ARU Research Report 2019

18 The Up Project Social & Emotional Awareness In part supported by their developing confidence to engage with others, the children are described by teaching staff, care home staff and relatives as responding to the older adults with empathy, compassion and kindness. Teachers referred to examples of the children’s behaviours to illustrate this: ‘The children went and got the food for the residents and took it to them. I’ve seen children trying to help themwith drinking tea and wiping faces and that sort of thing, so I just thought that was a nice, kind touch. There’s loads. That sort of tolerance, almost, if you like, that they’re elderly. They’re patient with them.” (Teaching staff) Within the care home, staff and relatives described observing similar responses from the children: ‘Yeah, most of them and they help, the children will help them if they can’t do something, you see them helping them and trying to explain things sometimes to people.’ (Care home Staff) ‘But, the children are very patient, I think they show a lot of patience.’ (Relative of older adult) This fostered social and emotional awareness and was also demonstrated in the children’s accounts of their visits. They recognised the feelings of the older adults, describing how they considered their own behaviour and the impact it might have. They also described their empathy: ‘The one thing that I was worried about was if I mentioned something that hurt them. If any of themwere inWorldWar II and I mentioned something about it that hurt them or something. One thing can do a lot to a person’s feelings…I think if I won the lottery I think most of the money could go to older people because they’re in a care home, their care home doesn’t move, maybe it would be nice to give them a little holiday.’ (Child 8) ‘I feel that now I’ve had more experience with them I feel more sorry for them because they’re becoming more immobile and they can’t do as much stuff.’ (Child 5 ) For most of the children visiting a care home was a new experience, they arrived with few expectations about what it might be like or what it was like to live in one. The visits allowed the children to reflect on the lives of others and consider what life might be like for the older adults. These reflections demonstrate the children placing themselves in another’s shoes, considering the light and shade of the older adults’ lives: ‘They would like it because they have someone to speak to if they’re down, and there’s some other people in there, so they can do as much, not just all elderlies, so they can do more than they can, but no because they can’t really do, they can’t really go outside as much, they’re not like the homes that we have now, howwe live, they probably don’t get as much, well they could get as much food, but they don’t get to usually, it’s hard to explain…because you can’t go to the playground maybe, or have a picnic, because they can’t really sit down on the floor because they won’t be able to get back up, so they could get stuck on the floor.’ (Child 7) ‘I feel like they would love it in the care home, because when they’re at home on their own they wouldn’t have anyone to look after them, it would be a bit of a struggle, and I feel like the care home makes it much easier for them to live their lives, whilst they may not be able to do as much stuff I feel like they’d be able to do more things on their own.’ (Child 5)