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"No society can long sustain itself unless its members have learned the sensitivities, motivations, and skills involved in assisting and caring for other human beings." - Urie Bronfenbrenner

Reflecting on Your Beliefs about Child Guidance

As a family child care provider, you will need to demonstrate to children and families your commitment to positive guidance. First, it is important to examine your personal beliefs. Reflect on your childhood and think about the important adults you had in your life growing up. Your own childhood experiences, life experiences, cultural traditions, and professional education and training influence your beliefs on positive guidance. Your personal beliefs about child guidance are reflected in your daily conversations with families and in your personal reactions to children’s behavior. You serve as a model for children and families in how to solve conflicts and build a safe, caring community.

Consider the following questions for yourself and the families you serve:

Reflecting on your own experiences with child guidance will help you implement positive child guidance practices. Try sharing your thoughts and beliefs with a trusted colleague who also works in the field of family child care. You may be someone that families will turn to when they need assistance with a child’s challenging behavior and with maintaining a positive relationship with their child. Reflecting about your beliefs and background may be a new learning experience or a paradigm shift in how to think about and constructively teach children new strategies and behaviors instead of using punishment to address children’s mistakes. It is important that you have a strong understanding of child development and positive guidance strategies. You can help the families you serve who may be overwhelmed when addressing their child’s behavior.

What is Guidance?

According to Marian C. Marion, positive child guidance is based on principles of developmentally appropriate practice (2013). Dan Gartrell defines guidance as “a way of teaching that nurtures each child’s potential through consistently positive (sometimes firm, but always friendly) interactions; classroom management that teaches rather than punishes.” (2012, p. 156). Adults who use positive guidance in their daily interactions with children accept that a primary goal is to help each individual child to:

• Feel safe and secure
• Develop healthy self-esteem
• Respect themselves and others
• Learn to cope with a variety of stressors

Interpersonal relationships are key to facilitating the use of positive guidance across the child care environment (e.g., in the family child care home, outdoors, and on community outings). You, as a provider focus on showing respect, warmth, and positive regard toward each individual child.

Your personal values and commitment to the use of positive guidance principles will be evident in your daily interactions with children and their families. Strong interpersonal relationships are essential to bringing these principles to life during daily care-giving routines and activities.

Gartrell in The Power of Guidance (2004), describes six practices of teachers who are committed to positive guidance. In this lesson we substitute the title “provider” for teacher:

As a family child care provider, you model positive guidance in your daily practices. You engage in building partnerships and relationships with families and children. This takes self-reflection and intentional practice over time. For some people, positive guidance comes naturally, while for others it will take practice to develop new ways of thinking about building a community with children in your care.

As a family child care provider, you must take into account individual children’s social and emotional growth and individual development when selecting appropriate guidance techniques. For example, preschool and kindergarten-age children like to help solve problems. They can sustain attention during a fifteen-minute discussion about a problem, such as, “What should we do about a broken tricycle?” In contrast, toddlers have limited attention spans (typically about three to six minutes) so providers use brief, simple directions to guide them during daily routines (e.g., “If you put your shoes on, then we can play outside.”).

Through daily interactions and carefully documented observations, you learn about children’s individual strengths and needs. This information helps you select developmentally and individually appropriate guidance practices. You will better understand a particular child’s behaviors and choose appropriate guidance practices that meet individual children’s social and emotional development. As a family child care provider, your encouragement and emotional support for children who are learning positive social and problem-solving skills contributes to your vision of a relationship-based care environment.

What Does Positive Guidance Look Like in Practice?

Part of positive guidance is creating an environment that promotes positive behavior to minimize the need for adults to spend time reacting to children’s challenging behavior. Positive guidance practices emphasize teaching problem-solving and social skills. They build children’s sense of belonging and membership in the family child care home. In contrast, discipline, or using punishment to control children’s behavior, can be misused by adults with negative consequences for children’s growth and development.

When family child care providers value and use positive guidance practices, they support the development of an encouraging learning environment. The encouraging family child care setting is where children can express and meet their needs in acceptable, safe ways. The child is an important member of a caring community, where he or she feels safe and secure.

• Children are not threatened with removal from the caring community.
• Children are not publicly criticized or shamed.
• Children’s mistakes are seen as developmental and viewed as opportunities for them to learn positive behaviors.
• Partnerships formed with families and peers are supportive and encouraging.
• Conflicts are seen as part of living in a community where adults help children learn effective conflict-resolution strategies and teach problem-solving skills.

