One day, at pickup time, I was informed that a parent needed my attention downstairs, so I went to meet with him.
Before getting there, his children were already with him, he just needed to have a quick chat with me before taking the kids home; so, we started talking.
Few minutes into our discussion, his little son went outdoors to play with other children, under the supervision of a teacher outdoors. Now, this is when the whole experience started.
So, the little boy opened the door, and banged it loudly on his way out.
His father was distracted by the loud sound, and I could see on his face that he was not comfortable about his son banging the door that loud. He was also worried about the possibility of his hands been caught in the door, but he ignored it the first time.
After a few minutes, his son came back and almost immediately went back out again, banging the door again on his way out. This time, his dad did not ignore the behaviour.
He went out, scolded the boy, brought him in and I heard him saying, “now, say sorry to Ms. Becky!”
The little boy was confused, you could see the expression of uncertainty on his face as he looked to me, back at his dad, and then to me again. I could tell that he wasn’t sure of what he did wrong and why he should say sorry to me.
As a mother and more so an educator, I could read those facial, non-verbal expressions. So, I decided to do something about it.
I called the little boy to my side, and said to him, “When you went out, you banged the door really loud, your daddy didn’t like that and do you know you could have hurt your fingers?”
This is what daddy would like you to do. At this time, his father’s gaze was fixed on him, but the boy wasn’t looking his way, he was listening to me.
So, I went on to model the proper way of shutting the door to the boy by saying, “Listen, when you want to go out, open the door and close it gennnntly, okay?” He nodded.
So, he went off to try it. He opened the door, and moved it as gently as he could, while he was doing that, I was saying, “yes, gently, gently” and by the third “gently,” his father said, “watch your fingers,” the boy removed his fingers and finally succeeded in closing the door gently. We both looked at each other and smiled; pleased to see his sudden progress.
After a few minutes, the little boy came in, and to our amazement, he closed the door so gently, that you could hardly hear a sound!
His father said quickly, with excitement, “see, he didn’t bang the door!
That was when I started explaining the strategy to him.
Children misbehave because they lack a certain skill or knowledge, our role in correcting the behaviour is to patiently, teach them the skill they lack, showing them how to do what we expect them to do. That way they would learn.
It might take a while sometimes, for some kids to get it, but if we keep at it, eventually they will learn.
I said, “when children misbehave and we shout at them, they really don’t understand fully why we are shouting.”
They sometimes feel confused, saying to themselves, “I think daddy is unhappy about something, but I’m not quite sure with it is.”
When the little boy understood the expectation. He went straight to work, making his father and myself instantly very proud of him.
And can you bet that I didn’t miss the chance to give the boy a big high five!
If ever this strategy were a theory to me, today it proved to be practically true!
Let’s try out this strategy of patiently teaching children the skills they lack and giving them the chance to learn! We would be amazed what they can do!
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