A respectful child is a treasure to behold
Date :
Tuesday, August 25 2009
Source:
Autourina Mains
There was a teacher that bowed to her students every morning. When asked why she bowed to little children every morning, she replied; “One of these little ones may become the future President of my nation.” Our actions and the way we treat little ones models appropriate behavior.
The school age child is beginning to build new friendships, and is starting to make decisions outside of their home environment. Guiding them with kindness, love and respect will help build their self-esteem and strengthen their decision making process. Treating children with respect will foster kindness, caring and help them grow up to be compassionate, considerate adults.
School age- By the age of 8 children have the ability to reason, though they may not have fully developed the consequential thought process “What may happen if….”. Here are a few strategies to foster respect in the school age child.
- Asking why questions to get to the core of what is going on.
- Helping the child put words to feelings.
- Include the child in rule setting for your home or program. For example: call a meeting and say “We need to set some rules. Should we run inside? If no, then why? What are the consequences of breaking this rule?” Write down the rules on a poster board and display them.
- Set consequences, not punishments. Children make mistakes and forget “our” rules. Their first priority is to play and have fun, not follow rules, so when they break a rule or are having a bad day, don’t punish them. Instead of using a “time out” chair or making them stand by the wall, create a quiet area where the child can have some quiet time to think and gather his/her thoughts and decide to make good, positive choices.
- Have a daily schedule.
- Listen to the child when the child is speaking (be present and aware) and ask questions.
- Allow the child to finish their task or project or give them an option to finish it at a later time.
- Give transition warnings and allow ample time for transitioning from one task to another.
- Give the child genuine, positive feedback. When you see a child helping a friend with clean up, you can say “It is nice how you are helping your friend. You are a good friend.”
- Assign simple chores. Everyone likes to feel useful and assigning simple chores like setting the dishes on the table for meal time, wiping the table after meals, folding laundry, feeding the dog, turning off the TV, getting diapers for the baby, etc. helps the child feel good about his/her ability to help others.
- Honor your promises. Sometimes my children had a difficult time waking up early on Ash Wednesday to be in church by 7 am. The night before, I promised them breakfast at a local café. Even though they were late for school on Ash Wednesday, I kept my promise to them and took them out to breakfast after lunch.
- When you are feeling angry or sick or frustrated, let the child know “I don’t feel well today. I have a bad head ache, I am very angry today, I am tired, etc.”
- Give the child space.
- Respect his/her possessions. Sometimes younger siblings may want something that is very special to an older child. For example the older child has a special CD player and does not want the younger sibling to use it. Those boundaries need to be set and the child’s wishes need to be respected.
Keep your sense of humor
Lastly, don’t forget to keep your sense of humor. Children don’t behave a certain way just to aggravate the adults; they behave the only way they know how. Understanding their developmental stages, they can be a lot of fun. Here is a funny story from my Center;
Well, one of our little ones was singing his own version of Old MacDonald had farm. His version was “Old MacDonald had a stupid cow…..” when one of our little 3-year old girls goes on to teach him good manners… she said “you can’t say stupid. That is a bad word.” Then she turned to me and said “teacher stupid is a bad word just like A…..s is a bad word, huh!” I tried not to laugh because she was very serious but I just could not believe my ears.