There’s No Crying in Baseball and There’s No Hitting in Preschool!!! – The basic values of behavior management in a classroom are good health and nonviolence. As far as corporal punishment and the use of developmentally inappropriate techniques in dealing with behavior, IT IS VERY RARE, but I have seen it all – children hit, spanked, slapped, pinched, thumped on the head, forced to sit for loooong periods of time, had their “lovies’ taken away, been bitten back when they bit or encouraged to hit back when they’ve been hit, – and I have heard all the arguments in favor of this type of discipline – “I was spanked and I turned out ok!”, or “This is how they learn” or “I am in charge of this class, not them!” and I will tell you that this is not teaching and certainly not learning.

A child who is hit on a continuing basis learns to hide his anger and resentment, to be either more aggressive or fearful and withdrawn.

A child whose behaviors are controlled only by others becomes less intelligent than a child who behaves well because he has learned and decided it is the right thing to do.

A child who is protected from harm, treated well, given rules that are meaningful and logical and given (or allowed to naturally happen) age appropriate consequences when those rules are broken, is a child who can learn to his optimal potential.

Let’s talk about Rules – Rules are not the values of your program (that’s good health and nonviolence and whatever else your program chooses – faith, academic success, artistic freedom – but the specific regulations and stated limits on harmful behaviors.

Rules should be developmentally appropriate; agreed upon by parents, teachers, and children old enough to have input; consistently enforced by all teachers whenever possible and supported by administrators; practical and useful – with rules of safety being the most strictly enforced; simple and practical and limited to common sense situations (not nitpicky regulations for imagined worries that will not occur); and they should be stated and written positively, telling the children what TO DO, not just what not to do.

So, the Rules on Rules are:

• Keep them simple, understandable, and age-appropriate
• Keep them positively stated and relevant to REAL problems
• Keep them general enough to cover general issues, but specific when needed: (Pee pee in the potty; Food is NOT for spitting; Feet stay on the floor)
• Keep Them

Post the most important general rules for all to see – even non-readers.

My absolute favorite list of school rules was from a rural elementary school in Missouri. The rules were posted not just at school, but in every store on the town square for all parents and community members to see and reinforce as partners in the community of learners. They said everything needed to be said:

Be Here. Be Healthy. Be Happy.

Establishing simple, age-appropriate rules and following through on consequences for breaking the rules is the logical way to go. Before you react to rule-breaking (NOT RULE- BREAKERS!!) the next blogs will give you helpful hints.

Next Blog: Behavior Management 2 – Know How to NO