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In recent years I have been party to a number of organisations who offer staff training packages and/or regularly send out surveys to identify future training needs. Managing children's behaviour is the topic most frequently requested and it seems the one topic that many childcare staff are repeatedly happy to attend.
This raises many questions for me. Has children's behaviour changed so much in the last 10 or 20 years? We know that many parents juggle work and family pressures and increasing numbers of children are spending many hours in formal care outside the home. What else has changed?
Could it be that our expectations of children have changed? Not only do we expect children, often very young babies, to manage without the significant adult in their life, we also expect them to negotiate the complex and often exhausting process of being part of a larger group who also are still learning language and the social skills needed for group harmony. We know young children are egocentric – why do we place them in these group situations and then wonder why they fail? What else must we do?
Seeing from a child's perspective
As professionals we need to find ways to understand why children are behaving in certain ways. The first step is examining ourselves. 'What is it that I do or don't do that might trigger unacceptable behaviour?' 'How can I ensure this child receives the positive attention they are seeking?' 'What do we need to do to give this child control and power over their day?' 'Are my dealings fair?' 'Could the child feel some sort of injustice?'.
When we understand how our feelings and reactions affect how children respond we are well on the way to not seeing children's behaviour as a problem. Of course there will always be a few children who may need additional support and resources. This can only be done when we have objectively gathered information from a variety of sources.
It is often easier to seek additional support, in terms of an extra worker, rather than to really look at why children are behaving the way they are. With the large number of unqualified staff currently working in child care, perhaps it is time for a new model of support to be considered for those staff and children. A pool of experienced teachers could work alongside the staff in the classroom and help them to work differently with these children as well as be available as a mentor and support.
Developing support strategies
We often have unrealistic expectations of our staff. How can staff with little or no training and impossible staff–child ratios support all of their children differently to become successful? Staff need mentoring and support to ensure these children are not labelled 'a problem' but are supported to find solutions that work for that child's individual needs. Some children will need more support than others to make this transition.
A mentor could encourage centre staff to examine how the physical environment impacts on each individual and work together on shared ideas. Minimum space requirements, both inside and outside, may work for some children, but for others the noise, proximity to the other children and expectations to share toys and adults may cause some children to withdraw and/or become aggressive.
An experienced mentor may support staff to examine their teaching styles and consider why one approach may work better or differently with different children. This support could in turn ensure all of our early childhood environments are structured in a way for all children to have a sense of control. How are centre routines structured to ensure every two-year-old, for example, can be outside if they want to?
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Zack had attended child care two days per week since he was two years old, and in his prior-to-formal-schooling year he continued at child care and began preschool three days per week. Four weeks into the new term the preschool teacher approached the childcare staff with concerns about Zack's behaviour, including running away. When the staff from the two services met they discovered that each program ran very differently from the other. Zack was merely reacting to these differences and was demonstrating his lack of control in his new environment. Working together, and sharing information about Zack, the staff and family were able to ensure Zack eventually had a successful transition.
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All staff in children's services, including assistants and untrained staff, need to have planning time away from the children to ensure all staff have the opportunity to discuss the children and work towards a shared purpose and develop consistent strategies to support them.
Meeting individual needs
Staff often see children differently, and contribute different ideas to these solutions. A child seen as challenging by one staff member might be viewed by another staff member as an energetic and creative thinker. Not withstanding the pressures on the staff in children's services, we need to find ways that work for all children.
We need to unpack our statements of philosophy to ensure that we can actually deliver what we promote in our parent materials. We use words such as ‘home-like', ‘the child as an individual' and ‘high-quality care'. How can we deliver on that promise when we operate with staff–child ratios that are not supported by research, when we expect all children to be in a certain place at the same time and willingly comply? Until we come to terms with all of the realities of working with young children we will continue to view children whose ‘behaviour' is non-conforming as a problem.
We, as professionals, have a duty of care to all of our children and must find ways to support children as they interact and react differently, in each of our service types. This may mean picking up one toddler more than another, it may be rocking one baby to sleep, it may be allowing Johnny to always have a red cup, it may mean allowing Mary to always hold the teacher's hand, and it may mean allowing the three-year-old to spend some time in the toddler room each day.
It's not about equity of time or fairness–it's about meeting each child's individual needs. We dare not call ourselves professionals when we ignore these simple requests. The sooner we meet these needs, the sooner the majority of the 'problems' will be resolved.
Judy Radich
Cooloon Children's Centre
Every Child magazine – vol. 15 no. 1, 2009, pp. 4–5
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