North Carolina Early Learning and Development Progressions: Birth to Five

Domain: NC Foundations for Early Learning: Emotional and Social Development (ESD)

Subdomain: Developing a Sense of Self

Goal: Children express positive feelings about themselves and confidence in what they can do.

Skill Progression: Expresses confidence in abilities and persistence toward goals

Age: 21-24 Months

Click here to go to all skills for ages 21-24 Months.

Looks at books, plays, or performs preferred actions independently for several minutes

Situations for Observation of Skill

Watch the child during play activities.

Elicitation Strategy

No elicitation needed.

Behavior Observed

The child focuses on activities and plays independently. Some children cannot focus or play without an adult or sibling to guide their play The child who can select, plan, and direct his own activities for several minutes shows positive traits for self-confidence.

Routines-based Intervention (Embedded Instruction)

Encourage parents to give the child independent play time each day. Most parents do this, but parents of toddlers with disabilities may provide too much supervision and assistance. If the child has a short attention span, limit the number of toys in the area to one or two. This encourages the child to play longer with one or go back and forth between two.

 North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, 2015

©2015 by the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/.