In the Learn section of this lesson, you will find a handout in which the author provides several examples of intentional communication skills that providers can use in their daily practices to build an encouraging learning environment for children and youth. How might you as a family child care provider use these communication skills in your program?

Thinking about Children’s Behavior: Reframing

It’s important to take time to learn how to reframe your thoughts about children’s behaviors. Negative thoughts about children’s behaviors can bring negative energy into the family child care home. Using negative explanations for why a child behaves in a certain way can cloud your thinking about solutions. Having compassion and understanding about why a child might choose to behave in a certain way allows us to think of positive solutions; it can help us lift our negative mood. When we reframe our thinking, we can turn a negative into a positive.

Cognitive reframing is a way of viewing and experiencing events, ideas, concepts, and emotions to find more positive alternatives. Simply put, cognitive reframing is a way to change your mindset. Here are examples of cognitive reframing:

Kari (age 2) knocks over a tall block tower that Jaron (age 3) and Keena (age 5) have built on the patio. Instead of assuming that Kari is “acting bad” you can reframe your thinking and view this behavior as Kari trying to communicate that she wants to be included in their play, but she might not have the words to effectively express her desires. You reframe your response by expressing Kari’s desire to play and helping her problem solve what she could do instead, “Kari, you wish you could play with Jaron and Keena. Let’s practice how you can ask them if you can join them when they build with the big blocks.”

Logan (age 7) pushes you as you climb up the back steps. Instead of assuming that Logan is “a mean child trying to hurt you,” you can reframe your thinking and view this behavior as Logan trying to gain adult attention. He has learned that using physical means (pushing) gains him adult attention. One way to address Logan’s actions is to ask him why he pushed you, in an effort gain a better perspective on his behavior. Thinking about Logan’s behavior, you make a plan to pay special attention when he is engaging in positive behavior. “Logan, you are waiting a long time for your turn. When we go outside, I will let you have the first turn using the new basketball.”

Just like all new skills, cognitive reframing takes time and practice. Thinking differently about children’s challenging behavior may provide a new view of what children are trying to communicate. You can use cognitive reframing with all the significant people in your life. It may increase your positive regard for those you care for and cherish.

Positive guidance practices promote children’s social and emotional development. As a family child care provider, you intentionally create a safe, warm, and encouraging environment for all of the children entrusted to your care. You lead others (children, families) in behavioral expectations in your home setting. You hold the key to promoting relationship-based caregiving.

See

Watch this video to learn more about how positive guidance benefits the social and emotional development of the children in your care.

Do

As an FCC provider, it is important to remember that along with a child’s family, you serve as an excellent guidance resource. Younger children require the support of nurturing and responsive adults to help them grow and develop. Older children and youth will look to you to model developmentally appropriate behavioral expectations. You are setting the foundation for every child’s growth and success. When thinking about guidance in your program, consider the following:

• Get to know all children in your care—observe their actions and interactions and learn about their temperament, interests, and culture.
• Build in opportunities throughout the day to help children relax.
• Model positive behaviors, acknowledge mistakes, and demonstrate problem solving in your own behaviors and interactions with children.
• Embed opportunities for guidance learning throughout your day and provide children with multiple opportunities to express themselves in various ways.
• Acknowledge, validate, and respond to children’s needs, emotions, and concerns.
• Remember that children’s behaviors, and in particular challenging behaviors, communicate a message and that it is up to us adults to “decode” and interpret that message.
• Be sensitive to children’s unique life circumstances and experiences that may influence their behaviors.
• Arrange your environment in ways that promote children’s success.
• Learn about the guidance techniques families use at home. You should have an open forum for communicating with families about the behavior expectations and guidance strategies that will be utilized within the program.
• Inform family members when challenging behaviors occur and discuss possible guidance strategies to implement consistently between your program and their home environment.

Completing this Course

For more information on what to expect in this course, the Positive Guidance Competency Reflection, and a list of the accompanying Learn, Explore and Apply resources and activities offered throughout the lessons, visit the Family Child Care Course Guide.

Please note the References & Resources section at the end of each lesson outlines reference sources and resources to find additional information on the topics covered. As you complete lessons, you are not expected to review all the online references available. However, you are welcome to explore the resources further if you have interest, or at the request of your trainer, coach, or administrator.