TKW Consulting

Here is a common question I receive from child care and early childhood professionals.

Question: How can I promote positive behaviors among the children in my care?
Answer: It is important to remember that each child comes into the family child care or center-based program with different experiences and perceptions. This makes it important for us to create a nurturing environment that promotes positive behaviors.

The following are some tips that you may find helpful as you strive to create an environment that welcomes and provides each child and family with a positive experience.

• Be a positive model. We all know that children learn by what they see and hear from others around them. Most communication is nonverbal, so it is important for us to be aware of our facial expressions, eye contact, tone of voice, touch, and other forms of body language that convey feelings and attitudes. We need to make sure that we are communicating a positive attitude and behaviors in our words and actions.
• Develop simple rules that are based on appropriate developmental expectations for the children in your care. Communicate these rules to the children clearly and consistently. You could even have the children help you develop these simple rules. Knowing and understanding the rules for the child care environment can help children and families feel more secure and confident about the experience they will have in the environment you have created for them.
• Make sure you give attention to each child as an individual. Free play is a wonderful time to notice what each child is doing. Provide positive feedback to children when they are interacting and playing appropriately.
• Plan ahead so you can act rather than react. Communicate to children what to do when communicating to them what not to do. Often we find ourselves telling children what not to do and forget to let them know what they can do. The children in our care are just beginning their journey of social experiences and need our guidance to help them experience success.
• Be consistent in enforcing rules for all children.
• Use encouragement to build on praise. Praise provides children with an external source of pride while encouragement helps them to move to an internal source of pride and self-esteem. Praise describes an outcome or behavior. An example of praise is “What a beautiful picture you painted.” Encouragement focuses on the child’s effort and process of learning. An example of an encouraging statement is “You really used many colors in your picture. You must have been thinking very hard as you made so many choices about the colors to use.” Encouragement helps children to think about their behavior and promotes a sense of accomplishment and pride.
• Plan and include activities that promote cooperative planning and play among children such as small group projects and games that are not competitive.

If you would like to speak to a CICC Consultant, contact me, Dea Anderson, by emailing dea@fraser.org or call (612) 998-0409. Consultation Services to child care providers and
all other early childhood and school age professionals in Minnesota is FREE.