Understanding and Managing Children's Behaviour through Group Work Ages 3-5

A child–centred approach

Cath Hunter

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317335740
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Understanding and Managing Children's Behaviour through Group Work Ages 3- 5 provides the reader with an insight into children's emotional well-being and helps them to understand what and how children communicate and how to respond in a way that provides positive messages, increases their emotional vocabulary and encourages them to change their behaviour. It provides an alternative and effective child centred way of managing children's behaviour through introducing the concept of reflective language and other tools, equipping staff with new skills that are transferable across the school in any role.

The book is divided into two sections, enabling the reader to link theory with practice. The first section takes the reader on a journey to help them understand the different factors that influence children's behaviour. The second section of the book focuses on the group work programmes, how they can be used, their value and the impact they can have on children and the classroom environment as a whole. The activities in the group work programme explore the concept of using reflective language as a behaviour management tool and are designed to motivate, build confidence, self-esteem and resilience. Useful pedagogical features throughout the book include: -

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• Practitioner and classroom management tips and reflective tasks;

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• Strategies and practical ideas for staff to use to help them engage more deeply with the contents of the book;

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• Flexible, tried and tested group work programmes designed to promote inclusion rather than exclusion;

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• Clear step by step instructions for delivering the work programmes;

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• Case studies showing behaviour examples with detailed explanations for the behaviour and strategies to respond to it.

The book is aimed at all early years practitioners and any students training to work with children of E.Y.F.S age. It is also recommended reading for SENCOs and trainee teachers and will also be useful for therapists who work with children and are looking at delivering other approaches in their work.

Part One:Theory

A child-centred approach to emotional health and well-being and understanding children’s behaviour

DOI: 10.4324/9781315660004-1

1 What does a child need to be emotionally healthy?

DOI: 10.4324/9781315660004-2

In order for children to achieve success at school they need a degree of healthy emotional and social development so that they are emotionally ready and able to learn. The key issues for children aged 3–5 years is their ability to separate easily from their parents and adjust to being at school, which is strongly affected by their attachment and the security of the relationship they have with them. They need to be able to deal with this separation in order to be able to manage the school day and all it entails. (I will discuss this further in Chapter 5.) Managing the school day includes having a sense of confidence, self-esteem, self-reliance and independence appropriate to their age, along with the ability to be able to manage change and unpredictability without its eroding their feelings of safety and security. They also need to have the social skills to develop, build and sustain relationships with both adults and children, and to be able to ask for help when they need it. How many children start school equipped with all the skills to be able to do this?

The experience of being emotionally healthy is achieved by a combination of all these skills together and not in isolation, in the same way as a child’s ability to hold a pencil is dependent on their hand–eye coordination and manipulative skills. It is the cumulative effect of the child’s experiences, learned behaviours and reactions to events that help define their sense of self and their ability to deal with situations both in and out of school. Children need information and explanations about what is happening in order for them to be able to make sense of their experiences.

A child’s social and emotional development is a crucial foundation and provides them with a sense of themselves and enables them to establish quality relationships with other people. A strong social and emotional foundation will enable a child to connect with others, resolve conflicts, achieve success and experience happiness in life.

Self-regulation

In order for children to be able to regulate their own stress levels, they need to have had this experience from an adult. Babies are unable to regulate their own stress and they depend on their caregivers to regulate it for them. For example, when a baby cries because they are hungry, tired or upset and the adult responds with love and concern, this helps to reduce the baby’s stress. If a crying baby is ignored or met with anxiety or hostility, it can increase their stress. The way the adult responds to this stress can either help the child to develop their own stress regulatory system, or create even more stress and prevent this development taking place. If the child gets what they need from an adult, then a pattern develops that allows the child to begin to manage stress for themselves.

Depending on a child’s experiences, by the age of three they may be beginning to understand some of the feelings they are experiencing, but are unlikely to have developed much impulse control. Therefore, if they want something they will often take action to get it, such as snatching from other children. The concept of delayed gratification is a particularly difficult one for children of this age to understand; they want things immediately and may express strong reactions, such as raging tantrums, when being asked to wait for things. It is a natural stage of children’s development that they are egocentric up to about the age of four, depending on their experiences, and therefore it is very hard for them to see anything from another person’s perspective, i.e. ‘Why would I want to give someone else a sweet when I can keep it for myself?’ They may find it hard to understand why they can’t have what they want when they want it and become stressed and agitated, making this behaviour particularly hard to manage in school, where there may be several children who behave in this way. It can be useful and help children’s emotional development if adults respond to children’s stress in a way that calms and soothes them rather than in a way that exacerbates their stress.

For example, Tom, aged 3, is happily playing with a train when another child snatches it from him. Tom screams with rage and hits the child. If he is soothed, comforted, listened to and supported, then this validates his feelings and enables stress regulatory systems to be developed. If he is offered a calm and clear explanation about not hitting other children, then he is gradually able to understand that this behaviour is not acceptable. Tom is totally dependent on the stress regulating systems of a caring adult to help him to develop his own. If a caring adult is able to help him with his feelings and acknowledge and soothe his distress, he gradually develops the ability to do this for himself. As stressful situations occur in his life, he has the ability to manage them due to his initial experiences of stress being held and helped by a caring adult. When a child’s parent or carer is able to regulate their own feelings and demonstrate positive and healthy ways of managing their own stress and anxiety, this is beneficial to the child who has this as a template of how to deal with feelings.

