SES: Early Childhood Behaviors (Post 4) Outside the 4 Categories

     In the last post, I covered those four "catch all" categories of behavior.  In this post, I am going to cover how to problem solve for those kiddos who behavior just doesn't fit in one of the four categories.  In any setting, you need information to solve a problem or a puzzle.  As challenging as behavior can be, I like to think of it as a puzzle.  I need all the pieces to put together the whole picture.

    With behavior, what are the pieces of information that will be helpful?

• The setting in which it occurs (For example, always during group time)
• Temperament of the child 
• Is the child missing any skills that he/she needs to be successful?
• What happened before the behavior? (The trigger: Very important-You want to know if it is consistently the same)
• What happened right after?  (Very important:  You want to know if adults or other kids are reinforcing the behavior)

   To illustrate the process, I am going to use a few examples from my classroom experiences.

Example 1:  Knowing Temperament (The logical child)

     All of the kids in my classroom are taught, from day 1, simple problem solving steps to avoid frustration.  The basic ones are: try a different way, ask for help, etc.

     A little guy in my room was sitting at the table assembling blocks.  He stacked them, and they fell, and he cried.  He repeated this cycle over and over.  He didn't want my attention, or anything from me.  He wanted these blocks to stack.  He was so flustered that he couldn't talk.  I initially thought he had be having difficulty with solving problems in play, but there were no red flags in his development so I initially ignored the behavior and just observed.  I needed more information.

     The next day, I needed to complete a scheduled developmental assessment with this little guy.  As I was going through the questions, I asked him to put something under the table.  (I just needed to see if he knew the concept)  He said, in a matter of fact way, "Why, that's silly?"  I told him I just wanted to see if he knew what under was.  He lifted up my assessment,  pointed under it and said, "Teacher, this is under."  So, no problem solving issues there.  He is an incredibly logical 4 year-old.

    Later on the same day, he was back at the block table.  I heard a crash and tears but, I had my knowledge of his need for logic this time.  I sat down next to him and said the blocks weren't working and we needed to fix them.  He agreed and together we discovered that they weren't working because the big Lego blocks have to go on bottom to keep the tower stable.

Example 2: Identifying and Teaching the Missing Skills

     A few years ago, I worked with a center and the parents of an older 2 year-old.  They were very concerned that he was aggressive towards the other children.  There was hitting, biting, and pushing.  Other parents had started to notice so I was called in to problem solve with the teaching staff.

     Before deciding on an approach, it is really important to know what happens before a behavior and what happens after.  Sometimes the ONLY way to do this is just to watch and see how things play out normally, so that is what I did.  Day 1, the little one approaches his friends (Several look scared as the child approaches) and it looks like he is trying to join the play.  He smiles and touches, the child withdraws, and he hits the child. The other child cries, the offender is swept up by a teacher with a quick "no hitting" correction and taken to another area of the room.  The child who hit plays alone in a corner until outdoor time. 

      In this situation I got several clues:  The child doing the hitting was not hitting out of anger.  He wanted to join the other kids play and it didn't look like he knew how.  Corrections were given as no hitting so he wasn't learning the skills he needed.  Even though he was being corrected consistently, he still didn't know how to play so he was relying on the only "tool" in his box. 

     I met with the teachers and shared my observations and then set to teaching a few nicer ways to make friends.  It involved sitting with him and a few others during play and modeling age level peer interactions.  It was really simple stuff like greetings, asking to play, asking for a toy, etc.  It took about a month of daily practice to undo to "aggression for peer attention" but the little one was successful with the support of teachers.

     You can take just about any behavior scenario and problem solve it by looking at the setting, the triggers, etc. 

    

    

Social and Emotional Behavior Supports in Preschool: Why the heck are you behaving that way?? (Post 3)

     The first step in deciding what to do about a child's behavior is determining the cause of the behavior.  I am going to give you a simple "how to" guide, a real life example, and then provide you with some links to more great (free) resources.  Let's get started . . . .

