frustrated by children's behaviour!

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megs_95
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frustrated by children's behaviour!

Post by megs_95 » Fri Apr 11, 2014 10:06 pm

There are two children in my room (both aged 2) who often just don't listen and do the wrong thing. Usually 'small' things, such as getting up at meal times, making noise at rest time, running around the room, etc. But both of these children will do these things repeatedly no matter what you say or do, or how you say or do it.

For example, one child only has a sleep maybe 50% of days he attends. When he doesn't sleep, he jumps on his bed, talks, makes silly noises, distracts children from falling asleep and sometimes wakes them up too. I've tried giving him quiet activities to do on his bed so he can rest quietly but be entertained, and it doesn't change a thing - he just uses what I give him to continue the behaviour (e.g. smacking books on the floor and throwing them everywhere, banging puzzle pieces together, etc). When you ask him to stop, he smiles and continues.

With both children I've tried being firm and being nice, explaining calmly what they're doing wrong and what they need to do instead, tried to redirect them to different things, tried moving them away from their friends, tried using positive reinforcement, tried setting out and acting on consequences (e.g. "If you keep throwing that toy, instead of playing with it on the mat, I'm going to put it away.") And NOTHING bothers them! They just smile and continue to do what they want...very rarely has a negative consequence upset them (like it would most children) and rewards and positive reinforcements have been futile so far. I don't know what to do! They are frustrating us so much and nothing is working :(


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Lorina
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Re: frustrated by children's behaviour!

Post by Lorina » Sat Apr 12, 2014 6:31 am

You may find that some toddlers test the water with you or even just like the negative attention they are receiving since it is some form of attention from you. Do you spend individual time with these particular children? They could also just be doing it because they are getting a reaction out of you. It could be that they are bored.

Since they don't sleep they have to wait for everyone else to fall asleep and making a 2 year old sit on their bed is no easy task and it is unexpected of them at this stage. How many books can a toddler "read" or complete a puzzle. Instead maybe you can create a few special quiet activity bags they receive once they have a rest on their beds. Explain to them that after they have rested on their beds for some time then they can have an activity bag to play with while their friends are sleeping but if they make noise you will take it away from them and if they do make noise take it away for a minute or so then say something like "I can see you're trying really hard to be quiet for your friends so you can have it again".

At meal times do they have to wait for long periods of time? Do they finish quickly then wait for everyone else? It's not necessary to make them wait until everyone is finished. Once they finished transition them to where they have to go with one staff member. For example: after lunch if they have to go to their beds, as soon as they finish eating, get them to go and sit on their beds with a staff member after washing hands and toileting. You could probably put a book on the bed for this time while waiting for their friends to arrive or use one of those audio stories. They can lay on their bed and listen to the story.

As for running inside you may need to re-arrange the furniture in order to create a walkable space. This means that at the moment there may be too much opened space within the room which in turn is causing the running. If you can somehow cut down on the open space it will force children to walk around rather than run within such a large space. Hopefully I'm making sense here. :giggle: You can always say "walking feet inside" but how many times do you want to say that! Also another ideas is to provide plenty of opportunities for toddlers to have outdoor play. They're at that stage when they want to run and play and explore. So spending time outdoors is a must! You could even set up your programmed activities outside so they have a range of options.

With toddlers rather than try and fix their behaviour you need to change the routine that is causing the behaviour.

Hope this gives you some ideas to work with,

:geek:,
L.A

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