Positive Behaviour Management in Early Years

INTRO

Positive Behaviour Management in Early Years – Managing Childrens Behaviour at Nursery.

A great day at nursery for me was always when all children engaged well with the activities, they listened well and there were no major issues.

But, is this actually possible?

How can we achieve this perfect day more often?

Well, it starts with how we manage children’s behaviour.

Positive behaviour management in nursery is a in teaching children what behaviour is appropriate, and what behaviour is unacceptable.

Before children can progress, they need a nursery environment that facilitates the right opportunities for behavioural learning and development.

This is key in preparing children to enter a more formal education setting after nursery, as it sets realistic expectations for how children should behave between the ages 0-5.

All behaviour is based on communication, and it takes time for children to learn how to communicate with you, and other children, about how they’re feeling and why they have acted in a certain way.

In this video you will learn the importance of positive behaviour management and will get strategies that you can use to provide the best environment possible for young learners.

But, before we get into that welcome to the channel.

Intro Vid

Welcome to the channel Open a nursery with myself Curtly Ania, where I support you to open run and grow your own childcare business.

Here on this channel, I support you with all thing’s early years. From learning all about the EYFS which covers things like the seven areas of learning and the characteristics of effective learning. To the different nursery set up costs where you can learn all about the different costs involved with opening your own nursery.

No matter what your goals are, as long as it involves childcare and nurseries, you can get support here on this channel.

So, make sure you subscribe so that you can get the best advice and support to help you to achieve your goals.

Here in today’s video, as you are aware, we will be going over behaviour management in early years and how you can better manage children’s behaviour whilst at nursery.

Positive behaviour management in early years is a strategy which emphasises the positive.

Focusing on the positive will help you to get the best out of your children, will empower you as a nursery worker and will support in creating a cohesive and happy learning environment.

Reducing challenging behaviour has a massive impact on children’s development and learning.

So, what does positive behaviour management in early years look like?

Behaviour management usually has negative connotations. When we think of behaviour management we may think of children sitting on a ‘naughty step’, children being shouted at or being made to face a wall.

And this may have been how behaviour was managed in the past, but things have changed.

Now we fortunately have a much better understanding of why challenging behaviour happens and many of us are better equipped to manage it.

Teaching children to manage and regulate their feelings can have a lasting impact on behaviour and cognition which has a greater impact than dishing out punishments to children. Which all stems around the early years curriculum and personal, social and emotional development.

Ensuring positive behaviour in an early years setting, involves using strategies that focus on prevention, support, and skill development.

One of the key things that we need to be doing is providing children with the right support to develop their communication skills. Supporting children’s communication will help to prevent challenging situations in the future, as children will be able to communicate how they are feeling and will learn how to respond appropriately.

Providing a caring, calm, and safe environment is central to positive behaviour management as this ensures that children are treated with respect.

We also need to be clear with children what constitutes negative or positive behaviour. This also needs to be consistent amongst both staff and parents. Therefore, it’s important children are provided with consistent examples of positive behaviour as this allows them to understand what is deemed as acceptable behaviour.

Positive behaviour management is so important.

· It helps the children in your class have a high level of involvement.

· It improves the well-being of the children in your care.

· It helps your children to have positive outcomes.

· It will help give you greater job satisfaction.

The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS), outlines that positive behaviour consists of:

· Emotional intelligence

· Social skills

· Cognitive skills

This means we should be encouraging children to manage their own feelings, form respectful relationships, and have self-confidence and self-awareness, before moving onto the next stage of learning.

Therefore, it is important that nursery settings facilitate this by including strategies that encourage positive behaviour

So, what does behaviour management look like in early years

Positive behaviour management in early years settings involves recognising that different strategies work for different children.

All children are different, and have different experiences prior to nursery as some children may be used to socialising, whilst others might be used to playing on their own.

Therefore, it’s important to learn about your children as quickly as you can. This helps you to understand their behaviour and what they’re telling you.