However, if the adult responds to the situation by shouting at him, dragging him away or smacking him for hitting the other child, Tom will feel even more stressed and anxious and will be unable to develop self-regulation. He does not learn how to manage stress and anxiety for himself; instead he learns to be wary and fearful of other people and finds it extremely difficult to share. He is overwhelmed by his feelings and unable to self-regulate. He may learn that feelings are to be feared and avoided at all times, rather than managed and expressed in a healthy way.

Case study

Jake, aged 4, had regular tantrums at school. He would snatch things from other children, refuse to share things and got very upset and angry if he didn’t get his own way. He would shout and cry and become very agitated.

Possible reasons for Jake’s behaviour:

• His parents worked long hours and felt guilty about not spending time with him, so they overindulged him and found it very hard to say ‘no’ to him.
• His older brother regularly had tantrums, which resulted in him getting his own way.

This resulted in Jake trying to achieve the same result at school as he got at home, and becoming very confused and upset when this did not happen. When children have not had the experience of self-regulation being provided by a parent, school staff can contribute to helping them with this and fulfilling this role.

Strategies to help children to self-regulate

• Respond to the intensity of what the child is feeling and reinforce this with an affirming tone of voice and facial expression; for example, ‘It made you furious that you couldn’t be at the front of the line today.’
• Validate the child’s experience; it is very real for them, so ensure they feel you are taking it seriously; for example, ‘When Sam called you stupid, it must have really hurt.’
• Support the child by helping them to find alternative ways to express their feelings, if appropriate; for example, ‘It’s never okay to hit people, Michael. We need to find other ways that you can have your feelings and not hurt anyone when you have them.’
• Provide a calm and reassuring approach, so the child feels you are affirming them and accepting rather than dismissing their feelings; for example, ‘It can be really difficult when you want to have the red pen and someone else is already using it.’
• Use regular opportunities during the school day to comment on children’s non-verbal signs of emotion; for example, ‘I can see you look a bit cross about having to wait your turn’.

The above responses enable the child to feel connected to, understood and recognised for who they are and what they are feeling. It gives the message ‘all feelings are okay and I can help you with them’. It helps them to make the link between feelings and words, which is crucial for children, as they can experience their emotions intensely and need help, support and the emotional vocabulary to make sense of what is happening. It affirms the pain the child is feeling and helps them to understand it. This helps them to feel less overwhelmed and alone with the feelings and therefore less scared. This will support the child with developing self-regulation. When an adult intervenes and offers support, it can reduce the anxiety levels for children as well as validate, rather than invalidate, their experiences and feelings.

Staff strategy – helping children to self-regulate

Provide activities that are soothing and calming, such as sorting buttons or counters to help children to regulate their feelings.

Children need constant reminders of the behaviour that adults would like to see and explanations of what is expected of them and why. Children require boundaries that can be understood, and therefore it is useful to check their understanding of the rules and expectations that are in place at school and ensure these are clear and realistic to enable all children to experience success. For example, demonstrating how to tidy up rather than assuming all children have the experience of doing this at home. The use of visual reminders can also be a useful way of keeping a connection with a child and enabling them to practise regulating their behaviour.

Staff strategy – visual reminder

Take photos of the child doing the behaviour you would like to see; for example, sitting on the carpet. Show the child the picture of this at the relevant time and frequently throughout the day to help them understand what they need to do.

The role of the facilitator in the group work programmes enables the children in the group to practise self-regulation and provides an opportunity for the facilitator to transfer these new skills to their role across the school. This alternative way of responding to children’s feelings and behaviour can be modelled across the school and empowers all staff to use a different approach.

Staff strategy – releasing feelings

If a child needs help to manage their feelings of anger and frustration, offer them a large scribble pad and pens or crayons for them to use when they need to. Ensure they are able to access them easily and offer support and demonstrations, if needed. Explain to the child that this can help them when they feel angry.

This activity provides a powerful message that all feelings are acceptable and an alternative and constructive way of helping a child to release them. It can be a useful tool to assist them in the process of self-regulation.

Developing independence

School life and all it entails requires children to have some level of autonomy and to become increasingly independent as they progress through school. The experience of becoming more independent and developing a sense of self is crucial, and an important developmental task for children aged 3–5 years is the ability to separate easily from their parent and manage without them for the school day. This can sometimes be difficult and can cause a great deal of distress, especially if they have not often been separated before. It can be particularly hard for children who have not experienced consistent and predictable parenting, as they may be even more anxious about if and when their parent will return for them at the end of the day. Starting school for the first time, coupled with leaving their parent or carer, can be a challenge for even the most secure child. The process of separation and independence is a gradual one that school can help with by finding the right balance between nurturing, protecting and guiding children and allowing them to explore and experiment. This enables them to develop some self-sufficiency and security in themselves and is assisted by having a caring adult in school who can be in tune with and responsive to their needs.

A child’s ability to develop self-reliance and do things independently depends on several factors and is affected by their confidence and self-esteem, along with the opportunity to develop these skills. In school there may be an expectation that children have a level of independence that enables them to cope with the school activities. For a child who has no experience of this at home, perhaps because they are...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half-Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of figures and tables
• Foreword
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Part One: Theory A child-centred approach to emotional health and well-being and understanding children’s behaviour
• Part Two: Practice Using group work to promote emotional health and well-being and manage children’s behaviour
• Conclusion
• Resources
• Index