3.1 GUIDING CHILDREN’S BEHAVIOUR

DATED: January 2006

POLICY: Jane Slee, Managing Difficult Behaviour in Young Children, Early Childhood Australia, 2004

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Behaviour management and guidance requires a broad approach which will in the first instance keep children physically and psychologically safe and will gradually guide them to communicate needs verbally, to learn the skills to relate socially with others, to solve their own problems and to ask for help when needed. It requires an approach which sees behaviour as a form of communication linked to the child’s cognitive, physical, social and emotional state. It also means that adults create a physical and emotional environment that facilitates personal and social growth.

 PROCEDURE

• Behaviour should be seen as an expression of feelings or an attempt to meet immediate or underlying needs. Carers and/or staff should be aware of what the child is trying to communicate, validate the child’s feelings, and deal with the underlying problem as well as guiding the child towards more appropriate ways of communicating needs and of interacting pro-socially with others.
• Adult responses to and strategies for guiding and managing behaviour should take account of the child’s whole life situation.
• Behaviour guidance strategies should acknowledge family and cultural attitudes to behaviour within the boundaries of the safety and wellbeing of children, but not be stereotyped, as reactions vary from child to child as well as from culture to culture.
• Adult responses should include consideration of and possible assessment for physiological and psychological conditions that could be affecting behaviour.
• Adults should seek to develop, in a collaborative way, partnerships with parents which support them in feeling confident and open in exploring options for addressing their children’s needs at home or in the Care Environment.
• Carers, staff and parents should work together and share information to try to identify stresses that might affect the child’s behaviour. Early childhood personnel need to be culturally aware so they understand why some parents might find it difficult to approach them or cooperate.
• At no time should behaviour guidance include any form of isolation, withdrawal of affection and punitive actions which belittle, humiliate or coerce children.
• Behaviour guidance and management strategies should be framed in positive language and enhance the child’s self esteem.
• Adults should include strategies for guiding children towards appropriate ways of getting needs met and expressing feelings.
• The adults’ focus should be on the behaviour, not the child, and positive behaviours and strengths of the child should be encouraged. Children should believe that acceptance does not depend on behaviour.
• The adults responses to behaviour should be appropriate to the developmental level and emotional and cultural understanding of each individual child.
• In meeting the needs of the individual child, consideration should also be given to the needs of all other children in the group.
• Expectations should be clearly articulated and consistent. These should be oriented towards the respect for and safety of people and property rather than towards authoritarian ends
• Children should be involved in the formulation of group expectations as far as they are able.
• Opportunities for guiding behaviour should be seen as opportunities for new learning.
• Where families are experiencing stress, children’s behaviour will reflect such stress and those families will be linked into relevant support networks
• Adults working with children should model the positive behaviour which they desire children to emulate or achieve.
• If a child has problems that have not responded to consistent individual behaviour guidance and management strategies, the Carer should seek additional support and resources. Ongoing concerns about such problems need to be addressed with the child’s parents and referral to specialist services should be actively pursued.