Positive Guidance

Positive Guidance and Discipline In Classrooms There is a difference in guidance and discipline. Discipline involves teaching and learning. It also comes from the root word “disciple” which means a pupil, a follower, or a learner. Guidance is an attempt to change behavior by leading, directing, teaching, and advising. But the two have a connection. The main goal for guidance is self-discipline. Once a child achieves self- discipline, it will increase his or her ability to learn new social skills.

They are also given more opportunities to practice those skills on their own rather than having an adult solve every problem or conflict that they have. Children and adults views on discipline are based on Past experiences, cultural values, lack of knowledge and current social values. Before we can guide children’s behavior, we must understand the child’s behavior. In my early childhood class we learned that there are two different types of guidance; direct guidance and indirect guidance. Direct guidance is verbal and physical techniques that are used to influence a child’s behavior.

Some examples of direct guidance are redirection, distraction, positive reinforcement, encouraging, and limits. Direct guidance strategies will differ between age groups and even for individual children. Indirect Guidance is planning that influences the child’s behavior. Example of indirect guidance strategies are planning, observation, room arrangement, modeling, and age appropriate equipment and materials. Neither direct nor indirect guidance includes punishment. Most negative punishment is unnecessary. It causes pain most of the time and it puts fear in the child.

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The child will probably grow up being scared of you and that will damage the relationship forever and it would also block positive discipline. It makes the child resent the person who punished them. Punishment also tears away a child’s self-esteem and it offers no possible solutions or explanation to the problem. It makes a child feel like its ok to hurt someone you love. This may leads to problems like abuse, neglect and domestic violence when they grow older. Instead of punishing a child for something they do wrong, try to redirect and guide them on the right thing hat they should be doing. Explain to them in a nice voice that what they are doing is wrong. Tell them how to fix it instead of yelling or pking. Maybe even a time out could be put into place but this should be used as a type of punishment either. It should be used for reflective purposes. When you send a child to time out they should go off to the side to think about what they did that was wrong. Short time outs seem to work best. They should be two to three minutes long. Many people see the quick result of punishment and think it is effective but it isn’t.

As we learned in class it just buts a “band-aid” on it but it doesn’t fix the problem it just makes it worst. A reaction to punishment is anger. Most of the time children who are punished who to get even. They get even by hitting others. Most people who often get punished are often bullies. They feel as though mommy and daddy take their anger out on me so I’m going to take my anger out on someone that’s smaller than me. This creates a major problem in the classroom. They call other children names, ruin other people’s work and take their things.

When you come across a student like this, as a teacher, you can’t punish him or her because it will cause even more damage. When mommy and daddy uses punishment at home they don’t have to deal with the results but the teacher has to at school. Punishment focuses attention on what not to do rather than what to do. That’s why when we made rules charts in class we used positive words instead of negative words like “no”. Instead of enforcing rules of what not to do, rules should tell children what to do. For example if you want the children to walk inside, you will say we walk inside.

Rules should be simple so children can understand and must be positive. Rules prepare children for a successful living in the future. Having too few rules gives children make children think that they can do whatever they want to do. Sometimes it provokes them to do power struggles and test the limits even harder to get their parents or teacher to use their authority. On the other hand, a great number of rules or being a strict parenting creates an bad relationship between parent and child and fosters feelings of resentment and rejection, which lowers a child’s self-esteem.

Besides, excessive control can provoke rebellion, not only toward the parents, but also against other authority figures. Although children may not like the rules, they deserve to receive explanations for limits and expected consequences for breaking the rules. When a child hears a negative statement like, “Don’t throw the sand out the sandbox ! ” what the child really thinking is throw the sand out the sandbox, instead what you told them to do. If you do state a rule in the negative, like “No hitting! ”, but an positive statement with it.

In conclusion it is way better to use positive words and positive discipline rather than negative punishment. Punishment causes shame, blame and pain and no one wants that. It would both benefit you as the teacher or parent and the child. Negative discipline only puts a “band-aid” over the problem for short term results. The problem is not solved and eventually gets worst in most cases. Take the time out to talk to the child and redirect and guide young children behavior because it will teach them how to act and solve their problems on their own the next time.

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