M5 WA#1: Child Abuse Response Plan
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EmotionalDevelopmentinEarlyChildhoodCH8.docxEmotional Development in Early Childhood CH. 8
Chapter Introduction
Daniel Jedzura/ Shutterstock.com
In this chapter, we extend to preschoolers the concepts of emotion development you learned about in Chapter 4 . We also discuss self-control, effective discipline, and teaching styles at length to address questions such as these: How can you help a learner who disrupts your class develop more self-control? What is the best way to handle discipline? These are questions teachers face daily. After you read this chapter, you will be able to:
· 8-1Understand how ability to talk about emotions, emotion regulation, and understanding others’ emotions develops in early childhood.
· 8-2Describe how components of the self-system—self-assessment, gender, and ethnic identity—develop in early childhood.
· 8-3Describe how learners develop self-control and why it matters.
· 8-4Implement effective discipline to maximize self-control.
· 8-5Analyze how styles of parenting and teaching influence learners’ self-control.
8-1 Emotions in Early Childhood
Five-year-old Hannah is bullied by a boy and bites him in self-defense. She has never hurt another child before and is deeply distressed. However, she does not let her teacher see how upset she is. The teacher phones her mother and says, “She’s dealing with it just fine.” However, a few hours later, when Hannah’s mother enters the classroom to take her home, Hannah bursts into tears.
Hannah is showing remarkable ability to regulate her emotions. How might she have developed this ability? In Chapter 4, you learned that she probably developed emotion regulation through guided co-regulation with parents and teachers. Preschoolers also develop regulation ability when they “try on” different emotions during play. A girl who pretends to be an angry mother spanking her doll and then comforts the crying doll, is practicing feeling and controlling anger. Preschoolers also develop regulation ability as they learn to talk about emotions and use more emotion labels. At age 2, most children correctly use the words happy and sad. Later they use angry, still later scared and surprised, and lastly labels for less common emotions, like disgust. By age 4, children can sort pictures of angry, sad, disgusted, and fearful pictures of faces into different boxes (Lindquist et al., 2015; Widen, 2013). As they learn to use emotion labels correctly, preschoolers become better at regulating their own emotions and understanding others’ emotions because they can discuss emotions. Let’s look at this development next.
8-1aDevelopment in Emotion Regulation
Preschoolers, compared to toddlers, are increasingly able to regulate their own emotions without adult help. As a result, negativity levels off or decreases from age 2 to age 5 (Lipscomb et al., 2011). However, preschoolers occasionally have breakdowns in emotion regulation, particularly if they are tired, stressed, or hungry. Roughly 80% of preschoolers may have tantrums in any given month, but daily tantrums are not typical (Wakschlag et al., 2012).
Tantrums continue to abate and then disappear between ages 3 to 5.
Preschoolers, compared to toddlers, have more emerging coping strategies. As young as age 3 or 4, children understand that coping strategies help them regulate emotions. For example, they know that distraction helps relieve sadness. However, they tend to engage in less constructive strategies, like venting or stamping feet, than older children (Dennis & Keleman, 2009). In Chapter 12 , we discuss how you can help children develop good coping strategies.
In preschool, 4-year-old Jason builds a car from Duplo blocks and gives it to his friend Daniel. Daniel acts excited about getting the car, but when he is beyond hearing distance, Daniel tells his teacher that he does not really like the car.
However, in more complicated situations preschoolers can’t simultaneously squelch disappointment and fake happiness. Scientists study this by giving children a disappointing gift, such as a baby toy. They then ask the child to “trick” an adult into thinking they got an attractive gift. Most 4-year-olds just can’t do this, but most 6-year-olds can (Kromm, Färber, & Holodynski, 2015). Nevertheless, preschoolers can hide distress from you, as Hannah did. This ability to dissemble suggests that sometimes you may need to be attuned to know how your learners are feeling.
