There are many actions early childhood educators can take that will help young children develop important skills, skills that will help them understand others, gain control over their feelings, and manage their anger. Some of the most important ones are the actions listed below:
1 Set clear, consistent and fair limits for behavior. Create the rules with young children.
2.When young children are involved in setting the rules they feel more responsibility for the rules.
Remember that young children make mistakes. They need to be reminded about rules. 3. Redirect young children to better activities and behaviors.
4. Help young children learn to solve problems. One way to do this is to read stories which have conflict in them. Help young children figure out how the problem was solved and how they felt about the solution. Help them to come up with several different ways a problem could be solved and everyone wins. These steps can also be used when watching TV and with TV stories and characters.
5. Remind young children of rules and the reasons why we have rules. 6. Be sure to listen to young children when they talk about their feelings and problems. Help young children learn about their feelings and the feelings of others. (See ideas in the next section, “ How Can We Help Young Children Understand Feelings?”).
Set realistic expectations for how young children will play together.
Remember how children play depends on the child’s age.
8 . Prepare the learning area by providing many choices for play. Organize the play area so that young children play in small areas with a focus on a certain type of activity. Larae. open spaces encourage rough play.
9. Play with the young children! Ask the young children open- ended questions as they play like: “ Tell me about ”, “What happened then?”, “Why did it happen?”, “What happens next?”, “What do you need?”, “Tell me about what you are making.” Even though there is a lot to take care of, we need to take time to play with the young children!
10. Give children chances to feel they have power or control. Listen to children. Give them choices of activities whenever possible. When decisions are being made, try to involve young children in as many ways as possible.
