Guest Posted June 18, 2005 Share Posted June 18, 2005 Hi, I am really interested in finding out about the latest ideas and theories on how to handle children's challenging behaviour. I work in a school nursery that does have a few lovable rogues that are a handful and the teacher and the school way of dealing with them is a 'report book' whereby the child's bad behaviour is noted down for the child's parent to read when they go home. I feel this is focussing on the negative while completely ignoring anything positive about the child. I also think it generally does not work, out of 4 children, 1 child has improved and no longer has a book, 2 have remained the same and 1 child's behaviour appears to be deteriorating. I use positive reinforcement where I can but i feel it is being undone by the constant negativity. So I am really interested in attending a course or accessing further training in this area. Does anybody know of any training etc? Thanks Jinger .x. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
catma Posted June 19, 2005 Share Posted June 19, 2005 Report books can also be used to record the good things too.....I had a card that we used to report on one particular childs behaviour over the day, every hour or bit of the day (ie mat time, focused group,dinner etc etc) we would review how he had been with him an dwrite his words down. This meant he got to think about recent events. Then he would get a smiley face, and OK face (straight line mouth) or a sad face. At the end of the day we would count them up and see what he had. In actual fact most times he would have more OK to good faces than sad, which showed us we were fixating on the smaller amount of times he was behaving inappropriately than the overall big picture!!!! Allowed us to focus on the desirable behaviour too. Mum was more positive with him when she learnt he wasn't a "naughty boy" all the time! Breaking it down into manageable chunks also meant that if he was naughty in the first hour say, he hadn't "blown it" for the whole morning - in which case, why bother to be good!!. He could always redeem himself immediately if he chose to and it would be noticed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted June 20, 2005 Share Posted June 20, 2005 Hi Jinger, I'm really interested in this too and in the last year I have become really interested in 'emotional literacy' and thinking less about managing the behaviour of my children and more about nurturing their relationships with each other and adults so there is less challenging behaviour to deal with. I don't think there is one simple answer but it is to do with relationships and using a variety of strategies which I think are more positive than a behaviour book. I'm not sure about any courses coming up but I've read some interesting things which have had a big impact on me There is a brilliant series of articles on this website about emotional literacy which certainly got me thinking. The article about circle time is also wonderful and has inspired me this year to give status and value to circle time to help the children develop trust and understanding at a deep level. We were having a great circle time discussion last week and I was amazed how sophisticated and caring the children were to each other when they were discussing their fears. I love Nicola Call's 2 books 'The thinking child' and 'The thinking child resource book'. I promise you these 2 books shift your thinking. Look on the www.acceleratedlearning.co.uk website too. We have also introduced touch games which come from a 'Massage in schools ' course which one of our Ta's went on (regularly in Manchester... their website is www.massageinschools.com) The children basically copy gentle movements on each others backs to tell a story .. I am convinced this has helped the children have genuine respect for how they touch each other. We also showed it in an assembly which the parents loved and showed a positive interaction from all of the children. we have also trialled a pack from America called 2nd step with lovely resources / songs/ photos to encourage discussions on behaviour and relationships with children from Nursery age. Look on their website www.cfchildren.org for more info. If I think of anything else I'll post it tomorrow. I hope something here is useful for you .. off on a few tangents .. but related !! Galleon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted June 26, 2005 Share Posted June 26, 2005 Hi, Thank you very much for taking the time to reply, you have both been very helpful I'm off now to check out those websites and articles, thanks Galleon Jinger x Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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