In my last few blogs we’ve been talking about how to prevent children from hitting or hurting others by intervening just moments before those behaviors happen.
I told you about my 7-Step In-the-Moment Challenging Behavior Prevention Process.
Of course trying to teach an entire 7-Step process via weekly blogs would be sort of ridiculous, however, I did give you 3 Steps!
Step 1: Make sure you’re near the child (gotta get there ahead of time at least sometimes - yes you can!)
Step 2: Say what you think the child wants or needs.
Step 3: Give the child alternate words or actions.
Just these three steps alone can create a massive shift in your classroom.
Last week we left off with the idea of teaching Robert (who often pushes when he wants to be first in line) to say, “I want to be first, please”.
So the concern arose: that’s not fair! He can’t always be first.
Which is..ahem…a fair response.
However, let's dig into it.
The reason we want to give him those words - even if he’s not going to get to do what he wants or we think that’s not fair for him to repeatedly be first - is to teach him to express himself verbally, not physically.
By doing Step 3 we support him to express himself. “Robert, tell the kids, ‘I want to be first.”
Helping children negotiate when multiple children want to be first is a much better problem for you to have than the problem of one child pushing another, right?
So, let’s embrace Robert’s desire (not the behavior) and see what happens…
Some percentage of the time just letting Robert know you GET it and give him the words to express himself verbally will solve everything.
Sometimes the other children don’t care and will let him be first more often than is technically fair and over time the thing runs its course and he doesn’t care anymore.
Or, sometimes the children will reply with “no!” or “that’s not fair!” or “I’m first!”
So now you may need to do Step 3: “Give children the words” a few more times…with the other children, so they can respond, help them express, discuss, work it out.
Maybe say, “Hmmm…all the children (or two) want to be first, what should we do?”
GREAT. It’s great. They came to preschool to learn to problem solve, identify their wants and needs, express themselves, communicate, and learn to get along in a group.
This is the work! You’re doing exactly what you’re supposed to be doing. Teaching and learning and doing exactly what preschool was designed to do. And no more pushing.
I know you have other pressures, as well (maybe like teaching more “academic” skills) but take a moment to recognize and acknowledge this crucially important teaching you’re doing in helping children to express themselves and solve simple daily conflicts.
There are more steps to my step-by-step In-the-Moment Challenging Behavior Prevention Process and many ways to apply the steps but without you and me being together - ideally with other early childhood educators to talk about your specific circumstances I’ll leave it to you to decide how to apply the 3 steps I’ve shared.
Thoughts? Questions? Did you give it a try? Stories of success? Let me know below.
Learn about Step 1 here: transformchallengingbehavior.com/blog/prevent
Learn about Step 2 here: transformchallengingbehavior.com/blog/steps
Learn about Step 3 here: transformchallengingbehavior.com/blog/givewords