8-1bDevelopment in Understanding Others’ Emotions
As preschoolers talk about emotion and learn to use emotion labels correctly, they also become better at understanding others’ emotions. By age 3, most children talk about consequences and causes of emotions. For example, when one of our sons was almost 3, he said, “Mommy, if you tells peoples you love them, them happy!” By age 4, children know what emotions are typical of common situations, such as feeling happy if you get a treat (Bamford & Lagattuta, 2012). Understanding complex social emotions develops later. By age 5, but seldom younger, children understand that victims forgive others more if transgressors express guilt, indicating children understand the social function of guilt (Vaish, Carpenter, & Tomasello, 2011).
Despite this growing ability to understand emotions, preschoolers are not always accurate in their judgments about guilt. Piaget devised an interesting way to test this ability. He told preschoolers stories of Mary and John. Mary was trying to help by carrying dishes. She dropped and broke eight dishes by accident. John did not want to eat his peas, so he threw his dish and broke it. Who was naughtier? Most preschoolers believe Mary was naughtier than John because she broke more dishes. To preschoolers, greater damage often means more guilt; they may not consider Mary’s and John’s intentions. Children are typically not accurate at judging guilt until the elementary grades. This inability to judge guilt may lead preschoolers to feel guilty for events that are not their fault, such as their parents’ divorce, making them vulnerable to unrealistic expectations or misplaced blame.
Preschoolers’ growing ability to understand emotions allows them to use social referencing frequently. Social referencing is most helpful in ambiguous situations, and many situations are still ambiguous to preschoolers. Recall from Chapter 4 that social referencing refers to reading another person’s emotional expression to decide how you should respond. For example, a 4-year-old boy looked at his teacher’s face before approaching a dog. The teacher smiled, so the child petted the dog. If the teacher had looked worried, the child would have backed away. Preschoolers use social referencing to see if a joke is funny or if their behavior is acceptable. However, they can also deliberately ignore adults’ emotional information if they convey disapproval for misbehavior that the child is enjoying.
What can you do to promote emotional competence among your learners? A powerful approach is to create a positive classroom climate (see Chapter 12 ). You may think that this would be easy in early childhood, but challenging in secondary classrooms. However, in six large studies of early childhood classrooms, teachers’ emotional support was about a 5 on a scale of 1 to 7. A score of 7 meant that there was a positive classroom climate where teachers and children had good relationships, enjoyed being together, and seldom were negative with each other. Thus, while classrooms typically were fairly positive, there was also plenty of room for improvement (Hamre, 2014). Two key ingredients of a positive climate are humor and teacher–child attachment (see Chapter 4 ). Let’s take a look at humor next.
8-1cDevelopment in Humor
Akiva hands her teacher a toy phone. The teacher puts the phone to her ear and says, “Hello? Uh huh, Uh huh, Uh huh, Uh huh, Uh huh, Uh huh. Goodbye!” Akiva giggles at this absurd conversation with such enthusiasm that some of her classmates begin laughing too.
In Chapter 4 , you learned about basic emotions that are present in infants; from these basic emotions, specific emotions emerge as children grow cognitively and gain experience. Humor is one of the most delightful results of that growth. Humor is so widely valued in many cultures that it is an insult to accuse someone of having no sense of humor. However, you probably know people with a great sense of humor, like Akiva, and others with a paltry sense of humor. Let’s see what the research suggests about the importance of humor; first, however, we clarify some basic concepts about humor.
What Is Humor?
Humor is a kind of social-cognitive play that produces the emotion of amusement, accompanied by smiling or laughing. Humor can be intentional or accidental. It can be verbal like a joke, pun, or witticism, or nonverbal like a funny face.
Not all smiles or laughs are caused by humor. In fact, most laughter occurs during day-to-day social interaction, such as “I’ll see you guys later,” which is not humorous but is often accompanied by a small laugh (Provine, 2000). People also giggle when they are socially uncomfortable. Only about 15% of laughter occurs in response to humor or a joke. Thus, laughter helps create positive feelings between people, in addition to being a response to humor.
