This document provides guidance for staff at Rainbow Nursery on addressing challenging behaviors. It emphasizes establishing clear expectations and a positive learning environment. It outlines types of unwanted behaviors like disengaged, disruptive and unacceptable and suggests strategies for responding, including distraction, eye contact, and moving a child. The document stresses the importance of responding positively, reviewing strategies, and helping children understand their behavior is their choice to develop self-control.

1. APPROACHESTO DEALING
WITH CHALLENGING
BEHAVIOUR
Rainbow Nursery
July 2017
Sammy Fugler

2. Scenarios
In Pairs have a quick think
about each behaviour and
think about howYOU would
react or address the issue…

3. Work with your partner/s to complete
the Behviour quiz!

4. Peer Education |Teaching time!!
■ Review the Powerpoint hand out
together
■ Re-teach what you learnt at the Staff
training
■ Bring your peers ‘up-to-speed’
■ Check understanding
■ Teaching is the best way of learning
and consolidating

6. BREAKFAST BREAK
15 minutes and back

7. Key messages
1. Clear expectations
2. Positive learning environment
3. Consistent framework
4. Reflect

8. Ground Rules
Use ground rules as a basis for promoting positive
behaviour and discouraging unwanted behaviour

9. Positive language
Can, will, you can do it, well
done, great, thank you,
Kolakavod, good boy, nice
choice…

10. Positive behaviour
■ Co-operating with each other
■ Encouraging each other
■ Helping others
■ Asserting oneself
■ Full involvement in a chosen activity
■ Taking on new challenges
■ Showing empathy
■ Taking responsibility
■ Sharing

11. Encouraging positive behaviour
■ Clear rules
■ listen to and observe what children communicate both verbally and
non-verbally;
■ praise and respond appropriately to all forms of children's positive
behaviour
■ promote and reinforce positive behaviour by example;

12. Make sure the environment you have
created will ENGAGE children

13. Make sure that children know what they
are doing / what their options are
Choose
something
to do…
Everyone
tidy up
Stop that! Do
something
sensible!
Play nicely
out here for
10 minutes
Just
wait!

14. Praise quickly and consistently. Make sure
children understandWHY you’re praising
them
Wow! Great
It was lovely that
you helped Jilli
settle when she
came in this
morning!
Good job!
I can see you
have got really
messy – well
done for taking
part so well!
Thank you for
letting Eddie go
first with the
scissors, great
sharing!

15. Look out for ‘good’ behaviour (catch
them being ‘good!)

16. Key concept
Children should not be allowed to hurt
themselves or other people either physically or
verbally, or destroy property.They must learn
how to control themselves instead of other
people controlling them.

28. Tips and thoughts for developing self-
control
■ Children learn emotional regulation from our modeling
■ Children take their cues about anxiety from the adults and peers around them
■ Every time we set a limit that the child accepts, they are practicing self-control
(three more, and then its Romi’s turn)
■ Punishment doesn't encourage self-discipline because the child isn't actually
choosing to stop; they are being forced

29. Talk clearly, simply, and often about
behaviours that matter
Reading
time is
quiet time
Take turns
with the
bimbas
Now is the
time to listen
and follow
directions
Being helpful
can make you
and others feel
happy
Keep rules and expectations simple, and remind children often when it’s time to follow them

30. Establish routines
Young children may not be able to
tell time, but they do become
accustomed to the cadence of a
regular schedule.When they know
that story time will be followed by
outdoor play, active children may be
more able to sit quietly while their
teacher reads.

31. Realistic expectations | Attention span
Acknowledge that young children have limited
attention spans by alternating learning activities that
require quiet, focused attention with opportunities for
independent play and learning activities that include
movement.

32. Call to attention
The ability to focus attention is a crucial executive function for success. Newborns are
drawn to the stimulus that is most noticeable in their environment. In the course of
normal development, infants begin focusing their attention on specific stimuli
emphasised by adults

33. In the baby unit…
When Shira climbs too high, gets frightened, and wants to come
down, how do you respond? If you can "guide" her down, talking
soothingly so she can stay calm, you're teaching self-control. She's
creating the brain pathways to talk herself through difficult situations
in the future. But if you let her anxiety rattle you so that you swoop in
to grab her down, she not only learns that she's incompetent, but that
anxiety can't be tolerated, so she has to rush in and take action, rather
than regulating herself to make rational decisions. That rushing
tendency comes from anxiety and sabotages the building of the
neural pathways she needs to stay calm.

34. In theToddler unit…
Toddlers don't have the ability to resist a treat left available to
them, while 30% of four year olds and virtually all adults do.
What makes the difference? The prefrontal cortex, which is
barely developed in a two year old and reaches maturity around
the age of 25. How do you strengthen the prefrontal cortex?
Practice! Some people have theorized that children who are
"smarter" are the ones who are able to wait. But "smartness" is
not static, and it is not just innate ability. It depends on being
able to control your anxiety and your impulses, which we know is
strengthened every time the child CHOOSES to do so.

35. "We can’t control the world, but we can control how
we respond to it. Once you realise that will power is
just a matter of learning how to control your
attention and thoughts, you can really begin to
increase it."

36. Children making choices
The process of learning self-control and self-discipline is
linked closely with how a child feels about themselves and
their relationship with the world. Its our role to help build and
strengthen children’s ability to determine for themselves
what is right and what is wrong, and how to control their own
behaviour.

37. Unwanted Behaviour
What is it?

38. The context of behaviour is important

39. 3 Key behviour considerations:
■ Disengaged
■ Disruptive
■ Unacceptable

40. Matching game
#Disengaged #Disruptive #Unacceptable

41. Some strategies
■ Counting down…
■ Clapping or clicking
■ Distraction
■ Eye contact
■ Reassuring physical contact
■ Tones of voices and volume
■ Very clear instructions – bite size
■ Key words ‘focus’ or ‘welcome back’ or ‘and… listen’
■ Honesty… “I’m feeling….”
■ Moving a child

42. Respond positively
■ Promptly identify children’s unwanted behaviour when it occurs
■ Identify changes in that child’s behaviour that are unusual for them
■ Use knowledge of the child and their background to interpret their behaviour
■ Use strategies appropriate to that child, when responding to their behaviour
■ Give the child support if required
■ Regularly review the strategies that you use
■ Create effective opportunities for children to express their negative feelings safely

43. Steps to Intervention…
• Help the child understand that his/her behaviour is up to them
• If necessary, remove the child from the situation and keep him/her
with you. If behaviour persists, act calmly and promptly.
• Discuss feelings and rules after a reasonable period of calm.
• Involve the child in the decision of when to go back because taking
responsibility for his/her own behaviour is an important part of
instilling self-control
• Help the child be acceptable when he/she does come back so that
he/she has the experience of substituting unacceptable behaviour
for acceptable

44. Quick think!
Effective strategy or not?

45. Every Child is different
Every child is different, every situation is different,
therefore; every response needs to be different.
There is not one approach, but there are many
approaches. We must find the right approach and the
right strategy for each situation

46. Reflective Practitioner

47. Reflective Practice tour…

49. Key messages
1. Clear expectations
2. Positive learning environment
3. Consistent framework
4. Reflect

50. Lets review our earlier scenarios…
■ Green - Disengaged
■ Orange – Disruptive
■ Red - Unacceptable
■ 1st Response
■ Follow up response
How can you support and develop self
control?

51. HOWWILLYOU CHANGE
YOUR APPROACH AFTER
TODAY?
Reflective practice