Addressing Challenging Behavior in Young Children: The Leader's Role

Barbara Kaiser, Judy Sklar Rasminsky

• Verlag: The National Association for the Education of Young Children
• Jahr: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781938113901
• Thema: Pedagogía
• Thema: Gestión del aula

Why do children behave the way they do? And why do teachers respond to children's behavior the way they do? And what can you do to support all of them?

There is no single script or one right answer. But with the realistic and practical strategies in this book, directors and administrators of early childhood programs and principles of schools can develop the skills to build a team that works together to support all children and staff. Topics include

• Defining your role as a leader and creating a positive social climate
• Recognizing the messages children are communicating with their behavior
• Examining the effects of your own and teachers' biases and expectations on behavior
• Guiding teachers to develop strategies for preventing and responding effectively to challenging behavior, focusing on building relationships
• Collaborating with families
• Understanding the effects of trauma on behavior and implementing trauma-informed practices

Your support and guidance can make all the difference in the ability of teachers, children, families, and the program itself to flourish.

CHAPTER ONE

Defining Yourself as a Leader

I (Barbara) started my teaching career inadvertently: My local school needed a substitute, and I was the only person in the rural community with a university degree.

When I asked my students in grades 7 and 8 what they hoped to be when they grew up, I discovered that they had very low expectations for themselves, and many of the girls had no professional goals at all. At the time, my daughter was almost 2 years old, and I worried that if she went through this school system, she too would have little ambition.

How could I make a difference?

I soon realized that the place to start was early childhood. With this in mind, I began the process of creating and directing what became the first government-subsidized child care program in a rural area. When we moved to the city several years later, I got a master’s degree in educational administration and policy studies and founded an early childhood and after-school center for more than 120 children, which I directed for the next 20 years.

There are many routes to becoming a leader, but one thing all leaders have in common is a desire to lead. Maybe you started your career in education as a teacher and then wanted more of a voice in program decisions; or, like me, you wanted something different for your own children; or a board of directors spotted a burgeoning talent in you; or someone was needed to fill the job and you were drafted. Or maybe being the decision maker was always your goal.

Understanding Your Journey

Whatever your path to leadership, it is important for you to understand your journey. Sometimes moving from the job of teacher to being in charge of everything can be very difficult. You may have been a great teacher, but running a program calls for different skills. The transition can be especially hard if you move from teacher to administrator in the same setting. All of a sudden, your job is no longer to take care of the children but to take care of the people who take care of the children—people who used to be your coworkers but are now your staff.

When challenging behavior occurs, the people you work with—your staff, the children, and their families—need to trust you and have confidence in your skills and direction. They are counting on you to lead the way and sometimes even expect you to solve all their problems. To earn their trust, certainly you must know a lot about young children’s development and learning, but you must also understand how your emotions, your past experiences, and your unconscious biases impact your decision making and daily actions. By showing that you’re aware of how your feelings and life experiences affect your views and goals, you also show your staff and families that you trust and respect them. As a result, they will be more open to discussing their own priorities and goals, thereby creating a relationship built on trust. You might find that recording your actions, observations, and feelings helps to make them visible and prods you to examine them.

A ROSE BY ANY OTHER NAME

Leaders go by many names: principal, administrator, director, supervisor, head teacher, family child care provider. They do similar important work, and in this book we usually refer to them as leaders or administrators. Likewise, we use program, school, center, or setting to refer to early childhood centers, prekindergartens, elementary school programs, before- and after-school programs, and family child care programs.

Learning to Lead

Most leaders aren’t born to lead—they learn to lead. Such learning requires effort, motivation, and commitment to develop basic leadership qualities such as integrity, flexibility, a positive outlook, a belief in social and racial equity, and the ability to both listen to and empower staff. An effective leader is open to feedback and isn’t influenced by criticism or flattery. She is also self-reflective, intentional, visionary, and aware of her strengths and weaknesses. She looks for ways to build her own competencies and resilience; to notice and acknowledge the strengths and successes of staff, families, and children; and to help her educators reflect on their own values and perceptions.

Administrators must be able to see the broad picture and at the same time keep track of what’s influencing the teachers in their program every day. All of these skills become even more important when there’s a child with challenging behavior in the program.

How Do You Define Your Role?

Do you see yourself as a leader or a manager? One difference between the two is that managers have staff who work for them, while leaders have staff who work with them and contribute toward the success of the program.

Traditionally, a manager’s job is to manage work—a task-based, mechanical role—while a leader’s job is to influence, motivate, and enable others to contribute toward a program’s success. Both roles are responsible for fulfilling the program’s vision and mission, but leaders are more likely to see this work as a team effort. In the words of Antoine de Saint Exupery (1950), “If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.”