Causes and Functions of Humor
In the parking lot of a hospital, one of our preschool-aged children asked what a sign said. Mom replied, “Patient Parking.” Our child promptly asked, “Then where do the daddies and impatient people park?”
Adults find this question funny, but our child did not. (Daddy did, sort of.) One cause of humor is processing information with one interpretation (e.g., patients park in one place and medical staff in another), encountering incongruent information (e.g., the meaning of patience), and then rapidly reinterpreting it (Hurley, Dennett, & Adams, 2011). Our child’s question is humorous if you can interpret the contrast between “patients” and “patience.” Young children with limited language and information-processing ability would not find this humorous. Good people-reading skills (see Chapter 9 ) help you further comprehend that our child believed daddies have less patience than mommies, which adds to the humor. That is, cognitive insight triggers humor ( Photo 8.1 ).
Photo 8.1
Humor, a type of social-cognitive play, typically focuses on concepts children have just mastered that are neither too easy nor too hard to understand. Preschoolers find incongruities in appearances and distortion of the physical world humorous.
Playful teasing is a type of humor that is pervasive in social interactions and promotes happiness and social bonding. Adults frequently tease preschoolers, as Akiva’s teacher did, which the children enjoy. However, teasing can go too far and be aggressive. Much like rough-and-tumble play (see Chapter 9 ), you distinguish teasing from aggression by its playful qualities, like good-natured facial expressions. Although most teachers disapprove of aggressive humor, Freud saw some utility in it (see Box 8.1 ).
Box 8.1
Theories & Theorists: Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) is among the most famous theorists in history, like both Darwin (see Chapter 4 ) and Skinner (see Chapter 3 ), with whom his life overlapped. He was born in the Austro–Hungarian Empire to a Jewish family (Isbister, 1985). The family moved to Vienna when he was a young child, where he lived until just before his death. (Hitler also lived in Vienna when Freud was in his 40s.) In the 1930s, the Nazis burned Freud’s books and sent his sisters to death camps. In 1938, he fled to London, where he died as World War II was beginning. He was an obsessive smoker who suffered from mouth cancer, which was linked to his death.
Sigmund Freud
Freud came to believe that unconscious memories of trauma often have an energy that remains dammed up because the memories cannot be expressed in a socially acceptable way, so they are converted to physical symptoms. The symptoms are relieved when the repressed memories are made conscious. Freud made memories conscious through free association, in which patients lay on a couch and said whatever passed through their minds. He called his approach psychoanalysis.
Freud made some revolutionary contributions to psychology and coined many terms you may have heard, such as sibling rivalry. One of his greatest contributions is the concept of the unconscious. He asserted that the unconscious often holds destructive or sexual impulses that are repressed but occasionally leak out, such as a Freudian slip that occurs when you say something that is symbolic of an unconscious attitude that you have repressed. For example, the groom asks what time the funeral is, when he means the wedding.
A second great contribution is his assertion that dreams have meaning. To Freud, dreams represented fulfillment of wishes that are hidden from consciousness. Even in dreams, wishes may be hidden by symbols of real wishes, known as Freudian symbols. Sometimes they have to do with a child’s jealousy of the father and love of the mother, which Freud called the Oedipus complex, named after the Greek character Oedipus who kills his father and marries his mother.
The Id, Ego, and Super-Ego Freud devised a model of the psyche with three components: the id, ego, and super-ego. The id is present at birth and consists of drives that seek pleasure. The ego seeks to control the id. Freud said the id was like a horse, and the ego like the rider. The horse supplies the locomotive energy, but the rider decides on the goal and guides the animal. The ego produces anxiety and repression, which keep impulses out of consciousness (Freud, 1905/1960). The super-ego is the conscience that castigates the ego for failing to control the id. Moral behavior is the result of a strong super-ego. The super-ego is a “substitute for a longing for the father. … As a child grows up, the role of father is carried on by teachers and others in authority; their injunctions and prohibitions remain powerful … and continue, in the form of conscience, to exercise the moral censorship” (Freud, 1923/1961, p. 37). Thus, in Freud’s view, you have a dual nature—amoral gratification of instincts and the moral super-ego.