Once you’ve done this, you’ll find that what works for one child might not work for another, but you’ll be better equipped to manage the behaviour of children on an individual level.

It is also important to recognise that children are still learning as they go, and therefore need extra guidance when it comes to understanding the difference between positive and negative behaviour.

As such, positive behaviour management can be encouraged for all children, however, it may be that some strategies aren’t always effective with some children in your class. Therefore it’s important to discover the strategies that do work for each child to avoid neglecting their needs.

You should also set realistic expectations in early years behaviour management. For example, if a child demonstrates violent behaviour such as hitting or biting, using a raised voice isn’t the best way to steer the child away from this or to promote more positive behaviour.

In this scenario, you could calmly direct the child away from the situation, and sit with them in a quiet thinking area and gently tell them why that behaviour is not appropriate.

This would allow the child to calm down, and then you can let them know what the next steps might be to show positive behaviour for example checking on the hurt child.

How can we better manage children’s behaviour?

In early years settings, there are multiple strategies you can put in place to manage negative behaviour and encourage positive behaviour instead.

These include:

· Knowing your children – this can include knowing their triggers but also their interests so that you can make the strategies you put in place for the child specific to them.

· Asking for the behaviour you want – it’s important to be clear about what you expect from your children highlighting and emphasising on the positive behaviour you do want rather than the negative behaviour you don’t want. For example, say you want children to walk rather than saying not to run, or to use kind hands instead of saying no hitting.

· Being a role model – children learn more through observing than being told. If we want the positive behaviour to occur we have to show that behaviour too. If we are constantly shouting then the children will pick this up and copy this. So, when we are playing or teaching we should model our calm voices so that children will copy our positive behaviour.

· Rewarding good behaviour – when a child does well, encourage and reward them, this will make them more likely to repeat this. You can do this verbally or through something like a sticker chart. Just be clear with the child as to what behaviour warranted the reward.

· Making clear and age-appropriate consequences for behaviour – this is clear and doesn’t really need further explanation but just make sure we are not using this to shame or humiliate the child

· Talking about feelings – a lot of negative behaviour stems from children not being able to manage their emotions or feelings. If we talk more about how we are feeling for example in our circle time by reading books (link to book), children will be more capable of expressing how they are feeling before showing the negative emotion.

· Creating an environment for good behaviour – Creating a safe space for children to learn good behaviour is an important step in encouraging good behaviour in early years learning. The environment you create should allow children to make mistakes along the way and learn from these mistakes. For example, if a child refuses to share a toy, it’s important to recognise how they are feeling by using phrases such as ‘I understand it’s hard for you to stop playing with the toy, but it’s time for someone else to have a go now’. This allows you to acknowledge the child’s challenging behaviour in a positive way, as the child’s feelings are

recognised, and at the same time, it is demonstrated to them that taking turns is positive behaviour.

· Consider SEND – It is possible that challenging behaviour may be due to SEND, and if this is suspected, it is important you have strategies in place to specifically support these children. I’ve done a video on how we can better support our SEN children, so if you think the behaviour could be SEN related make sure to check that video out

· Reviewing strategies you have in place – It is key for you to set time aside to think about and assess how well your positive behaviour management strategies are working. In order to be effective with your behavioural strategies, our strategies should develop and grow over time based on the needs of the children in your care.

These strategies will ultimately help the learning and development of the children in your care, as they will be demonstrating the expected and appropriate behaviours for their age group.

Though, in order to manage the specific behaviour of a child and to understand why that child may be behaving a certain way, there are various approaches we can use.

Typically, this was done via the ABC approach.

However, a newer and better approach has been developed by the National Autistic Society – called the STAR Approach. This is new method which is now being used by many early years settings to manage behaviour essentially replacing the ABC method as it is more effective.

If you want to learn more about this, then check out the video on the screen now.

Before you head over there make sure to hit that like button and don’t forget to subscribe I’ll see you over there.

God bless.