     In general there are four basic categories that reasons four misbehavior are supposed to fall into.  I say, "supposed to" because there are definite exceptions when a child has developmental delays.  (eg: a child may not have the appropriate social skills to request a toy)  I will cover these categories first, as they are the most common.   These categories are:

•   Attention:  I want attention now and this behavior is how I am going to get it.
•   Misguided power: You can't make me!
•   Revenge:  This usually comes a while after you have corrected the child.
•   Assumed inadequacy: The "I can't" child.

 The positive discipline website has an amazing PDF chart that has some great tips on these here: http://www.positivediscipline.com/files/MistakenGoalChart.pdf

    Now, how do you determine why the child is engaging in a behavior?  I will walk you through this with an example from my setting this week.

Example 1

      My little friend "Logan" is an adorable two and half year old little boy.  He loves to play outside.  But for the past two days, he has decided he does not want to follow the rules on the climber/slide.  He only wants to go up the slide when kids are going down.

     His behavior:  Going up the slide when kids were on it.

     My response:  "Get down Logan.  Use the ladder."

     His response:  Tantrum and repeat attempts.

     In this process, I do a little evaluation.  Does he need additional teaching?  In this case, no.  He can use the ladder just fine.  He wants to go up the climber his way.  I also consider my rules.  Am I enforcing this with everyone.  In this case, yes.  It's too confusing to say sometimes you can go up and sometimes you can't.    So I determine that initially his goal is power.  He just ways to do it his way.

     The other kids then leave the climber slide area and I decide to walk away and see what happens.  He stops crying until he gets close to me and then resumes full scale tears/tantrum.   I amend my original assessment.   His goals of behavior are power and attention.

     So in this case, I have to consistently enforce the rule and ignore the tantrum.  I keep him in my peripheral vision and continue interacting with the other kids until the tantrum is complete. As soon as the tantrum is complete, I give lots of immediate positive attention.  It took about 10 minutes, but we didn't have any more issues outside after this.

                                                                      Links

• http://www.positivediscipline.com/
• https://www.pbis.org/community/early-childhood

     Do you have a real life example that you would like me to post?  Just write a comment. :-)

     

Reducing the call of, "Teacher . . . Teacher" in early childhood settings

     Anyone who works in early childhood settings knows the call of "teacher  . . ." seems to always come when you are in the middle of something you can't walk away from. (Sometimes I swear young children have a radar)  Now, in my previous setting, I worked with 2-3 other teachers. I could easily make eye contact with a coworker and get help.

     In my current setting, I may or may not have an assistant to help me. And I have consistently had issues with a problem escalating before I could intervene. When you work with little ones all day, you start looking for solutions  . . . yesterday.

    I was looking through my go to articles and books on behavior and stumbled and cross this gem.

Http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2011/03/why_preschool_shouldnt_be_like_school.html

     It's long, but here's a summary. Children who are taught exactly how to do things make fewer attempts at problem solving. When teachers present toys and offer minimal assistance, children make significantly more attempts to solve problems on there own.

   This led me to wonder how broadly I could apply it in my setting. Would it work for solving problems like a dispute over toys? A little one who always forgot that he could reach the light if he got the stool? I had to test it.

    I took notes over a week and I discovered my biggest problem was, of course, disputes over toys. So I used two tools (A solution cube and a sand timer) and started my test.

     Solution cue cards: I cut them out, put them on a square tissue box, and covered the sides with
clear contact paper.

http://csefel.vanderbilt.edu/ppt/solutkitcuecards.ppt

     So week 1 was "guiding" week. I had done some direct teaching with the solution cube so the kids knew what it was, but the kids were still asking for my help far more often than they were working it out.  Each time a conflict came up, I asked the kids questions (at their level) with the cube nearby.  "she wants a turn. What should we do?"  This got the kids looking at the cube and thinking about options.  And I'm happy to report, two weeks in, there are far less cries of "teacher" over toy disputes.

     I was able to apply this same strategy with two kids who call me into to help them turn reach the light multiple times a day. (There is a stool) As soon as I changed my behavior from showing them how to put the stool in place to asking each time, "what can you use to reach the light?" I stopped getting called to help with the stool.

     I am all for using strategies that make my job a little easier and help young children become critical thinkers in the process. ;-)