Take a Moment to Reflect on...Guidance
The Council is excited to announce the 2013 release of Essentials for Child Development Associates: Working with Young Children. The newly-revised textbook will be organized around each of the thirteen Functional Areas and other key topics of interest to contemporary teachers and caregivers.
Here is an advanced sneak peek of "Chapter 10: Guidance" for you to reflect on...
It's a familiar scenario. It's Free Choice Time at preschool. Everyone is hard at work. Then, out of nowhere, a child starts screeching, a block is thrown or a tug-of-war begins. Before you know it, children go from being fully engaged in their play to coming apart at the edges.
It's no wonder that guiding young children's behavior is a top priority for parents and caregivers alike. Probably no topic of child development has been more discussed and more written about than children's behavior. It feels like everyone is desperate for solutions.
In Chapter 9 we discussed the desire to have a caring community of learners. In this chapter, we will focus on how to bring this about. Conflict resolution, which has already been introduced, is only one of the ways to achieve this. There are, however, a number of other important strategies available to you for dealing with children's "problem" behaviors.
In this chapter we will cover five important tasks that positively affect your classroom climate. These include:
1. Opting for proactive positive guidance over reactive discipline and punishment
2. Making use of positive guidance techniques
3. No more time-outs!
4. Dealing with challenging behaviors.
5. Partnering with families about their child's guidance.
Please take a moment to reflect on your own teaching practices. What else might you add to the above list? What do you think are the most important goals to remember in guiding young children's behaviors? What tips and strategies would you share with others?
CDA Community Reflections on our last topic... "Social"
Last month, we asked the CDA community to send us their thoughts about the topic of the last article, "Social," to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . Thank you to everyone who responded. Here are a few very wise responses we received:
"In our classroom, we have a 'Peace Corner' that two children go to when they need to settle a conflict. I highly recommend it. It works wonders!"
- Cathy H.
Las Vegas, NV
"Helping children learn how to make friends is so important. It really bothers me when some teachers refer to herself and all of the children in a class as 'friends' because I think it really devalues the true meaning of building real friendships."
- Annemarie R.
Ithaca, NY
"I teach in a mixed-age classroom and its really magical to see children's social skills develop. They start out with me as the younger ones needing help and I watch them, over two years, become the older ones helping out the new, younger children."
- Janice H.
Riverside, CA
Send your thoughts, along with your first name, last initial, city and state, to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . Next month, we'll share with you all of the wise responses we received from across the CDA community. In addition, we may also print your name and reflection in the new Essentials textbook and share your great ideas with all of the CDA-seeking community college students around the country who use Essentials as their primary textbook!
