and how this capacity develops over time. Drawing from a multidisciplinary evidence base, what is the empirical and theoretical knowledge of children’s inquiry, and how does it interact with overall child well-being throughout childhood? This paper maps evidence of the development of inquiry as a core capacity for children, studies the relationship between inquiring and child well-being and explores the Learning for Well-Being Foundation’s theoretical framework.