Humor Freud believed that jokes, like dreams, can have hidden meaning. The purpose can be simply to make others happy and laugh, or it can be to snub them, show aggression, or defend oneself. “By making our enemy … comic, we achieve in a roundabout way the enjoyment of overcoming him” (Freud, 1905/1960, pp. 102–103). Through jokes you can say things that are forbidden or displace anger with laughter. Jokes allow the sneaky id to evade control by the ego.
Morality Freud believed that morality comes from emotions experienced within the family. Children identify with their parents as a result of love and attachment. Children transfer emotions that they feel toward parents to other authority figures such as teachers. Emotions, particularly guilt, regulate behavior because children behave morally in order to control emotions (Tangney, Stuewig, & Mashek, 2007). Research supports Freud’s view that emotions and attachment are foundational to moral development. Note that Freud’s view is different from that of Piaget, who viewed morality as constructed by the child through cognitive development, or that of Skinner, who viewed moral behavior as learned through reinforcement.
Freud died when Skinner was 35. They are often portrayed as polar opposites. Freud focused on the mind and the meaning of behavior, whereas Skinner ignored mind and focused on environmental consequences that shape behavior mechanically. Despite their differences, they both believed that child development is controlled by the environment. They also both believed that people suffer when they are not aware of the forces that control behavior, and both applied their theories to improve society. In fact, Skinner often cited Freud’s work and tried to get psychoanalyzed himself (Overskeid, 2007).
Although Freud had some far-fetched ideas, like the universal fear of castration in little boys, other aspects of his theory have provided insight into human nature. In addition, psychoanalysis can be productive for healing emotional problems. Freud suggested that teachers should be analyzed and trained in psychoanalysis in order to appropriately help children control their id (Freud, 1933/1964). Do you want to give it a try?
What Do Preschoolers Find Funny?
What children think is funny changes with age. You can think of children’s humor as a window to their cognitive development. For example, the shift from the 3-month-old who smiles in response to Daddy talking, to the toddler’s smile of satisfaction after successfully solving a puzzle, to the 10-year-old’s smile at a play on words is a reflection of cognitive development. Children produce and appreciate humor that is neither too easy nor too difficult for them to understand. When they have just mastered a concept, they enjoy jokes about it.
From 3 to 5 years, children find incongruities in appearances and distortion of the physical world humorous, like a cow brushing its teeth or rabbit ears on a child. Preschoolers are more likely to laugh at their own spontaneous distortions than others’ distortions (Bariaud, 2013). By age 4, children may begin to intentionally draw funny pictures. Like toddlers, they find word distortions funny as they are mastering language. Unfortunately for teachers and parents, “poop”-oriented jokes emerge. Preschoolers find games involving “tricking” delightfully fun as their burgeoning people-reading skills (see Chapter 9 ) allow them to intentionally mislead others (Poulin-Dubois & Brosseau-Liard, 2016).
Some preschoolers feel more amusement from distortions, jokes, and tricks. Akiva has a good sense of humor and consistently laughs more than most of her classmates. Let’s look at individual differences next.
What Predicts Individual Differences in Humor?
Humor is often delayed in learners with delayed cognitive abilities (Short, Basili, & Schatschneider, 1993). In contrast, cognitively advanced learners tend to have advanced humor, like Akiva. Medications for ADHD that alter information processing may reduce sense of humor or readiness to laugh in children (Panksepp, 2000).
Humor is also linked to creativity. This is because humor is triggered by incongruity, like seeing an idea or object out of its normal place or seeing something familiar with new eyes. Generating this incongruity is a creative activity, a type of mental gymnastics (Ziv, 2013). In Chapter 12 , you will learn that positive emotions promote creativity. Thus, creativity may be both a cause and a consequence of humor. In Chapter 12 , you will also learn that humorous children cope with stress better, are better liked, and are more successful in school. So stay tuned!
