Re: Serious discipline issues
I think the best way to discipline is through positive reinforcement.
Give him something to work towards. In fact, give them all something to work towards and then you wont have issues with the others either.
Sticker charts are great and very simple for children follow.
I have a ‘treat’ box in my classroom, its full of pencils, pens, erasers, and other little stationary stuff I brought from the £ shop. Each of my children have a sticker chart, with 20 boxes in it (for younger ones, I would aim for 10 boxes as the reward needs to be fairly instant for littlies). They get stickers for good behaviour, even little things like smiling (im such a loser). Once their sticker chart is full, they choose a treat. They love it.
The most important factor in behaviour management is consistency. If you do not follow through with what you say then the children know they can keep pushing, so when you say you will do something, you do it.
Also, children are pretty hung up about being ‘fair’ (they arent like adults), you must remain fair with whatever stratergies you use.
As they are so young, they need something a bit visual.
In our reception classes (4-5 year olds) they have a smiley sun and a unhappy cloud. All children start the day on the smiley sun, if any of them begin to lose the plot and are misbehaving their name gets transfered to the unhappy cloud, and they give the chance to get back to the smiley sun.
Another really important thing is to clearly explain to the child why you are doing what you are doing. Make sure you use words like ’ What you are/were doing was silly’ NOT ’ You are silly’. Put ownership on the behaviour and not the child.
Always, always, always catch them ‘being good’. Even for small little things like smiling at someone else, or sitting beautifully, or saying please or thank you, and make a song and dance about it all. I go over the top and dramatically get all clap happy when one of my ‘sillies’ does something right.
You can download and print some great visual resources from here SparkleBox | Miscellaneous | Behaviour management
I use some of these with my children
SparkleBox | Miscellaneous | Awards and badges
One more thing that I do with my children is to praise the ones that are being good so that you can use them as I role model. For example, standing in the line, I do not say ’ charlie stand properly’, I say things like, I like what charlie is doing, he is standing with his arms by his side and not chatting to the person next to him’ or ’ I can see that Charlie is standing beautifully’.
It reminds the children who are not doing the right thing of what the right thing actually is. Its all fair and well telling a 4 year old to be ‘good’ but if they have no idea what you mean by ’ good’ than theres no point of even using the word ‘good’.
