Child Behavior Issues & Problems – Part 1
I took a workshop on ‘Behaviors in Children’ at a early childhood education conference I recently attended.
I was hoping to walk away with some effective strategies on how to deal with, and stop certain child behavior issues I was seeing in some of the pre k children in my classroom.
Instead I walked out with a totally new way of looking at behavior problems.
I quickly learned how “dealing” with them isn’t going to change anything, but how understanding these ‘child behavior issues’ and working with the child(ren) will make for a much more calm and happy teacher, child, and preschool classroom.
I couldn’t wait to get home and share it will all of you Parents, Early Childhood Educators, and Child Care Providers.
This, in an effort to make your job much easier and a little less stressful with a better understanding of (preschool) children and their behavior issues.
I am going to write a few parts to this preschool article and make it into a series for everyone.
I will write about one point at a time so I can really focus on it, explain it, and it won’t be consuming so much of your time to have to sit and read a 50 page article on every subject at once.
In This Child Behavior Article:
So in this article, (Part 1) I am going to explain what I learned about understanding behavior issues in preschoolers and young children. Once we have the meaning of that then in the next articles it will be easier to follow along with the examples, specified behaviors, and strategies to use to respond to them.
The Child Behaviors Presentation Begins:
The presenter talked about all types of behaviors which I myself and I am sure you have come across throughout many years of working in the Child Care field.
Some of those behaviors are, irritability, anger, tantrums, kicking, hitting, moodiness, verbal aggression, clingy, rocking, fidgeting, power struggles, self inflicted injuries, screaming, no energy, selfishness, and that’s just to name a few. There are also children who have diagnoses like Autism, ADD, FAS, and more.
Did you know that most, if not all behaviors have a real underlying issue behind them?
And what has been the most common response we have all been guilty of responding with?
I know I have been guilty of responding with ignoring the behavior, sitting on a “time out chair”, telling them to stop or a privilege will be taken away, and I am sure there are more maybe you have tried.
The result is usually a frustrated teacher, negatively interrupted classroom, and emotionally unstable child.
Why do we respond the way we do?
Well for me, it’s what I was taught to do in College, society, and it seems like the easiest way to stop that behavior in the child and get on with things.
What if we took a few minutes to get to know the child and figure out why they are acting a specific way?
After all it’s usually the same child we deal with day after day and the name of that child usually stays with us for years after they leave the classroom.
Correcting Child Behavior Issues Using Positive Methods:
Imagine you had the power to actually stop that behavior in a positive way and watch that child connect, learn, and participate in the classroom.
How much more enjoyable would everyone’s day turn out, including yours. Not to mention the accomplishment you will feel and the happiness of the parents of that child and what they will learn from you as well.
Did you know that there is a group of four child behaviors?
Each behavior has a purpose and a payoff and I am going to go through each of them in the next series of articles and give you examples of what they need and things you can do to understand and help them.
Of course there are those “normal” behaviors we see in children, usually more in our own, when they are hungry and whine for something, or don’t want to go to bed, or have an argument with a sibling, and so on.
There is a difference in these behaviors and the ones I mentioned previously and you can definitely tell the difference visually, and as mentioned the next few articles will help with that to.
So in conclusion I just want to prepare you and help you grasp the point. Some of those extreme and sometimes subtle, but constant behaviors we see in some children, have much more to them than shows on the surface.
It’s time to dig deep and finally see the payoffs of these child behaviors by finding out their purposes.
Read the article ‘Under Stimulated & Over Stimulated Behaviors in Children>