13/12/2021
This is a post worth spending time with, as parents and as educators, but also as employers, living partners, and friends.
- Why? It is about preschoolers!
Well because it is not actually about preschoolers, it is about humans and about how humans engage with each other. We ALL tend to resort to things like projection, mirroring our feelings onto others, assigning motive to others when that motive is really ours, resort to punishment of others instead of engagement and understanding... why? Why indeed! because it is 'too hard' or because we 'don't have time for this' and so on.
Ultimately this is about communication, engagement, interaction with our fellow members of a highly socially-oriented species. Our entire species' suite of strategies for success (by which I mean survival, safety, comfort, access to resources, self-fulfilment, feeling seen etc.) are based around co-operation and shared experience, support and compassion. This is why empathy is the fuel that drives the success of human societies, because it is the magic glue that binds them to a shared purpose: mutual achievement of success (defined as above).
Sadly, there are forces in our societies that are just selfish. Often these are driven by forces beyond the individual's control (sometimes you need to be 'selfish' to meet your own needs, and reflect on how hard it is to find a non-negative term for this... our very language frames what really is a type of self-care in a way that is negative)... but there are also forces that are based on aberrant readings of the world, that generate what we can call 'real selfishness' and while I could talk at length about those, this is not the place. Ultimately, we are all familiar with how they impact on us, wherever they arise - schedules, timetables, deadlines, money costs, energy demands, resource allocations, physical capabilities, educational limitations, geographic distance and so on.
So, I would ask people to read this at leisure, not as a task to hammer through in search of snappy phrases or key points. If it was meant to deliver bullet points, it would have been written in bullet points.
Dwell on the shift in perspective Greg is using here, and consider how maybe you could apply similar approaches in your own life, with those around you, who work for you, who are in your team or serve you in customer-facing jobs, on public transport, in your home, in your workplace... and yes for sure in the classroom.
Especially the classroom, and especially in pre-school classrooms... because these are where tiny humans learn things. Everything they experience is learning about the world and how it works, and if we are to generate real change to a more inclusive, compassionate and less harmful society, we really need to stop doing harm up front, teaching little humans that coercion and punishment, impatience and 'I'm too busy' are legitimate motivations for how we engage with those around us.
Just something to consider.
~ Stivvanos Maqqi Amolngatti Au
Turning the Corner from Behavior Management to Connection and Collaboration.
A community member shared a social media post with me from a pre-school teacher. This teacher was seeking advice from colleagues about “behavior management”.
The teacher wrote:
“I teach 4 and 5 year olds. I’m struggling with consequences for poor choices. I’m at a loss about what else to do. I’ve tried the following:
Time out
Daily Color behavior chart that goes home
Lonely Lunch
Walking instead of playing at recess
Trips to the office
They don’t care about the consequences and their behaviors continue.
When I taught 3rd grade, I was an expert at classroom management. Not in Pre-K for the most part.
Please share some of your ideas. Thank you!”
I needed a trigger warning before reading that for the first time.
My first thought was that this teacher needs a lot of support. Because I still work in the schools, I’m also assuming that this teacher is overwhelmed, or tired, or both, or more, and is reaching out to their colleagues for help. The post was upsetting to read, but I'm glad they're asking for help!
Now let’s dissect the post a little bit.
This teacher appears to be shopping for new ways to punish their pre-schoolers. One can interpret what the teacher wrote as: I’ve tried every attempt to punish them, isolate them, deprive them of things they like, scare them and make them feel sad, but nothing is working!
Yes, those tactics don’t work. A good rule of thumb is that you can’t make someone behave better by making them feel worse.
As I was reading the list, it became clear that humanity had left the behavior management brainstorming process, all in the name of compliance.
Lonely Lunch? Two L words to make the punishment sound “cute”?
I was sad reading the list. Imagine the 4 year old who was being told by the teacher they love that they have to eat lunch alone. Imagine the devastating impact of hearing that at such a young age….or at ANY age! Rejection and isolation are not good behavior management strategies.
This teacher was struggling to find “consequences” for “poor choices”. This is where a lens change is essential for the health of the teacher/student relationship and the feeling of safety in school.
Calling behaviors poor choices is assuming that the 4 year old student did something the teacher didn’t like ON PURPOSE! It assumes that the 4 year old COULD HAVE behaved well, but made a conscious decision to do something wrong. Developmentally speaking, that's really questionable.
