Introduction to Early Education Discussion Paper.

• Chapter 12: Guiding Children’s Behavior

Effectively guiding children’s behavior is a learning process. You will find that what works for one child will not work for another. However, having a firm understanding of the child with whom you are guiding will help you with the process.

There are a number of reasons for knowing how to best guide children’s behavior….

1. Helping children learn to guide and be responsible for their own behavior is as important as helping them learn to read and write.
2. Helping children learn to act responsibly and guide their behavior lays the foundation for lifelong responsible and productive living.
3. The roots of delinquent and deviant behavior are in the early years.
4. The public is increasingly concerned about the erosion of civility, and what it perceives as a general breakdown of personal responsibility for bad behavior.

Remember: you want to help and encourage children to guide and regulate their own behaviors.  This enables children to be successful, confident, responsible contributors to the learning community.  Behavior guidance is a process by which teachers help all children learn to control and direct their behavior and become independent and self-reliant.Introduction to Early Education Discussion Paper.

Unfortunately, when I talk to colleagues about this topic, one thing remains: teachers generally believe that children are not as respectful as they once were. I do not know what your thoughts are on this, but I too understand this comment. You can come up with many reasons why you may think this is, however; regardless of how you may feel about this, it is important for teachers to remain respectful of children. Respect is a give-and-take process: you respect the children and they respect you.

The topic of “ discipline” in the early childhood environment can get heated quickly. I remember once having a classroom full of (adult) students who were so focused on “what the punishment” should be for particular behaviors, that I found it concerning. I asked, “Why are we so focused on punishing children? The point is to guide their behavior.”  We want children to become independent and successful; for them to have the ability to self-regulate when needed. Your classroom should be a learning community – whether the child is learning math, reading, or social skills. Keep in mind the Key Foundation Practices of Democratic Living…

Democratic Living experiences include:

• Cooperative living and learning
• Greeting each child each day
• Respect for children
• Opportunity to talk about behavior
• The use of character education as a means of promoting responsible behavior.
• Civility (how to treat others as well and in turn be treated well)

The Social/Constructivist Approach: Piaget & Vygotsky

Social constructivist approach: belief that children construct or build their behavior as a result of learning from experience and from making decisions that lead to responsible behavior.

What is the social constructivist approach? It consists of the following:

• Guiding Behavior in the Zone of Proximal Development
• Guiding Behavior with Scaffolding
• Adult-Child Discourse
• Private Speech and Self-Guided Behavior

Private speech may not be anything new to you – many of us do this! For example, if you have a great deal to do, you may state aloud all the things on your “mental list.” This is a way for you to self-regulate.

Your text has some great examples of Vygotskian/Constructivist Guidance Strategies! These discuss guidance, asking questions and modeling. This is step 1 of the 12 essential steps for guiding children’s behavior. The list of steps makes up the entire chapter. Although all these steps are important, there are a few points that I would like to discuss.

Step 3: Know and Use Developmentally Appropriate Practice & Step 7: Establish Appropriate Expectations go well together. It is so important for your expectations of children to be realistic. This can be difficult if you have a child who has many issues: can sit still at group time, throws toys, cannot keep hands to his/her own body, etc.Introduction to Early Education Discussion Paper. However, if you have the belief that you can convince this child to stop all these undesirable behaviors at once, you are setting yourself up to be disappointed… And, this will lead you to believe that this child cannot cooperate. However, you must take one step at a time. Focus on one behavior and help the child change that behavior first. It’s unrealistic (and inappropriate) to expect a child to change many behaviors at one time.

Under Step 5 (Help Children Build New Behaviors), you are introduced to the term locus of control. Locus of control: the source or place of control; the goal of behavioral guidance is to help children learn that their locus of control is internal, that they are responsible for their behavior, and that the rewards for good behavior come from within themselves.

I know that I already stated this, but I cannot express enough times that we want children to self-regulate. Our hope is to teach children to be responsible for their own actions. Children have the potential to regulate their behavior, we simply need to guide them (however, please note that there can be special needs circumstances in which this is not possible). Helping children guide their behaviors is about just that: guidance; it should not be about adults having control or power over children.

Although we don’t want children to always do something simply for praise, it is important to affirm and acknowledge when children act appropriately. This is specifically important if you have a child who, typically, has a difficult time. For example, if you have a child who does not usually sit well for circle time, but today is sitting nicely, be sure to point this out – praise the child for this: “Johnny, I like the way you are sitting!”; or, maybe Johnny is keeping his hands to himself, “ Johnny, I like they way you are keeping your hands to your own body!”

Still, notice that I have pinpointed one point about Johnny. As stated above, it’s important to not have too many expectations of the children. Take the one issue that the child really needs to work on and address that. If you have too many expectations for the child, the child may never reach your goals! If I need Johnny to stay seated during circle time, focus on the book being read and keep his hands to his own body all at one time – he will most likely disappoint me.

This is also true of classroom rules. The younger the children, the less rules you should have. Also, keep in mind the wording of rules. Rules should be stated positively. For example, instead of, “Don’t run inside,” word it, “Use your walking feet.” Tell the children what you want them to do, not what you don’t want them to do.

