Examples of Childlike Behavior

Video Transcript

"Hi, I'm Pam on behalf of Expert Village, and now we're going to talk about understanding behaviors in children. Here are a few common problems that you're going to come across, and some different ways to deal with it. Say that you have a child who is whining, you want to try ignoring. It's very hard to ignore, I know, but chances are you might snap at the child and that's something that you definitely want to avoid. So for example, you want to try doing and saying nothing. Chances are, the child is doing this for attention, and so if they find that they're not getting that, they may stop. As soon as you notice that the child has stopped whining, then you want to give them attention because they'll see, "Oh, well as soon as I stopped, I got what I wanted. Maybe that wasn't working." Again with the positive, if you see two kids playing cooperatively, try positive reinforcement. Go over and let them know. Don't just focus on kids who are behaving negatively. Focus on the one's that are behaving positively too. You know, "Oh wow, you two are working great together!" If they're refusing to cooperate, give them a choice. Say, "Okay, you can either clean up the cars, or help Charlie put away the bugs in Science Center, it's your choice". They're more likely to do one of the two because they think that they're getting to decide what they do. When actuallity, you're still getting them to clean up. If they're restless or inattentive, change the activity. I know that's hard, but say you're reading a story that's really long, maybe you could pause the story in half. Let them sing a song, and then go back to the story. You're still keeping them in their group activity, and they're still sitting pretty quietly, but you've changed it up a little bit, so that they're not completely bored. And say they're daydreaming, give them an indirect suggestion. Say, "As soon as you get your coat on, we're all going to be ready to go outside". Then they're going to realize, "Oh, everybody's waiting on me". These are just a few examples, and like I said, you've got to learn what works for each child, but it's something to try."