Most parents cringe when they hear that another parents' approach is to not say 'no.' Most parents think that this means always saying yes, no matter what the request, and therefore, the child's going to run wild and grow up to be a spoiled brat. What's the advantages of that?
This, of course, is a misconception. We're not saying "yes" to every demand the child makes, but rather putting a positive spin on what we're saying, instead of the standard "no."
If a child is running in the house, instead of saying, "no, don't do that!" or "If you run in the house, you'll be punished in some way!" We're saying, "we use our walking feet inside." If the child's older (say, four or five years old) we'll elaborate on it. "We use our walking feet inside; our running feet are for outside play."
"We use our speaking voices for inside," or if a child is pointing at something and making sounds or are crying, trying to tell us something, we say, "use your words."
Instead of punishing someone for doing something that's undesirable, talk to them about why they did it.
If they use swear words, no matter where they are when they're saying, or who they're with, ask them why they said it and what they think it means. It's not putting them down or scolding them; it's communication.
Threatening someone is also something we should avoid, as this is also negative.
A threat is, "Don't do that, Dixon! If you hit your brother over the head with that block, you'll go straight to bed without dinner!" This is something that is a definite no-no, and it should be eliminated altogether!
Instead of telling someone what not to do, tell them what you'd like them to do instead.
Instead of saying, "Don't hit your brother over the head with the blocks!" Try saying, "Keep the blocks on the floor." Go further with that by saying, "I wonder what we could do with those blocks you have there."
If the child asks you why, you tell them, "hitting your brother over the head with the blocks will hurt."
Be aware of age appropriate language, too. If they're young (6 months to 3 years), you're going to make it simple for them. "Keep the blocks on the floor."
I had a two-year-old putting the drumsticks in her mouth, which was not hygienic! Instead of telling her, "sticks out of your mouth" or "yucky!" I suggested she hit the drums with the sticks.
If a child comes up to you and says that a peer is hitting them, thank them for coming up and telling you and then encourage that child to put their hand out and say, "Stop, I do not like that!" Keep an eye on the children, and if it happens again intervene yourself and tell the child that what they're doing is hurting your friend. Not theirs, but yours.
I used to say, "why are you hitting your friend?" But I was assuming that they were always friends. I didn't consider that one minute they were friends and the other they're not. Nor did I consider that the term "friendship" may have an entirely different meaning to children. Just because they're "not friends" one minute doesn't mean that they dislike that person. Some of the reasons were, "they're just not my friend right now."
Of course, this hurt the other child's feelings to be excluded from the group or game, even for that minute, and to "not be their friend" for that moment. Everything would be right as rain in a few moments.
Saying "why are you hitting my friend?" or "Why are you excluding my friend?" may provoke the response, "you're not my friend, either!" Because they may not want to play with you at that moment. They will also distinguish between their mother, father, aunt, uncle, sister, brother, cousin, friend and teacher.
Sometimes it's, "you're not my friend; you're the teacher!"
If a child's yelling or running inside, we say, "use your inside voice" or "use your walking feet inside."
This is the positive way of saying, "Stop! No running/yelling inside!"
I'm not saying the word "no" is entirely bad or unnecessary - when telling your child 'no' consider why you're saying it and whether the situation really requires the word.
Only use the words "no" and "stop" in emergencies. For example: a child is about to hit another child on the head with a wooden block. In this situation we'd say, "Stop!"
We also use our pleasant indoor voice, which is really sweet (not over-the-top sweet, though) and calm - we reserve our firm voice for when something needs to be stopped.
If a child is hitting or not sharing, ask them to share or remind them that their hands are for helping.
For example: if I had my own child care centre called Treehouse Pre-School and a child wasn't sharing some of the centre's toys, I'd say, "we share Treehouse's toys. Share with my friends."
Again, we're not assuming that they're all friends with one another, or that the child who is hogging the toy is friends with his or her peers at that very moment.
Children under the age of two don't know how to share, and therefore can't be expected to, so to solve this "sharing" problem we need to provide an appropriate number of the same toy. If you're going to have a truck, provide at least five trucks, if not ten, so there's no fighting.
Centres should already have a few little musical instruments (a drum and maracas, etc), but I brought in my set of plastic musical instruments (a big drum, maracas, recorder, tambourine etc), which I incorporated with the existing instruments and we had a jam session, which the children loved! One child in particular loved playing with my drum, as it was reasonably big. I got it for about $12 at Chickenfeed.
After I first brought it in, the two-year-old boy asked me, "did you bring in your drums?" So I knew that from then on I needed to bring in my percussion set every time he was there. I then learned the "hard way" that I needed to bring it in every time I went in. This child wasn't supposed to be in that day, so I didn't bring in my percussion instruments, but was caught by surprise to see him there. And the first thing he asked me before saying hello? "Did you bring in your drums?"
When it comes to instruments and the like, you need to encourage and remind children to be gentle, whether they're your things or the centre's.
It's the same when it comes to two-year-old's and babies - you need to constantly be keeping an eye on the children and you need to remind them to "be gentle with the baby." Mentioning the baby's name instead of "the baby" is always important to their identity and development.
Okay, to sum it all up:
- Use positive language when speaking to the children (and even your colleagues/other parents) and keep the words "no" and "stop" to a minimum - the emergencies. Demolish the word "naughty." Demolish punishment and threatening words. Putting children or your peers down is also something to demolish, as it lowers the children's self-esteem.
- Encourage the children to use their imaginations, to help, be independent, patient, gentle and be outgoing.
- Praise their efforts, even if they're not done to your satisfaction or the activity is not complete.
- Take photos of all children do or create (eg. Building a tower, digging a hole in the sand, baking a cake in the home corner.
- Display the photos and their artwork around the house or centre.
- Smile and use a gentle and calm tone and demeanor - children pick up on your body language and mood, and they'll react off of it.
- Remember to keep your language and actions clean - children see, hear and parrot everything - children are some of the best observers!
Until next time.
Tokana
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