Challenging Behaviour in Early Childhood - Essay Example

Challenging Behaviour in Early Childhood Name Institution Challenging Behaviour in Early Childhood Introduction Behaviour management is an important aspect and topic in early childhood education. For both the teachers and parents, nothing makes them more frustrated than being unable to manage their young ones’ behaviour. The general purpose of behaviour management is to help children display conducive behaviours especially in learning and social settings. In any effective adult-child interaction, there is recognition of children’s behaviour, context interpretation, and ensuring contingent respond. The most important rule while undertaking early childhood management is consistency (National Research Council, 2001). The rule is critical irrespective of the technique or used to ensure effectiveness and appropriateness of the results. Besides, if children notice any form of sporadic response in an inappropriate behaviour, they are not likely to devote themselves in making the right decisions. Behaviourism Behaviourism majorly relates to behaviour rather than thinking, feeling, and knowing. Moreover, it focus on the objective and observable mechanisms of behaviour. The theory resulted from the work of John B. Watson who held an idea that psychology should focus on behavioural studies and not the mind and consciousness. Currently, behaviourism associates with B.F. Skinner, who tested Watson’s theory in the laboratory. From the acquired results, Skinner rejected the Watson’s theory while putting much emphasis on the reflexes and conditioning (Oh & Cochran, 2009). Moreover, according to Skinner, People respond to the environment but also operate within the same environment to produce certain consequences, which make them participate in a feedback loop crucial for a larger system. As a result, Skinner developed the operant conditioning theory which cites that people behave in the manner they do since the types of behaviours they present have has some consequences in the past. Skinner Operant Conditions Theory The Operant Conditioning type of learning encourages modification of individual’s behavior through reinforcement or punishment. In 1938, Skinner focused on the identified as “The Behavior of Organisms” which laid the foundation of the theory. However, Ivan Pavlov influenced the development of the classical conditioning that assisted Skinner to create the operant conditioning. As a result, Skinner encouraged behavior through scheduling the reinforcement. The major backbones of the operant conditioning theory are reinforcement and punishment, which come in both negative and positive forms. From theoretical point, positive means deliverance of responses from stimulus and negative means withdrawal of responses from stimulus (Drolet & Arcand, 2013). Moreover, reinforcement seeks to motivate behaviour while punishment tries to have the identified behaviour occur less. Since 1800, most theories developed with regard to child development. However, some theories became classics while others continue to cause controversy. Skinner believed that the best method of understanding the behaviours of people is to look at the causes of an action and associated consequences. The major principles of the operant conditioning as stated by Skinner include reinforcement, punishment, generalization, discrimination, extinction, and shaping (Conkbayir & Pascal, 2014). The key element in the theory is reinforcement, which is the key feature within the environment serving to raise the probability that people are likely to repeat certain behaviours in the future. Practices of the Theory Referrals for difficult behaviours are in the rises especially among the children of four years of age most probably due to the society’s expectations for such children, which rise and exceed their ability to conform to needed norms. Moreover, at such age, the parents tend to encounter community rejection associated with children’s behaviour with the neighbourhood or preschools. The social understanding =s and behaviours closely interweave with the values, attitudes, knowledge, and skill. Besides, all children are born social with such capacities develop while they interact with safe, supportive, and stimulating people. At four years, children are susceptible to various environmentally influenced behaviours whose outcome might be positive or negative (Waldfogel, 2014; Dodge, Schulenberg & Maslowsky, 2009). Interactions expose them to different behaviours. For example, a four years old child fails to undertake the homework and concentrate the on playing the video games without the parent having the idea that she knows how to play the game. When asked, the child stated that she learnt to play at a friend’s during the weekends. The irony of the scenario is that the video had a high rate for a child of years of age. From such study, it is clear on the susceptibility of the children, which puts the parent at the central position of ensuring that their children do not access such materials. In such circumstance, the parent applied Skinner Operant conditions Theory. The initial step taken is to embrace social competence that portrays the ability to recognize, interpret, and respond to social conditions in a manner they consider appropriate (Jusoff & Sahimi, 2009). The parent’s punishment focused on the ways of ensuring the daughter reduces addiction to the games and focus on her studies. The punishment taken by the parent was restricting accessibility to electronic materials. Moreover, restricting internet connection was another punishment chosen by the parent. Results Whenever children begin showing certain unwanted behaviors that might compromise their relationship with others or ruin their future lives, is the role of the parents to ensure correction of such behaviors. However, it is significant that the parents ensure effectiveness and proper execution of the punishment to ensure correction behavior with time. From the case, stopping the game was quite difficult considering the level of addiction (Moyles, 2012). However, with time, the child began understanding the need of focusing on educational work like assignments, which slowly twisted the whole scenario (Slaughter & Brownell, 2012). Besides, she avoided games with higher ratings and less visiting hours. While applying the theory on the children, it is important to practice patience and carefulness since the punishment taken might yield either positive or negative results. Children are born with social skills; therefore, prevention of activities that might change their behaviors negatively is inevitable. Punishments could also inflict fear among the children, which in turn affect parent-child relationship (Murray, 2015). Guidance Children are susceptible to various behaviors both from home and when interacting with others. Therefore, guidance often starts from home through preparing the child