The Power of Positive Guidance - It's Within You!

What is the most challenging part of your job as an early childhood educator?  If you are a teacher of toddlers or preschoolers, chances are the answer is managing their behavior.

You may feel like you could spend more time teaching if your children's behavior was better, but here's another way to think of it:  The time you spend guiding young children’s behavior is time spent teaching them - and you are giving them some of the most important lessons they need to learn to be successful adults.  

With this viewpoint, you can see not only that the time you spend guiding children is a large and essential part of your job, you can see that it should be.
And while challenging, providing guidance doesn't have to be a chore.  With a clear view of your purpose and a toolbox of effective strategies, you may actually start to enjoy handling inappropriate behaviors. Really, you have within you the power to create a smoothly running classroom where you and the children are thriving.  And you can have fun doing it!

​Guidance – What Does It Mean to You?

What words come to mind when you think of guidance and discipline? 

Take a few minutes to reflect on the first three words that pop into your head. 

​What do they reveal about what you believe is the purpose of guidance?

I would challenge you to consider that the primary goal of guidance is to teach children how to manage their emotions, thoughts and behaviors.  At first, children need our constant support, but eventually they will learn to behave appropriately more of the time, even without us.  This process of self-regulation happens very gradually from infancy to adolescence (and sometimes beyond), and it requires lots of guidance and practice.  Self-regulation takes such a long time because of the all the skills involved and because it depends on the children's social, emotional, and cognitive development.

​Young Children Have a Lot to Learn!

​There are many skills that are considered essential for children to learn so they can demonstrate age-appropriate self-regulation. Here is a list of skills that "researchers throughout the world say young children must master...​

• Express needs, wants and feelings constructively
• Consider other people’s needs, wants and feelings
• Calm themselves when upset
• Act in a safe and civil manner
• Follow rules, routines and directions​
• Take proper care of materials
• Share, take turns, help and cooperate
• Distinguish acceptable from unacceptable behavior
• Carry out behaviors they think are right
• Avoid behaviors they think are wrong"

​​(Kostelnik et al, 2014, p. 40)

 To learn all these skills, toddlers and preschoolers need an incredible amount of support from us, especially at first.  We can use scaffolding to provide more help when needed, then less and less and children become more skilled.  

​Young Children Need Lots of Guidance! 

As you know, teaching young children requires that we take into account what is developmentally appropriate.  We have to know what the norms are for children in our classroom's age group, each individual child's needs and abilities, and the cultural context of their family and community.  When we know what is age appropriate, individually appropriate and culturally appropriate, we can meet children where they are and help them meet challenging but achievable goals. (Copple & Bredekamp, 2006)

​Here are some general characteristics of preschool children that affect their behavior.  This list may help you start to determine what is developmentally appropriate for your own group of children. (from Kostelnik et al., 2014, p. 44)​

• They are eager to learn
• They enjoy pleasing our teachers
• They express ourselves with their whole bodies
• They're impulsive
• They have trouble following negative commands
• They can't always think of better behaviors
• They don’t always remember what they're told
• They can’t follow many directions at once
• They don’t always connect their actions to the consequences​

Besides knowing what is developmentally appropriate for our children, we need to know ourselves as well.  To teach children self-regulation, we need to start by recognizing where we are in our own self-regulation journeys. ​

 We all have moments when our own self-control is challenged - and sometimes that is precisely when children are needing our guidance the most!  Children's challenging behaviors sometimes "push our buttons" and we must calm ourselves before we can effectively guide children.  I use a strategy I learned from Dr. Becky Bailey, founder of Conscious Discipline®​, years ago:  I tell myself, "I am safe, I am calm, I can handle this" (Bailey, 2001, p. 31).  For lots of other mindfulness activities for yourself and your children, follow @earlychildhoodspecialties on Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn.  ​

​We can also reflect on our goals of guidance and recognize our power to show self-control and to provide positive guidance for children.  It's within us all!

Coming up next, specific positive guidance strategies that work and teach - stay tuned!  ​

References

Bailey, R. A. (2001).  Conscious discipline:  7 basic skills for brain smart classroom management.  Oviedo, FL:  Loving Guidance.
Bailey, R. A. (2015).  Conscious discipline:  Building resilient classrooms.  Oviedo, FL:  Loving Guidance.
Copple, C. & S. Bredekamp. (2006). Basics of developmentally appropriate practice:  an introduction for teachers of children 3 to 6. Washington, DC:  NAEYC.
Kostelnik, M. J., Rupiper, M., Soderman, A. K. & Whiren, A. P. (2014). Developmentally appropriate curriculum In action. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education Inc.,  40-44.