“Problem Child?”

I was reading a Bakers and Astronauts post about Bullying and it reminded me of a reading I just completed – “Educating hearts and minds”  by Catherine Lewis.

There is an interesting passage that speaks about how teachers in the Japanese ECE system value children with what we would consider problematic behaviors.  These behaviors are seen as a gift to teachers, because they provide the group with learning opportunities and challenges, and they provide teachers with challenges as well.

“The belief that children are inherently good is a dominant theme in accounts of Japanese childrearing, both histrocial and contemporary.  Research conducted in American laboratories suggests that when adults interpret children’s misbehavior as well intentioned, it can help children develop positive qualities. . .

What I saw as issues of control and misbehavior, teachers talked about as issues of community they transformed my questions about discipline to discussions of the teacher-child bond and the bonds among children. . .Japanese practice makes sense in light of the evidence on children’s (preschoolers) egocentrism. . .children of preschool and early elementary school age are still developing their understanding of rules, and they treat transgressions as opportunities to deepen understanding – not as causes for punishment.”

This year we have two children in the morning, one in the 3 year old and one in the 4 year old class, who are both exhibiting “problem” behavior.

I am determined to have the teachers approach this differently this year.  When I look at the research available, I can see classes of large numbers of students and low numbers of teachers that, because of group responsibility, empathy and attachment, are able to still function as healthy groups – in spite of, and perhaps even because of the “problem” behaviour.

Life isn’t easy – not even for 5 year olds.  And what is going to happen when these 4 years olds are 5 and 6 on the playground at elementary school – 3 teacher aides for a school of 300, and they are ON THEIR OWN!  No sarcasm intended – children need to be prepared to manage situations on their own – life is hard and children are facing difficult things.  I know this is controversial. . .with suicides due to bullying, we want to stop it quickly – but what are we teaching children when we constantly solve their problem for them?

Now, I’m not advocating teaching the children how to karate chop a ‘bully’.  But I wonder why we have decided to label the bully, why we have all these ‘anti bully’ programs?  Why not focus on the ‘victims’ as well?  If we began – from infancy – to teach children to be proud and confident in themselves, to know that they deserve to be treated a certain way, to advocate on the behalf of others, to use creative problem solving techniques. . .wouldn’t that be a better use of teaching time?

Because there will ALWAYS be a child somewhere who might have problem behavior. . . we can’t ‘stop’ the behaviors. . . but we CAN teach children how to respond.  Our two year olds are running around telling others to “please stop I don’t like it when…” and starting to say what they DO like, offering solutions to problems.  Sure, it’s a slow process – but the children are learning what I would hope all children can learn to do on that playground when there are no teachers or aides around: find a safe and caring way to meet the needs of all of the children.  I was told by some teachers at a conference that if we as teachers don’t immediately step in and intervene in a conflict, then there will be victimization and bullying. . .they weren’t even open to alternate approaches.  But let’s face it – all this ‘anti bully’ stuff isn’t working  -  and I wonder how much of that has to do with the emphasis on the bully as a bad kid, a “bully”. . .

It shocks me how many times I hear children say they are bad, they deserve time outs, they don’t deserve to be around other children. . .what are we telling our children about themselves?

I responded to one boy, who had just told me that so and so was a bad boy and should go to time out (we don’t do time outs),  by saying that we didn’t have bad boys at school – but we do have problems.  And it sounded like there was a problem, so could he go work with the other boy to solve the problem?  Did he know what the problem was?  His face changed – I don’t think he had realized that “bad” behavior doesn’t equate a “bad” boy. This concept – this was freedom for him, to gain a positive and happy self image, as he was quite used to hearing that he did ‘bad’ things.

How would this “bullying” problem change if we began – just a little bit – to see behaviors – positive and negative – as teaching opportunities for interpersonal behavior?  Wouldn’t we hope to have “problem” behaviors in our class, to better teach the group as a whole how to deal with behaviors in with empathy and care while still standing up for self?

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