Behavior Management in a School-Age Program

Children of all ages look to adults for guidance. As professionals, we strive to provide school-age children with an environment that encourages exploration, interaction, decision-making and fosters self control. When adult guidance is needed, it is important to understand individual needs and behaviors of children at various stages. This is also true with discipline. The goal of discipline is not to influence behavior through fear of punishment, but to support the development of self-control and problem-solving skills.

There are several ways to guide children and help them learn self-discipline.

Provide an environment that encourages children's self- discipline

Arrange materials and furniture to encourage appropriate behavior

Involve children in making the program's rules

Provide many opportunities for children to choose their activities

Plan games and activities that encourage cooperation

Use Positive Methods to Guide Individual Children

Help children learn from their experiences

Redirect children to acceptable activities

Offer assistance to children who are out of control

Use simple, positive reminders to state and restate rules

Help Children Understand and Express Their Feelings in Acceptable Ways

Encourage children to talk about their feelings

Tell children you accept their feelings, but their actions are not acceptable

Provide creative outlets for expressing feelings

Teach children conflict resolution techniques

A well-planned environment and curriculum that meet the needs of the children is a key to minimizing discipline problems. When teachers model, nurture, provide appropriate choices and set reasonable expectations, disciplinary problems are reduced. However, there are times when staff need to guide children's behaviors. Some positive guidance approaches are:

Help children problem-solve. School-age children are capable of working together to come up with solutions that everyone agrees with.

Talk with children privately. When a teacher needs to address an individual child's behaviors, do so away from the rest of the group.

Focus on the child's behaviors. Avoid labeling children as "good" or "bad. Instead, focus on acceptable or unacceptable aspects of the child's behavior.

Help children understand the consequences of their actions. Understanding the consequence of their behavior develops concern for others and a sense of responsibility.

Use your firmest voice for emergencies. If a teacher uses these tools only when children are in immediate danger, children will learn to conform automatically.

Control your own feelings. Teachers have feelings also and may need to ask a co- worker for assistance while they calm down before disciplining a child.

Behavior problems in school-age programs are conflicts between children or between children and staff. Children should be taught how to resolve conflicts without aggression. There are many conflict resolution techniques that children can learn to help them resolve differences. A popular technique is SIGEP (Elizabeth Crary, Kids Can Cooperate, Seattle, WA: Parenting Press, 1984). SIGEP is easy to use and follows five steps.

Stop - Have everyone involved in the conflict stop to regain self-control so they can discuss the situation.

Identify - Encourage children to talk about why they are upset and ask questions to identify the problem.

Generate - Give everyone a chance to brainstorm possible solutions. Encourage children to be as creative as they can. Accept all ideas.

Evaluate - Consider all the ideas that were generated. Have children think about whether an idea would work, is fair, and what might happen if they tried it. Have children agree to try one of the ideas.

Plan - Discuss how to carry out the decision.

Resources:

Growing Opportunities: An Orientation for School-Age Personnel, The National Clearinghouse for the Military Child Development Program. Arlington, VA, 1994.

Kids' Time, California Department of Education. Sacramento, CA, Department of Education, 1994.

Another method of guiding children is to use logical consequences. There are two types of logical consequences: naturally occurring consequences and imposed consequences.

Naturally Occurring Consequences:

Usually occur when the problem belongs to the individual on whom the consequences fall. When a naturally occurring consequences occurs, it is between the child and the rest of the world.

Imposed Consequences:

Often occur when a behavior creates a problem for another person who then must impose a consequence in order to change the behavior of the individual creating the problem. When an imposed consequence occurs, it is between the child and the adult.

Punishment is aggressive. Punishment tells the other "guy" where to go. Logical consequences are assertive. They tell the other "guy" where we stand.

Designing a Logical Consequence

Criteria to use to determine whether your consequence is logical, realistic, and keeps the child's dignity intact.

Is it tied to the time and place of the infraction?

Is the consequence similar to what would happen to an adult in the real world?

Ask yourself the question: "what would happen if I didn't do anything about the infraction?"

Will the child feel that he/she is the cause of his/her pain or will he/she be able to blame the adult imposing the consequence? Will it feel like a punishment?

Have you expressed the loss of privileges in a positive way?

Does the child''s self-esteem remain intact?

Will the child learn more about his/her strengths than his/her weaknesses?

Whose problem is the infraction really?

Does this problem affect me and therefore I must impose the consequences or does it affect others and they should impose the consequence?

Logical Consequences

Offers an opportunity for the child to be involved in decision making.

Allows the child to hurt from the inside out.

Child has no opportunity to display his anger or hurting.

Child has opportunity to develop a new plan of reacting or acting.

Child does his own judging.

Child sees adult modeling problems solving techniques.

Adult voice is helpful and friendly.

Child learns about the real world of consequences.

Children who experience logical consequences are automatically forced into the problem-solving and decision making process. They learn that they are capable of making decisions. Children who experiences logical consequences learn that they are in charge of their own destinies. Good decisions leave us feeling good. Poor decisions leave us hurting.

WCCIP • 2109 S. Stoughton Road, Madison WI 53716 • Ph 800.366.3556 • Fx 608.224.6178
These tip sheets developed by WCCIP, March 1998 with funding from the WI Dept. of WFD, Office of Child Care, and DHFS