8-2Attachment and Sense of Self in Early Childhood
In Chapter 4 , you learned about attachment and how the Strange Situation Procedure is used to identify four attachment types—secure, avoidant, resistant, and disorganized. The SSP has been modified for use with preschoolers by increasing separation time, and the same attachment types have been identified (Stevenson-Hinde & Verschueren, 2002). However, preschoolers show less separation distress than toddlers. Typically, between 3 and 4 years, children outgrow separation distress. In addition, after age 3 most children are comfortable in strange places with secondary attachment figures, like a sibling or a teacher.
Furthermore, you learned that when parents are sensitive and supportive, their children develop secure attachment and internal working models that “I am worthy of love” and “I am capable of getting important people (my parents) to respond to me.” This becomes the bedrock of high self-esteem. Your sense of self depends on these internal working models, which influence your self-assessment and identification with your gender and ethnic group. Let’s look at these aspects of sense of self next.
8-2aSelf-Assessment
A father saw his daughter splattered with mud. He said, “My, you’re pretty dirty!” The girl replied, “Yes, but I’m even prettier clean.” Could you guess that this child with a robust physical self-concept was 4 years old? Young children tend to be overly optimistic in their self-assessment, particularly about their abilities (Davis-Kean, Jager, & Collins, 2009). Every preschooler may think that he or she is the best player on a soccer team or that he or she is the smartest in a classroom. This inflated self-assessment is good because it prevents preschoolers from giving up, which they might do if they knew how incompetent they really are.
One reason young children have inflated self-assessment is that they are not good at social comparison yet. They have difficulty comparing their own competence to that of others. They also are unlikely to understand that if others do something with less effort, it means that they are more skilled (Nicholls, 1989). For example, they do not understand that if a boy can read only after extensive practice, he is less skilled than another boy who easily reads with little practice. Social comparison skills will increase dramatically in middle childhood.
8-2cEthnic Identity
Children’s developing ethnic identity parallels development in gender identity. In Chapter 5 , you learned that by 9 months of age, infants distinguish faces from their own race better than those from other races and prefer same-race faces (Pauker, Williams, & Steele, 2016). Their preference for same-race faces is reduced if they have experience seeing other-race faces, even if that experience is based on photographs (Anzures et al., 2013).
“How many babies are there?” Sarah asks Corinne.
“Six!” Corinne announces, “Three boys and three girls.”
“How can you tell if they’re boys or girls?” Sarah questions.
“Well,” Corinne begins, “my daddy is White, so the white ones are boys. My mommy is Black, so the black ones are girls.”
Sarah counts: “That’s only five.” (The remaining bunny is black and white.)
“Well, that one is like me, so it’s a girl,” Corinne explains gently. She picks up the bunny and says, “See, this one is both, like me!” (Van Ausdale & Feagin, 1996, p. 784)
As infants’ preference for looking at same-race others grows into playmate preferences and ethnic identity in early childhood, this can set the groundwork for experiences of racism. Preschoolers as young as 3 categorize people into in- and out-groups, and attach stereotypes to the groups. Children’s racial prejudice begins between ages 3 and 6, peaks about ages 5 to 7, and then declines slightly (Raabe & Beelmann, 2011).
In summary, you have learned that attachment fosters internal working models of the self and others, which combines with development of self-assessment and gender and ethnic identity to shape young children’s self-concept. Next we’ll delve deeply into another important component of the self—self-control. You’ll come to understand the integral connection between secure attachment, effective discipline, and self-control in children.
8-3Self-Control in Early Childhood
In a Head Start classroom, 3-year-old Markeet is fidgety, boisterous, and agitating other children during group time. As punishment, his teacher says, “It’s time to go outside and play, but Markeet you’ll have to stay inside with Ms. Terry until you are ready to join us.” Once they are alone in the room, Ms. Terry (the aide) tells Markeet, “You need to sit still, crisscross your legs, and be quiet for 2 minutes. If you talk, I’ll have to start your timer all over.” Markeet is successfully mute and still for 30 seconds, but then asks, “Can I have a book?” Ms. Terry says, “No. You know the rules. Now I have to start the timer again.” Again Markeet is quiet, but 10 seconds later he asks, “Can I go now?” Again Ms. Terry starts the timer over. This pattern is repeated until Markeet misses 12 minutes of the 30-minute outside play period.