As I’ve mentioned in previous posts and illustrated in an infographic, the book The Whole Brain Child (Siegel/Bryson) talks about the “upstairs and downstairs brain”. Making ‘choices’ is an upstairs brain skill. When 3 and 4 year olds have big behaviors or big emotional responses, that’s coming from their “downstairs”, reactive brain. The behavior is either a result of stress, overwhelm, dysregulation, or a sensory processing challenge. They’re not ‘choosing to be bad’, they don’t have the skills at that moment to be ‘good’.
However, even if you’re CONVINCED that it was a “choice” and they need to be ‘taught a lesson’, Lonely Lunch doesn’t teach the lesson you want taught. Walking the perimeter of the playground, or putting them in timeout, doesn’t teach that lesson, either. Validating the student’s emotions, noticing they are having a hard time, finding out WHY they’re having a hard time and helping them find a solution so they can do better next time- THAT’S the lesson we need to teach!
So, how does this teacher turn the corner?
First, I strongly recommend (and so does the literature) stopping Lonely Lunches, Time Outs and ‘taking away’ anything fun. Let the pre-schoolers play at recess even if they didn’t meet your expectations. Throw out your behavior charts and limit delegating the punishments to “the office”. Those tactics are not neuro-developmentally or trauma-informed, not effective in making long term changes in behavior and most importantly, they’re not nice!
So, tell me what to do then!
Let’s assume it’s a classroom of 20 kids. Chaos, right? If all the threats and bribes aren’t in place, the kids will be hanging from the ceiling! The teacher will lose all control and the classroom will be run by a gaggle of insubordinate, wild preschoolers!
Or, maybe not.
There are many unknown variables in the teacher's post (environment, support staff, etc), but in general, in a traditional ‘mainstream” classroom, not all of the 20 kids will need additional support all of the time. The teacher (or support staff if present) can focus on those few kids who need extra support.
Action item: Get specific.
To identify how to support the student, we first have to withhold judgment and identify the specific challenge. It doesn’t help to say ‘he’s always all over the place’ or ‘she never listens’ or ‘he’s just seeking attention’. Get specific. He’s having difficulty sitting on the carpet during morning meeting. She’s having difficulty waiting to be called on during reading. When you get specific, you’ll have a better chance of solving the problem.
Action item: Get input from the kids.
While we support using the language of Ross Greene’s Collaborative and Proactive Solutions Model, that model does take time to learn, practice and master. The kids are having difficulty now. The CPS Model is also best used proactively, not in the heat of the moment. That being said, the mindset and language of the CPS model is extremely helpful in solving problems that are preventing a student, or students, from meeting expectations. Greene’s book “Lost At School” gives examples of what the CPS Model looks like in a classroom.
Most often, when I ask a teacher about what THE CHILD thinks would help, they respond “I’ve never asked them!”. So, ask them! As the adults, we’ve often been in an adult-imposed ‘throw everything against the wall and see what sticks’ model of intervention. We become more efficient when we collaborate with the kids and yes, pre-schoolers can be great collaborators!
Action item: STOP teaching temporarily if they’re dysregulated, because if they're dysregulated, they're not learning.
Instead of imposing where or how they sit, ask them where or how they think they should sit in order to do their best listening. Ask them what makes their bodies ready to learn. If they’re getting wiggly, don’t be afraid to STOP, “notice” they're having a hard time again, collaborate and resume. Same for elementary students, or middle school students, or anyone!
Action Item: Check-ins.
Since “consequences” are reactive, working proactively can prevent the use of punishments. Before you start the day, or the lesson, or the morning meeting, check in with your students. Are they regulated and ready to learn? Do they need more input? Less input? No input? What will help them? What do they need? They don’t need Lonely Lunch, and they certainly can use recess to meet their regulation needs.
Let's fill the comment section with other strategies to help teachers move away from "behavior management" strategies.
Turning the corner means stop seeing “behaviors” as choices. See them as communication that the child is stuck, and they need your help.
In closing, there is no blame or shame here. The stress, the overwhelm and the exhaustion that teachers are feeling right now is very real. Some teachers are in survival mode. Same with our kids. Let’s all be kind to ourselves, AND to our kids. Before you hand out that consequence, ask yourself; How will this make the child feel? Humans are wired for relationships. Let’s not rely on punishments to get our expectations met. Let’s use our relationship to find solutions where everyone feels heard. When we do, problems get solved, relationships strengthen, and it just feels better.
Greg Santucci, Occupational Therapist