psychologically for some of the challenges they are likely to experiences. The major challenges that children face are learning the acceptable behaviors and being in a position of controlling their behaviors. Thus, they need the assistance of the adults to manage their levels of interactions. In preschools, children have the opportunity of learning about themselves and others as well (McCartney & Phillips, 2006). Besides, assisting the children embrace the right behaviors could be a test to those offering the guidance as they work with children of different ages, working with their children, and having to make decisions about reasonable limits and manners of reacting when children exhibit unexpected behaviors. Organismic Integration Theory With reference to cognitive evaluation theory, in some cases, children are intrinsically motivated to complete a delegated responsibility. As a result, they feel that some of the responsibilities they undertake are inherently enjoyable, important, and challenging. They never feel obliged to complete the accorded tasks. Whenever children feel intrinsically motivated, they become more persistent. However, in some cases, children feel extrinsically motivated to complete a given task, so they complete their roles to secure some reward or benefit (Salkind, 2006). Thus, their wellbeing and persistence tend to decrease. Although some activities might be originally and extrinsically motivated, they could evoke the feelings of autonomy and improve persistence. The evolution from the extrinsic motivation to autonomy might unfold upon fulfillment of the basic psychological requirements of individuals. Particularly, children might learn to introject a behavior that was initially motivated extrinsically (Psychlopedia, 2016). From an illustration point of view, consider a child receiving presents every time she properly in school. Such activities could be to encourage her to work extra hard while reflecting on her extrinsic motivation. With time, she begins to internalize such behavior and to feel a sense of pride that could compromise her learning activities. Practice of the Theory The aim of every parent is to bring out the best out of their children through guidance and to ensure that their behaviors meet the desired moral thresholds (Early Childhood Forum, 2003). The theory encourages promotion of optimum parent-child relationship through and reinforcement of the positive behaviors among children. In order to ensure effective discipline among children, the interventions used must occur within the context in which children feel loved and secure (Parens, 2008). With such respect, the responses of the parents to children’s behavior are like to have the greatest effect, as their approvals are important to children. The responses of the parents within the context of love and security within the relationship provide children with the sense that the environment is stable and that their parent is competent enough to take care of them. As a result, they develop a sense of self-worth (Slaughter & Brownell, 2012). To encourage parent child relationship, the theory cites important conditions crucial for the development of positive child behavior. These conditions include maintenance of a positive emotional tone while offering guidance to acquire the affection of the child and providing them with attention to hear their problems and factor that encouraged the sudden change of behavior. Attention increases positive behavior through improving patience as the child withholds the parent’s ideas to decrease the frequency and intensity in which unwanted behaviors occur (Murray, 2015). Moreover, parents also need to provide consistency in form of the number of times they interact with their children to reduce resistance and convey the required aspects to the child. The environment influences the behaviors of children especially with the rates of technological improvement; the changes are rapid and fast. Results Guiding children as they undertake their daily activities in life is important to ensure upbringing of morally and self-encouraged children. Moreover, most children undertake the roles majorly to please their parents. However, sometimes they get confused about the expectations from them. With consistency in the limits, children tend to know the expectations and with time, meeting the expectations becomes become automatic. The more the behavior becomes automatic to children, the lesser the parents’ intervention. Therefore, consistency tends to diminish the power struggles and improve the independence among children (Happo & Määttä, 2011). The like outcomes from guidance include safety, trust, self-regulation, competence, reflection, and respect. Playing is important for children; however, parents have the role of guaranteeing the safety to their children in every circumstance (McCartney & Phillips, 2006). Another outcome of guidance is trust. Children learn the methods of trusting the limits and associated consequences. With random limits, children tend to doubt whether they can influence their future or not. Guidance offers them the opportunity of learning self-regulations and consistency. Guided children are competent considering the independence skills imparted on them by their parents. Additionally, guidance assist children make wise decisions, which do not mean they do whatever they want. On the contrary, they have to reflect on their responsibilities. Most important, children learn to respect the people offering guidance to tem rather than feeling resentment. References Conkbayir, M., & Pascal, C. (2014). Early childhood theories and contemporary issues: An introduction. London, NY: Bloomsbury. Dodge, K. A., Schulenberg, J. E., & Maslowsky, J. (2009). A dynamic cascade model of the development of substance-use onset. Boston, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. Drolet, M., & Arcand, I. (2013). Positive Development, Sense of Belonging, and Support of Peers among Early Adolescents: Perspectives of Different Actors. International Education Studies, 6(4), 107-115. Early Childhood Forum. (2003). Quality in diversity in early learning: A framework for early childhood practitioners. London: National Children's Bureau. Happo, I., & Määttä, K. (2011). The expertise of Early Childhood Educators. International Education Studies, 4(3), 121-127. Jusoff, K., & Sahimi, N. N. (2009). Television and Media Literacy in Young Children: Issues and Effects in Early Childhood. International Education Studies, 2(3), 15-21. McCartney, K., & Phillips, D. A. (2006). Blackwell handbook of early childhood development. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub. Moyles, J. R. (2012). A-Z of play in early childhood. Berkshire: McGraw Hill Open University. Murray, J. (2015). Early childhood pedagogies : spaces for young children to flourish. Early Child Development and Care, 185(11-12), 1715-1732. 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