Step 8: Arrange and Modify the Environment

Your environment also sends messages to children as to how they should behave. This step explains that appropriate room arrangements signal to children that they are expected to guide and be responsible for their own behavior and enable teachers to observe and provide for children’s interests. Also, it is easier to live and work in an attractive and aesthetically pleasing classroom or center.

Step 9: Model Appropriate Behavior

This is a topic I always find interesting to discuss. I am one of those teachers who believe that classroom rules apply to everyone. You will find that there are teachers who believe that there are rules for adults and then rules for children. Although this is true for rules such as: teachers can go into cabinets or teachers get to open doors (both safety issues), I don’t think it’s okay to make up rules such as, “Children cannot sit on tables, but teachers can.” That one in particular stands out in my mind because I don’t agree with that. If we see a child sitting on a table, we ask them to sit in a chair, so why should it be okay for adults to sit on tables? There are chairs for that.

Modeling appropriate behavior also includes saying, “please,” and “ thank you,” to your students.

Step 10: Avoid Problems

I completely agree with the text in that ignoring inappropriate behavior is a great strategy (although often overlooked!). Some early childhood professionals feel guilty when they use this strategy, but there are times when this is useful. Sometimes, you just have to pick your battles!

The one topic that this edition of the text no longer discusses is “I Messages.” Still, I think it’s important to address. You’ve probably used “I Messages” many times and didn’t realize that they were actually a strategy! In “I Messages,” we let the children know about our problem (with the behavior).

For example, I was at the library one day and a girl (3-years-old) decided to hide between a wall and a stack of chairs…. I know… You all see where I’m going with this! So, I walked over and said, “I am very worried about you hiding there. I am afraid that you may get hurt on those chairs.” So, she removed herself from the space. When we take ownership of the problem, we are using an “I Message.”

 

Chapter 13

 

Chapter 13:  Parents, Family and the Community 

Family is a child’s first teacher.  A great deal of research proves that children do better in school when their families are involved in their school-life.  The more families are involved, the more likely students will receive a high-quality education.  Studies show that there are links between parent involvement with school and the child’s ability to achieve in school.  Therefore, a big question for teachers often is:  How do we help parents to become involved?

It’s certainly interesting to find out what parents believe they should and should not be involved in!  Today, parents are demanding that teachers educate their children well and believe that they have a say in many aspects of schooling.  Have you seen this before?…Introduction to Early Education Discussion Paper.

 

But, sadly, many parents do not realize that they themselves have an effect on student performance.  Again, it’s important for us to educate parents as well as encourage them to become involved and engaged it their children’s education.  We want to form a partnership with parents.  We want them to know that they play an important role in the learning process.  Keeping the needs of the family in mind is also helpful (for example, perhaps the family needs letters sent home in another language).

Many parents view themselves as “owners” of the school (and this idea occurs for a variety of reasons).  Although it’s great that parents would like to take some “ownership” in this process, again, it’s about involvement and engagement.  If parents want to play a role in making informed decisions about their children’s education, they need to be open to communication with the school.  There should a partnership between school and home.

Remember: a piece of your job as an educator is to be a guide for parents, so not only should you be encouraging parent involvement, but teaching them ways to interact with and assist their child in his/her education.  As always, inviting parents into your classroom is a great idea, but educating parents about how to work with their children is helpful too.  Introduction to Early Education Discussion Paper.Any school can offer classes and workshops to parents.  Still, there are little things that we can do too.  Simply sending home a note to state that your theme for the week is “ shapes” and then encouraging the family to extend this theme into the home is a great way.  You could tell the families, “Please encourage your child to look for shapes in his/her environment.  Pointing out the shapes of tires, windows and signs (just to name a few) will be a great game for you and your child!”

It is important that you are always supportive of the families you work with.  Today, there are many different types of families.  I think the text does an excellent job of addressing the many different families you may interact with.  Are you surprised by the section on “ Grandparents as Parents”?  Here’s an interesting video about grandparents as parents (the first 4 minutes is applicable; then it focuses on a county’s specific program, so it’s fine to watch just the first 4 minutes)…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xQk2QKfSjg

Of course, No Child Left Behind (NCLB) certainly changed the ways that schools interacted with parents.  Quite honestly, this is probably the best thing that has come from NCLB: the encouragement of parent involvement and the encouragement for schools to involve parents.  Take a look at Figure 13.1: these are the types of family involvement that can occur.

I have found that the idea of parent/teacher conferences typically makes students nervous.  However, the text has a list of excellent strategies for this.  Still, you may be able to think of more to add to this list.  Think to yourself:  What do you think makes parent/teacher conferences successful?  And then, take a look at this video (it’s about 2 minutes long)…

A First: Something Positive About Her Child: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjh8yYCf4Is

Your text discusses the idea of involving parents electronically.  As students in an online course, I would think that many of you embrace the ideas found there.  However, have you had the opportunity to implement any of the technology listed there?  With people often online today, it is sometimes easiest to reach people via the internet!

Just as it is important to involve all students in your class, regardless of needs; it is important that you involve all parents… Even when there is a communication barrier.  When English is not a parent’s primary language, consider sending home notes in the family language and translators should be involved when holding parent/teacher conferences with these parents. Introduction to Early Education Discussion Paper.