Behaviour Management: Guidance language in Preschool Room

I was going through some of my old reports and thought this might be beneficial to those who are working in a preschool room. The age group is 4-5 year olds, so they are capable of communicating fairly well & express their feelings.

1) New Migrant Child: G
G is a new child in the classroom. G was seen with a tear stricken face. She did not speak, but the adult, J came in and spoke on her behalf. J told one of the other girls, SC that G wanted to join in the game. G sits on the chair without saying a word and looked at the other children. The adult, J explained to the children (SC, KL, GR and A) that G is a new child in the country, and did not know the language (English) much, so they have to be friendly and understanding of her situation.

I was observing all this when it happened, so later as we were doing activites on the table I told SC that she would feel the same if she went to a place where everyone spoke Cantonese. SC asks me to speak someCantonese, so I said “do you want to eat?” in Cantonese. Then I asked SC “do you understand what I just said?”. SC does not say a reply to that.

SC then is later seen inviting G to play in their dramatic play.

2) Learning to Access play with other children:
Alex had some problems accessing the Earth Tub play. She came to me and told me that the other children won’t let her play with them. I told her “why don’t you go and get a cup from the sandpit and fill it up with sand, and just play along with them without asking them”.

Alex took a cup and went to the Earth Tub and filled it with sand and then played alongside the group.

3) Initiating play with others:

I have noticed and observed that Raj has had difficulty in initiating play with the other children. Today he poured out the entire contents of the goop tray into the blue saucer. Later, he interrupted the play between Y & Rhys. The boys had arranged their cars in a line, and Raj took his car and crashed into their line, which made Y & Rhys. really angry! So I had to quickly intervene, and re-directed the attention of the 3 boys to something else so that the flow of play could continue.

The game was then interrupted again by this new African boy (who could not speak any English) from the kindy group. So the boys left with the cars.

I spoke to Raj, and told him that he can’t do that if he wants to play with other children. Then I re-directed the attention to him by asking him, whether if he likes it others did the same to him as well, continuing to add that I would get angry if someone did the same to me when I was playing as well. At this point, Welly spoke up and said that “it is very true”!

In Raj’s case, I think, and feel that he would benefit more from direct intervention and require social coaching skills in order that other children will let him participate in their play.

An Early Childhood Teacher at work.

It could mean coming into a room of children & just taking control. Or even at a cafe. There are many factors that enable a person to be able to come in to take control. A huge factor is to do with the person's personality as demonstrated by my flatmate, Titi, who works in a cafe but possesses a rather "choleric" personality.

Titi is Indonesian & has horrible English grammar, but the moment she steps into a restaurant, she starts ordering people around & everyone else listens to her. Even the Australian white locals take their orders from her! When she has toothache & walks into the dentist's office without making an appointment, even the dentist acquieses to her to avoid trouble. No one dares to upset her when she is in the house!

To illustrate a point about this in childcare, I'd like to share what happened at work today. The centre that I am currently based for this week only takes in ECT casuals, (in other words, degree-qualified casuals). It was "over-booked", meaning there were too many casuals that were booked in. The scenario that took place was that Agent C had booked me in to go to the centre but they did not receive any email confirmation from them to confirm that I was going in. However the centre still kept me in.

What happened was that instead of asking me to go home, I took turns being a "floater staff" in both the toddler & pre-school rooms to enable the Group Leader, Nikki & Michelle to do their programming. Floater staff are basically staff that float around to relieve staff according to the adult: children ratio needed as per the childcare legislations. I.e. when there are more children than normal, and there is not enough staff around, or staff that relieves the main skeleton staff when they go off for lunch or have to do their curriculum-programming. (Granted, we don't have this in Malaysia or most asian countries if you're wondering!)

Today there were two other casual ECTs from two different childcare staffing agencies, apart from mine. From my observations, I would say they were both much older women in their late 40s (not thirties, mind you). As this is actually my first time in contact with other ECTs, it was a great learning experience for me to watch how other more experienced ECT casuals work as well. In my weeks of doing my casual work, I have actually had not had the opportunity to be able to work with staff of ECT level, but mostly the group leaders and assistants. (which in other words are the diploma & certificate qualified staff).

In the centre I am based now, I am pretty much the only asian casual staff which I'm not too fussed about. I could tell that these ECTs had been to this centre much as they addressed the children by their names and they were quite experienced as they used a lot of behaviour management strategies which I had not seen used yet. What I like most about the class is that they came in and just took control of the children, which is an area that I am trying to strengthen, regardless of whether it is with children or adults. Or even animals!

What I believe is that I think that these two ECTs demonstrate much choleric traits compared to the other staff I have seen in the centre. It is just something I perceived. Reflecting on it, I remember an incident that took place last year when I was back in KL for Chinese New Year festival & I had gone to my uncle's home for visitations. It was a really hot & sunny day, and I was rather cranky & had a really bad tummy upset. Anyways, when my family left the car to enter my uncle's home, their pet dog was barking like mad. It seemed that everyone was afraid of the dog.

My crankiness must have shown through because the moment I looked at the dog, without a word I gave him such a stare that the dog just kept quiet & started whimpering. My mom who was behind me then asked me what did I do to the dog, to which I told her that I had not done anything but given him a stare. Later I went to the dog & tried to be friendly with it. As you could guess, my personality does not fall under the "choleric" category although I do demonstrate some of these traits as my entire family members are ALL choleric!

In conclusion, I believe that learning to take control of an audience or group of "creatures" is a skill that can be self-taught regardless of their personality, although that does play a major role in helping a person to put out or take on an authoritative role in the group.

Managing the children's behaviour: Part 2

I would say that I was right.

It is not right to reprimand a child without explaining to the child the reasons for it. Let me explain the reasons why I state so.

This morning, the teacher in question had reprimanded the child again. Now, there are certain things a child can be reprimanded for. But in this case, I generally believe that what I had stated before this to be true indeed.
I indeed found it unfair for the child to be unfairly reprimanded without a just cause.

So later this morning, I brought in the child to the office be inspected and it was just as the administrator of the school suspected. The child's private areas were swelling. After discussing with the administrator, I called the mother of the child up. Lo & behold, the mother did not even realise this, as she had not seen the child doing this.
The mother then said that she would look into this when she got home later, and probably bring the child to see a doctor if it was a serious case.

In summary, I would say it is wise not to assume things just because you think you may be right. Always double check so that it is right or people will in the long run lose respect for you in your profession.