(En inglés)
Building Strong, Positive Relationships with Children
Dawn: All right, we have a special edition interview here today. Hi, Gail.
Gail Joseph, PhD: Hi, Dawn.
Dawn: I'm so glad that you could do this with us. Gail is faculty here at the University of Washington and also our visionary director here at Cultivate Learning. But in addition to that, especially as we're getting this positive behavior support season, Gail has such deep expertise in this area, and you've been doing research for years, and so I really wanted to ask you some questions about relationships.
Gail: Well, I'm so glad you're here, and what a great topic.
Dawn: We just watched the video of Cecilia, and she was doing all this wonderful bonding with the infant. And it kind of struck a chord with me because I thought back to when I was teaching, and thought, sometimes it wasn't always easy for me, especially when it came to challenging behaviors.
Gail: It's so true that having a strong relationship with a child, a strong, positive relationship, not only helps them in terms of their social-emotional development, but it helps them with all kinds of learning. But some things get in the way of building a strong, positive relationship with young children. And I think that one of those things – and I wonder if this is what you were thinking about – are those hot buttons, right? So there are certain behaviors that a child might exhibit that might push our buttons. And it's so personal, right?
Dawn: It is!
Gail: It's different for every teacher. And I think we even have talked to some teachers about this.
Dawn: Yeah, we did. We got a video of some teachers telling us what their hot buttons are, just because it's a really common thing, and we thought it'd be great for teachers to share about it.
Gail: All right, let's take a listen.
Teacher: The behavior that most pushes my buttons is when a child targets another child, the same child over and over again, by hitting or teasing, but targets one student.
Teacher: Tantruming, screaming, crying, out of control. Teacher: Running away out of the classroom.
Teacher: When kids bully other kids.
Teacher: Self-injurious behavior. Teacher: Slapping your friend.
Teacher: Screaming.
Teacher: Falling to the ground.
Teacher: The challenging behavior that pushes my buttons is definitely spitting.
Teacher: I think the trickiest behavior, honestly, is noncompliant – like a quiet noncompliance, like the child won't respond or is just kind of like sitting there not doing anything or responding to what you're saying.
Teacher: Throwing things off the shelves.
Teacher: The really violent ones, like throwing a chair across the classroom. Teacher: The challenging behavior that most pushes my buttons is biting.
Gail: That was great. So first of all, it's great that teachers were willing to be so honest with us about those behaviors that push their buttons. And then, once we identify those button- pushing behaviors, the next part is to think about – and this is sometimes difficult for people to do – but is to think about, what is that feeling that we have when our buttons are pushed?
Right?
So a child exhibits a behavior, and maybe it's not Monday when we're super fresh and happy, but maybe it's, you know –fast-forward to Thursday and we're kind of tired and maybe our car broke down on the way to work and we were hungry and we didn't sleep very well, and now the child exhibits that behavior.
Dawn: On top of everything else.
Gail: On top of everything else. What is the feeling that we have? And so, I think we have some of those teachers actually also talking about what are those feelings that they have when their buttons get pushed.
Teacher: It just feels like everything's sort of caving in in the moment, and it just feels really disruptive, even if it's not as disruptive as it feels.
Teacher: Anxious. Teacher: Worried. Teacher: Disrespected.
Teacher: When I'm dealing with screaming, I feel very irritated.
Teacher: When that's happening, I feel really frustrated, I feel overwhelmed, like I don't know what to do in that situation because it's happening over and over again.
Teacher: But honestly, I totally feel disrespected.
Teacher: It makes me feel like I'm not in control of the classroom. Teacher: I feel stressed and ineffective.
Teacher: I feel frustrated, like something already went wrong in the classroom.
Gail: And so, what do we do with these feelings? Well, one of the things that's really important to realize is that our feelings, our thoughts, and our behavior are all connected, right? So feelings kind of left unchecked, if you will, especially these negative and upsetting things that we're thinking, can really influence the way we're starting to think about a child or a situation, and then that's going to influence the way we act, right? So while we can't help feeling the feelings that we have when children push our buttons, we can say, "Wait a minute, my button got pushed, and now I need to check in with how I'm thinking about this child and this situation.
And what we think about is using a little bit of thought control here. And so, we can say, "OK, they pushed my hot button, but now I want to check in with how I'm thinking." Because left unchecked, we can start thinking some things, which, you know, may be, "Oh, this child's a monster, and it's never going to get better, and he'll never change," or "She ruins everything, and, you know, I'm constantly having to deal with her and I can't deal with teaching other children."
Well, just imagine, if that's how you're thinking, are you really going to act in a way that's going to support a child's social-emotional development and prevent challenging behaviors? Probably not. So our opportunity is to check in with how we're thinking. and to replace these upsetting and negative thoughts with some more calming, coping thoughts. It doesn't mean we're replacing "he's a monster" with "everything is fantastic," right?
Dawn: That's not realistic either.
Gail: That's not very realistic. But it is thinking – it might be replacing it with, all right, I'm finding this behavior challenging, but I think he's just testing to see where the limits are, and my job is to teach him some more appropriate ways to get his needs met, right? I'm the teacher here. So it's just replacing it with a more kind of realistic calming, coping, and positive thought. But the way I'm going to think about this is that, "Hey, I got this. This is a challenge for me. I'm going to overcome it. I'm going to think of some new ways that I can connect with professional development resources or others or even just kind of think some more deeply about this."
Again, those buttons get pushed, but the way we're going to think about it is really then going to influence how effective we can be. Because one of the things that I think when a child engages in behaviors that we find challenging, that pushes our hot buttons, I think that one
thought that we want to have, or one reflection to have, is what is my relationship like with this child?
En este video, escuchamos hablar a la Dra. Gail Joseph, de la Universidad de Washington, sobre cómo crear relaciones con los niños. La Dra. Joseph analizará cómo las conexiones reducen el comportamiento desafiante y contribuyen a la salud mental. Este video es parte del módulo de Apoyo al comportamiento positivo, uno de varios Módulos de aprendizaje de educación superior de la Alianza EarlyEdU (video en inglés).
