PSYCHOLOGICAL AND PEDAGOGICAL BASES FOR THE FORMATION OF SOCIAL COHESION IN OLDER PRESCHOOL CHILDREN THROUGH PLAY

Abstract

Introduction. The current realities of war in Ukraine are significantly transforming the living space of preschool-aged children, increasing anxiety and distrust of their surroundings and creating barriers to establishing constructive interpersonal relationships. In such circumstances, it is particularly important to create a psychologically safe environment in preschool education institutions. Social cohesion within a group of children is an important resource for emotional stability and support. It is seen as the ability of children to engage in coordinated joint activities and provide collective psychological support, emotional recovery and adaptation to the peer environment. At the same time, educational practice shows that the formation of cohesion among older preschool children is unsystematic and fragmented. Play activities are not sufficiently used as a targeted means of psychological support and resilience development. The content of play scenarios needs to be updated to include socially significant themes of help, support and interaction that promote the development of empathy and emotional intelligence. Interaction games are particularly important, especially when children are in shelters. Thus, there is a contradiction between the social need to foster social maturity and emotionally stable personalities and the insufficient development of psychological and pedagogical approaches to forming social cohesion among older preschool children through play activities in wartime conditions.
Purpose. To determine the psychological and pedagogical foundations for the formation of social cohesion in older preschool children through play activities.
Methods: analysis, synthesis, generalisation and comparison of scientific data.
Results. An analysis of psychological and pedagogical approaches to the formation of social cohesion in older preschool children has been carried out. Attention is focused on its undoubted importance in wartime, since a united children's group creates an atmosphere of security, support and acceptance necessary for the harmonious development of the personality. The importance of play in promoting friendliness, responsibility and interpersonal harmony among older preschoolers is revealed.
The concept of ‘social cohesion’ among older preschool children is substantiated. Its content and mechanisms of formation are outlined. The components of partnership as constituents of the formation of social cohesion of older preschool children in play activities are highlighted. The processes of unification associated with the assimilation of individual and group social norms and values, which are most intensively assimilated by children in collective games and reflect the content of the present, are revealed. The traditional understanding of social cohesion in a group of children has been expanded to include the importance of collective psychological support, emotional recovery and adaptation of children to joint play, and resilience to stressful circumstances.
Originality. For the first time, social cohesion among children has been substantiated as a psychological defence resource, a mechanism for emotional stabilisation and increased resilience in children during wartime. The transformation of play activities has been theoretically substantiated: from a traditional means of socialisation to a space of psychological safety for children. The concept of ‘social cohesion’ in the context of crisis situations has been clarified as a system of interpersonal support, basic trust, emotional mutual assistance, and shared experience.
Conclusions. The analysis of psychological and pedagogical sources provided the basis for defining social cohesion in older preschool age: a complex formation based on the individual's ability to interpersonal harmony, partnership and mutual assistance, readiness to act for the common result and an important element of socialisation of older preschoolers; as the ability of a group of children to interact constructively, based on mutual trust, shared values, and emotional support within the children's community; in wartime conditions, as a protective mechanism that minimises the negative effects of stress and promotes the social adaptation of children.
Play is considered the most effective means of forming social cohesion. The psychological basis of this process is the transition to group play, where communication with peers becomes the leading factor in personality development. Play performs a socialising function, helping children adapt to the group by forming a system of shared values. Children learn to reconcile their own interests with the needs of others, to compromise and to build trusting relationships. Preschoolers form the foundation of cohesion through play roles (defenders, rescuers), and situations of mutual assistance are modelled. The study can be expanded by examining the levels of cohesion among older preschoolers.