I’m sure that there are improvements to what I have to mention, and I certainly would love for someone to add to what I have to say, but I’m going to list what has worked for me.

I think the most important thing is to not lose your temper. When you do, when you let yourself get angry, you’ve lost control of the situation. Along with this, yelling or screaming is certainly not a tool to use. This tells or if you prefer models to the child that yelling and screaming is a way to get what you want. I personally not only don’t yell, but I don’t even talk at a normal voice level. I walk over to the child and kneel down so that I am looking at them eye to eye on their level and tell them what they did that was unacceptable. Sometimes I have learned that it is necessary to say “This behavior is not acceptable, I will not tolerate this lack of respect.” With some of the kids that has gone a long way. My tone of voice when saying it is almost a whisper. Also it is important not to say it in a threatening or mean way, but in a firm way. Show the child that you are in control of yourself and the situation and that you are not going to tolerate them doing whatever bad behavior it was.

Modeling positive behavior and methods of interaction is important. This means that when dealing with any other adults that are present in the environment, you need to act with the adults how you expect the kids to interact with each other. Make sure interactions are positive with whomever you need to interact with when you’re in front of the children.

In general when a child does something that they know they shouldn’t be doing they get a three minute timeout. If the behavior is repeated then that’s when the punishments can become more severe.

One technique that I haven’t had the chance to fully explore is having the children write down what they think their punishment should be for improper behavior.

When dealing with two or more children that are having a conflict with one another I have found that it is helpful to sit them down and have them each say a positive thing about each other. Sometimes if I feel it is necessary, I make it be three things. A lot of times they are unwilling to start, so I start it and make them also say nice things about me too. It is amazing how quickly the mood changes into something positive when the kids hear compliments about themselves. Also it certainly brightens up my day as well to hear nice things from the children.

Most importantly and summing up some things mentioned earlier, model the behavior you expect. Give them the respect that you expect to have from them.

This is all that I have for now, I’m very interested to hear about what works for other people, please share! Take care and I hope you found this helpful.
-mike

Post edited by: admin, at: 2007/02/27 00:08

I really enjoyed reading this article until I got to the part where you mentioned a three minute time out. I have mixed feelings about time outs. I took a class last semester in college all about behavior management. My professor spent very little time on "time out" because he felt that it should rarely be used in the classroom. I think if it is going to be used you should make sure that it is not a positive reinforcement for the child. Some children act out just so that they can be put into time out. This can be because the child wants to isolate him/herself, or for another reason. Time out is not always bad, but before it is used you need to assess the situation and make sure that it is not used as positive reinforcement.

Keep up the good work on making this website an excellent resource for parents, teachers, and future educators like myself!

Thank you Amelia for your support and feedback! Also you offered a perspective that I had not considered. I have never thought that children might actually want timeouts. I think that in general in my field of child care they are usually unhappy to get the timeouts but I was thinking that in teaching situations that what you mentioned could definitely happen. Perhaps a kid is bored with a certain lesson or doesn't want to be near someone. Being moved could be to their advantage.

I think that in general timeouts are looked down upon. For good reason too. I think that more constructive alternatives should be given if possible. An example is to have the kid sit at a table and read for a bit or if they did something mean to someone, have them make a project that is something nice for the person. I'm very open to any other alternatives to timeouts that anyone would suggest. I think that in general the more positive the environment, the more in control, fun and enriching the time will be for the children. Thanks again for the input and please feel free to offer any more input that you might have! Take care.
-mike