In Chapter 6 , we viewed this episode in a Head Start classroom from the perspective of physical development. Let’s revisit it from the perspective of self-control and discipline. In the rest of this chapter, we give you the tools to determine whether your approach to discipline is effective, and clarify how your use of discipline influences your learners’ self-control. First let’s discuss what self-control is and how it develops.
Self-control is the ability to inhibit impulses, obey rules, ignore distractions, be patient, and stay focused on a task. Children with self-control are also able to regulate their emotions and behave in socially acceptable ways whether they are provoked or not. You will learn more about emotion regulation in Chapter 12 . In this chapter, we focus on inhibiting impulses and delaying gratification. Delay of gratification means delaying what you desire in the moment in order to get something more desirable in the long term.
Children are asked to inhibit impulses and delay gratification many times every day in your classroom. They must inhibit their impulses so that they wait their turn for the swing or listen instead of talking when someone else is talking. Impulsivity decreases and self-control increases dramatically from infancy to the preschool years. Infants are impulsive. For example, when they are hungry, they want to be fed immediately. Their ability to restrain behavior is measured in seconds. In one study, when told not to touch a toy, only 11% of 14-month-olds could hold off touching it for even 30 seconds, whereas 65% of 3-year-olds could do so (Friedman, Miyake, Robinson, & Hewitt, 2011).
In a series of classic studies sometimes called the marshmallow studies, scientists measured young children’s ability to delay gratification by placing a tempting pair of items in front of them—for example, one marshmallow versus two, or marshmallows versus pretzels—and telling the children they could have the less preferred item now or the preferred item if they waited, usually about 15 minutes (Mischel, Shoda, & Rodriguez, 1989). These studies have been replicated many times, even on YouTube.
What do such studies find? Older toddlers can wait longer than younger toddlers. Preschoolers can wait even longer. However, even though preschoolers have more self-control than toddlers, their capacity to wait is fairly short-lived, lasting a matter of minutes. Three- and 4-year-olds can wait longer if the preferred item is really big compared to the less-preferred item, but size does little to improve 2-year-olds’ limited delay (Steelandt, Thierry, Broihanne, & Dufour, 2012). Few children under the age of 4 are able to wait a full 15 minutes. This is why young children need your help to wait for a snack or for their turn to use a toy (see Photo 8.3 ).
Photo 8.3
Young children need help controlling their impulses.
David Young-Wolff/PhotoEdit
8-3bGroup Diversity in Self-Control
There are both gender and SES differences in self-control. As early as preschool, girls tend to have more self-control than boys (Duckworth & Seligman, 2006; Moffitt et al., 2011). In addition, children who come from middle- or high-SES backgrounds, on average, have more self-control than low-SES children, and this difference in self-control predicts school grades and cognitive development (Evans & Rosenbaum, 2008).
There are also cultural differences in one aspect of self-control, which is conformity to authority, rules, and peer pressure. Asian cultures value conformity more than U.S. culture does (Fischer & Schwartz, 2011). Children who immigrate from Asian countries or children with a cultural heritage that values conformity report greater respect for parental authority and less expectation for making their own decisions than European American youth (Hardway & Fuligni, 2006). This may be due to a greater emphasis on collectivism in their heritage cultures (see Box 8.2 ). Understanding these group differences may provide insight into your learners, but you also need to be careful not to stereotype based on gender, SES, or ethnicity.