Most effective leaders possess the skills and attitudes required both to manage and to lead. They respect the budget and complete their administrative duties, but they concentrate on innovating, inspiring, and—with their staff’s input—looking for ways to solve problems and make meaningful changes when necessary.

BEING EMOTIONALLY INTELLIGENT

Daniel Goleman and his coauthors (Goleman, Boyatzis, & McKee 2013) believe that a leader’s fundamental task is to prime good feelings in those they lead. Successful leaders therefore have emotional intelligence, meaning they are

› Self-aware. They know how they feel and how their emotions and actions can affect the people around them.

› Self-regulated. They have control over their emotions and think before they act. They don’t compromise their own values and are upbeat and optimistic. This is very important because emotions are contagious.

› Empathetic. They can put themselves in others’ shoes and help their team by listening and providing constructive feedback.

› Good communicators. They guide and manage change and relationships successfully, resolve conflict diplomatically, and make everyone feel included.

How is your emotional intelligence?

What Is Your Vision?

The only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision.

—Helen Keller

Being a leader in the field of education is a very tough undertaking. For that reason—and for many others—you must care passionately about what you’re doing, know why you’re doing it, and know what you want your school or center to be. In short, you must have a vision.

In fact, your vision is a statement of what you want your program to be. It comes from the heart and expresses your deepest values about children, families, work, achievement, and community (Bloom 2014). It embodies your hopes and ideals and gives you a sense of purpose. At the same time, it provides an idea of what’s possible and helps to guide you through difficult times. Effective leaders have a vision as well as the ability to articulate it and oversee its implementation. You are the one who can make it happen.

Your vision requires the support of your mission—that is, the approach you will use to reach your vision. Your staff, children, and families all experience your vision and your mission in the form of the values of your program and the decisions you make. An effective vision becomes all the more important when there’s a child with challenging behavior in your program because, according to human resources expert Susan Heathfield (2019), a vision can inspire “enthusiasm, belief, loyalty, commitment, and excitement” by supporting staff and helping them feel that they’re part of something important while also “challeng[ing] people to outdo themselves, to stretch and reach.”

What Leadership Style Works Best When Challenging Behavior Occurs?

New ways of thinking about educational leadership have led to what is known variously as facilitative, transformational, collective, or collaborative leadership. Through the strength of their vision, leaders who use a version of this style inspire their staff to revise their expectations, perceptions, and motivations in order to work toward common goals. Such leaders create a partnership with their staff and grant everyone power and responsibility for supporting all children—including the child with challenging behavior.

Leading is not about having power over others but about empowering them. When there is a child with challenging behavior, it is the teachers who must work with this child, who must understand, support, and guide not only this child but also all the other children in the group. It is the facilitative leader’s responsibility to provide the understanding, support, and guidance that the educators need to do their job effectively in the spirit of the program’s vision.

For years we noticed that Mondays were particularly difficult days for many of the children, especially those with behavior issues. They were excited about returning to the program and found it hard to focus. So we decided to use a staff meeting to talk about what we could do to make Mondays easier. Once we took the time to think about it together, the solution seemed simple: We didn’t have to introduce new themes and activities on Monday just because Monday is the beginning of the week. Instead we scheduled more time for play, choices, and gross motor activities, and Mondays became calmer and more fun for everyone.

Facilitative leadership encourages administrators to step aside so that others can step up (Sullivan 2016); to appreciate, support, and use their staff’s leadership potential; and to share power and partner with educators in numerous ways. A facilitative leader gives staff a lot of say about things that affect them directly (e.g., discipline and guidance, curriculum, schedules, use of resources). Hard as it may be to avoid micromanaging, especially if you feel that you know exactly how an educator should respond to a child’s behavior, allowing her to discover what works and what doesn’t (perhaps with some gentle guidance) will enable the teacher to feel more confident and willing to try new strategies. In this way, a facilitative leader helps the staff to develop mastery, meaning, and commitment and promotes a sense of community, equity, and shared power (Bloom 2014).

WORKING TOGETHER

No matter what they’re called, the leadership styles mentioned in this text all basically stand for the same things. In Five Elements of Collective Leadership for Early Childhood Professionals, Cassandra O’Neill and Monica Brinkerhoff (2018) describe one such style, collective leadership, as a process:

In collective leadership, there is shared responsibility and decision making, accountability, and authentic engagement. All members are involved in creating the vision and are committed to working to achieve that vision. A k...