WWB Training Kit #22 Acknowledging Children’s Positive Behaviors

What Does it Mean to Acknowledge Children’s Positive Behaviors? As children are engaging in positive behaviors… Communicating verbally and non-verbally with children (e.g., “I like the way you are putting the toys away”). Presenting favorite objects (e.g., toys, books). Presenting pictures, sounds or other items.

Why Is It Important to Acknowledge Children’s Positive Behaviors? Because… Most child behavior is strengthened or weakened by what happens after the behavior occurs. Adult attention often is captured by children’s challenging behaviors. Attention from primary caregivers is so important to young children that they will engage in behaviors to get negative reactions. At times, children’s challenging behaviors can decrease with negative adult responses (e.g., “Stop that!”), but children are not always learning desired behaviors in this process.

Why Is It Important to Acknowledge Children’s Positive Behaviors? Acknowledging children’s positive behaviors has been used to decrease many negative behaviors. Acknowledging children’s positive behaviors can help increase and maintain: – Positive interactions with peers – Following caregiver instructions – Appropriate communication – Independent self-care skills (e.g., dressing, toileting)

Activity 1 Pair-Think-Share What Would You Do? Four-year-old Margaret often has difficulty sharing dolls with more than one classmate in dramatic play. One day Margaret and Sammy were playing with the dolls. Another child, Oliva, approached Margaret and Sammy and asked to play with a doll. When Margaret said, “No!” Oliva took one of the dolls, Margaret snatched the doll back and the teacher, Ms. Brookes, said to Margaret, “You know better than that. That wasn’t nice!”

Planning for and Acknowledging Children’s Positive Behaviors Give positive responses to children’s desired behaviors and avoid responding when those behaviors are not occurring

Planning for and Acknowledging Children’s Positive Behaviors Remember that when withholding attention for children’s challenging behaviors, children’s negative behaviors may initially get worse before getting better. By consistently withholding attention for children’s challenging behaviors, you will see initial improvement followed by some variability (i.e., good days, bad days), followed by more consistently good days.

Planning for and Acknowledging Children’s Positive Behaviors Record the number of times that the child’s challenging behavior occurs. Record what occurs before and after the behavior. Ask a colleague to record the number of caregiver positive and negative responses provided for the particular challenging behavior What happens before the challenging behavior? What is the challenging behavior? What do the adults and children do after the challenging behavior?

Planning for and Acknowledging Children’s Positive Behaviors Design a classroom plan to meet your individual needs. – Start with one desirable child behavior and one or just a few children. – Define the child behavior you would like to increase – Consider where, when, and how often to look for that desired behavior. – Think of situations that might increase the likelihood that children engage in the desired behavior.

Bringing it Together Think of a child in your program who could benefit from more frequent acknowledgement of positive behavior. How could you use acknowledgement of positive behavior to support his/her positive behaviors (i.e., what can you do or say)? What skill(s) does the child need to learn to ensure success? What concerns do you have with this approach? How could these concerns be addressed?

Pre-Training Survey What does “acknowledging children’s positive behaviors” mean? What are the benefits of caregivers’ acknowledgement of children’s positive behaviors? What are three important elements of planning for and carrying out acknowledgement of children’s positive behaviors?