Box 8.2
Theories & Theorists: Collectivism and Individualism
How do cultures differ in ways that influence children’s development? One difference is collectivism versus individualism. In collectivist cultures, the needs of the group are more important than individual needs. Interdependence among people and harmonious relationships are emphasized (Brewer & Chen, 2007). Identity stems from the group, and life satisfaction stems from meeting group obligations. In contrast, individualist cultures emphasize independence, self-reliance, personal freedom, rights, and liberty above duties. Identity stems from personal accomplishments. One’s obligation to one’s family is freely chosen (Giles-Sims & Lockhart, 2005). Independence means that one wants to be an individual who is unique, who can influence outcomes, and who is free of group pressure; in contrast, interdependence means that one wants to be similar to, adjusting to, and rooted in the group (Markus & Conner, 2013). The following examples give you a flavor of such cultural differences:
· The American acceptance of a “lively discussion” in which people argue their points does not exist in Japan because it could disrupt group harmony (Nisbett, 2003, p. 73).
· In some Asian and Pacific Island cultures, respect for elders is so strong that students are unlikely to assert an opinion different from the teacher’s or to point out an error (Lee Hang & Bell, 2015).
· Latinos value familism, giving priority to family interdependence, support, and obligations. Thus, Latino youth are more likely to prefer living at home during college than White or Black youth (Desmond & Turley, 2009), and they are more likely to cook, clean, and help with siblings (Tsai, Telzer, Gonzales, & Fuligni, 2015).
· European Americans think that talking is good for thinking, whereas Koreans think that talking can undermine thinking (Markus & Conner, 2013, p. 4). This is relevant in using active, constructivist approaches to instruction that requires student talk.
· In Ghana, children report that “letting me do things my own way” seems neglectful (Marbell & Grolnick, 2012), whereas in the United States it tends to be viewed as normal.
Some psychologists assert that northern European and American nations are individualistic, whereas Asian nations such as China, Korea, Japan, Pakistan, and India, and also African and Latin nations, are collectivistic (e.g., Rudy & Grusec, 2006). However, this may be an oversimplification. Most cultures are a mixture, and cross-national differences tend to be small (Giles-Sims & Lockhart, 2005). Researchers are increasingly critical of assertions that groups are either collectivist or individualist. Groups may value individual autonomy and also value close relationships, the welfare of the group, and cooperation (Tamis-LeMonda et al., 2008).
Nevertheless, you may find that your learners from collectivist cultures show fewer strong emotions like jumping and shouting, engage less publicly in class, prefer that you (as the authority) make important decisions, and prefer not to argue, especially with authority figures. However, be careful not to stereotype, because these general patterns may not always apply.
Ethnicity in North America Psychologists generally assert that European Americans are less collectivistic than other ethnic groups within North America. Collectivism has been used to explain why Asian American children have relatively high achievement on average, which is that they are obligated to their family to work hard in school. Paradoxically, collectivism has also been used to explain why Latino children have relatively low achievement on average, which is that obligations to the family divert them from schoolwork (Desmond & Turley, 2009; Vázquez García, García Coll, Erkut, Alarcón, & Tropp, 1999). Collectivism has been used to explain why the consequences of authoritarian parenting is not as negative among other ethnic groups as it is among European American children; that is, authoritarian parenting is thought to be less detrimental because deference to authority is emphasized in collectivist cultures (Rudy & Grusec, 2006).
In Chapter 1 , you learned that some children experience mismatch between their heritage culture and the culture of the school. One cause of mismatch can be differences in collectivism and individualism. For example, in a famous study, Asian American children learned more and preferred learning situations in which important others (like their parents or teachers) made decisions for them, such as what task to do or what level of difficulty to attempt, whereas European American children learned more and preferred learning situations in which they made their own decisions (Iyengar & Lepper, 1999). To be an effective multicultural teacher, you need to become aware of your learners’ cultures as well as your own culture and teaching style.
8-3cClassroom Implications of Self-Control
Think about This
Imagine that you have a learner in your classroom who regularly misbehaves. Would your response be “How can I help this learner have greater self-control?” This response is typical for North American or European teachers. They place blame for misbehavior within the learner. Japanese teachers are more likely to place blame for misbehavior within the classroom. Their response might be “How can we create a greater sense of community so that this learner wants to cooperate in class more?” (Hoffman, 2009). Would the strategies you use to eliminate the misbehavior be different depending on which response you had? Explain.
