Managing Children’s Behaviour Policy

Our philosophy at Early Days Crèche and Day Care Centre emphasizes respect for the individual child. Young children are striving for understanding, independence and self-control. Children learn by exploring, experimenting and testing the limits of their environment. In this way they begin to understand how the world works. Children are helped to learn self-control and how the world works in a relaxed and positive atmosphere of support and understanding that recognises the child’s struggle.

Children are accepted as they are – development is viewed as a process of growing with each age and stage having its own characteristics, its own challenges and needs. Adults view discipline as an important aspect of teaching and learning. Through positive guidance of behaviour and modelling, adults help children to feel good about them to behave in responsible ways.

We promote the following:

A “yes” environment, which enhances and encourages children’s positive behaviour.
We aim to encourage self – discipline and consideration for each other, our surroundings and property.
The parent/guardian may be asked to meet with staff (or vice versa) to discuss their child’s behaviour, so that if there are any difficulties we can work together to ensure consistency between the home and crèche. In some cases, in collaboration with parent/guardian, we may request additional advice and support from other professionals such as a psychologist or speech therapist. See policy on children with additional/special needs.
The staff team will model appropriate behaviour.
Expectations are limited to what is realistic for the development level of the child and they are clarified for children so that they understand what is expected of them. We also take into consideration the child’s background.
The staff team will encourage children’s efforts to build feelings of self worth.
Children are given alternatives, which enable them to turn destructive situations into constructive ones.
Where a situation arises, when a child has done something we do not agree with, the staff member will ask the child to leave the activity that he/she is doing. The staff member will then speak to his child and explain that it is not nice to do what he/she has done. The older children will realise when they have done something wrong and will apologise. For younger children it is harder for them to understand sometimes, but we would encourage them to be nice to their friends and if something happens that is not nice, we would take them away from the group and again try explain to them that what they have done is not nice and then bring them back to the group.
Behaviours such as co-operating, helping, negotiating and problem solving are encouraged.

By positively promoting positive behaviour, valuing co-operation and a caring attitude, we hope to ensure that children will develop as responsible members of society.
In the case where we find that a child is being bullied by another child or group, it will be dealt with. We will speak to both children involved, the parents and primary care workers to see how we can resolve the situation at hand.

In social settings where children are just beginning to explore and experiment with ways of interacting effectively with their peers it is not unusual for incidences of aggression to sometimes occur. Children at this stage in their development may sometimes express themselves by hitting another child, grabbing toys or biting. When incidences occur parents of the children involved are informed of the incident and any information pertinent to an understanding of the situation at hand. The identity of the child who engaged in the behaviour is not revealed. Our policies are intended to demonstrate the utmost respect for every child and family we serve. We place a high value on the confidentiality of each child’s records.

Our commitment is to provide a quality-learning environment for every child and we will honour that commitment unless it becomes apparent that we are not able to provide the most appropriate environment for a particular child.

Policy on Biting:

Biting is a normal stage of development commonly seen in infants and toddlers and sometimes even among pre-schoolers. It is something that almost all young children will try at least once.
When it happens its scary, frustrating and very stressful for everyone involved. It is a natural phenomenon and not something to blame on children, families or carers. Brief episodes of biting do not mean that a child is having a social or emotional problem. Nor does it mean the family is to blame. It does mean that the child is going through that particular stage in his/her development. As with all stages that children go through, biting soon ends.

Biting may occur for any of the following reasons:

Oral exploration.
Teething.
Hunger.
Fatigue.
Lack of awareness that biting hurts.
Frustration, anxiety or stress.
Inability to express feelings or needs verbally.
Mimicking behaviour.
Excitement and over stimulation.

This policy will be reviewed on an annual basis.

Date___________________________
Signed__________________________

Strategies For Managing Behaviour Positively:

All Staff must follow the following strategies:

Avoid Conflict: many management problems can be anticipated or avoided. Observations and involving parents are the most effective tools in understanding children’s behaviour. Through observation, children’s strengths will have been identified which can then be utilised to adopt a long – term positive approach. This should involve the following:

Ensure adequate forethought i.e. reduce boredom, restructure time, plan transitions.
Make expectations clear i.e. always speak at child’s level, give clear commands, offer limited or guided choice rather than free choice, clarify expectations.
Clarify all feelings involved i.e. become aware of feelings, use active listening and “I” messages.
Follow through with your messages i.e. avoid repeating yourself, think before you speak, set the stage for compliance, assist compliance.

Explain the reason why something cannot happen or is inappropriate.

Help rather than instructing children to tidy up, help should be offered.

Encourage and Affirm encouragement puts children in control and makes them evaluators of their own work. I.e. participate in children’s play, encourage children to describe their efforts, ideas and products. The goal is to have children, not adults, evaluate their own work.

Provide Alternatives offer choice i.e. look for other ways to express the same feeling, through clay/sand play, football to provide the language to help children label and then articulate their feelings.

Increase Appropriate Behaviour provide attention, as all children need and deserve attention. Studies have shown that time spent with a child in activities chosen by the child can have positive effects on behaviour. Offer positive reinforcement by acknowledging when a child is behaving well.

Decrease Inappropriate Behaviour i.e. distraction with younger children, ignoring (ONLY IF IT IS SAFE TO DO SO), substitution either by allowing the child to continue the activity but with a different implement, or continue the activity in a different place. Also by modifying the environment, it can decrease inappropriate behaviour.

Increase Responsibility i.e. allocating little jobs to individual children.

Provide Clear, Reasonable Boundaries on children’s behaviour.

Ask For Help, help may be sought from the staff team, the local health board child and family centre, and the many children’s organisations and resource libraries. The local GP can refer children for psychological assessment.

In general, adults will achieve a good atmosphere through the following:

Creating and maintaining a warm, caring play/learning environment in which children and adults feel valued and respected.
Establishing and maintaining a predictable, daily routine so that children feel secure and have a sense of control over what is going to happen next.
Providing a routine that has a balance of child initiated and adult initiated activities and children have the opportunity to make choices throughout the session.
Allowing children access to a wide range of materials that are of interest and value to them.
Avoid unnecessary constraints and restrictions.
Working in collaboration with parents, sharing aims, policies, expectations and information on a regular basis.
Giving children clear, consistent explanations for rules and limits.
Acknowledging that learning to develop self-control, solve problems and negotiate solutions are important life skills which children learn through experience, with support from adults who are patient and consistent in approach and who model care and concern for people and materials throughout the day.