Learners with low self-control are likely to misbehave and have low achievement in your classroom. You can structure the environment to foster self-control by following these guidelines:
1. Teach children to look directly at you during whole-group activities. This reduces visual distractions.
2. Reduce distractions and interruptions. For example, have orderly procedures to address common disruptions like late arrivals; keep tempting objects out of sight; do not interrupt children absorbed in an activity with class announcements (Mauro & Harris, 2000).
3. Exercise learners’ self-control, like a muscle, but without fatiguing it. If a child with low self-control manages to behave well for a while, give a short rest from self-control. Try to keep learners out of situations that overtax their self-control. For example, one boy was always touching other learners—hitting, kicking, punching, and pushing. His teacher put him at the front of every line to limit temptations to touch. She had him put his hands in his pockets while in the hallway. These simple tactics helped substantially.
4. Provide healthy foods. Self-control uses up glucose, the brain’s fuel. Learners have more self-control when they have adequate glucose supplies in their bodies (Baumeister et al., 2007).
5. Plan to do the classroom activities that require the most self-control earlier in the day. Self-control tends to be highest early in the day and lowest in the evening (Gailliot, 2008). (Your wise parents probably knew this, which is why they insisted on an early curfew!)
6. Use statements like “You are patient” to communicate positive expectations. A randomized study with preschoolers found that if they were told to imagine that they were Superman, and that Superman has lots of patience and can wait really well, they were better able to delay gratification (Karniol et al., 2011).
In summary, research suggests that self-control increases steadily from toddlerhood through the preschool years. Even among children of the same age, there are large individual differences in self-control. These differences in self-control are linked to information-processing ability, attachment, and practice exercising self-control. They are also linked to gender, SES, and culture. Let’s review Ms. Terry’s interaction with Markeet. She overfatigued his limited self-control abilities and did little to help him grow in self-control. The interaction would have been more successful, and pleasant for both of them, had she used the guidelines above. In addition, it was not effective discipline. One of the most powerful things you can do to promote your learners’ self-control is to use effective discipline. We focus on how to do this next.
8-4Effective Discipline
In a preschool classroom, 4-year-old Sammy has scattered the blocks across the room. He leaves them there as he moves on to do a puzzle. Mrs. Sanchez asks him to clean up, but he refuses at first.
Mrs. Sanchez:
Sammy, please pick up the blocks before you start your puzzle.
Sammy:
No.
Mrs. Sanchez:
We have to clean up one mess before we start a new activity.
Sammy:
[Shakes his head “no.”] Not gonna clean up. Don’t wanna.
Mrs. Sanchez:
These blocks are dangerous. Someone could trip and fall on them. Pick them up.
Sammy:
[Shakes his head “no.”]
Mrs. Sanchez:
[Still speaking kindly, but firmly] Sammy, you know that you should clean up the blocks. Let’s do it now.
Sammy ignores her.
Mrs. Sanchez tries again, as she places two blocks in the container.
Come on. Would you like me to help you with the first blocks? Come on. Let’s get this picked up.
Sammy watches her,
and then silently begins to pick up blocks.
Mrs. Sanchez:
Thank you, Sammy. You are a helpful boy.
Was this effective discipline? Compare it with Markeet’s experience. Is Sammy likely to develop greater self-control as a result of this discipline episode? As a teacher, you will face these important questions every day because misbehavior is common in classrooms. Discipline refers to attempts to correct misbehavior; it is a subset of classroom management, which includes discipline and also attempts to structure the classroom in a way that avoids the necessity of disciplining. We discuss discipline next, and then classroom management.
Most children do not obey every rule all the time—you probably did not when you were a child. Thus, you will probably need to discipline children on an hourly basis. We will discuss different approaches you can use to support appropriate behavior, but first let’s be clear about the goal of discipline.
8-4bResponses to Discipline
There are four ways a child can respond to adult directives:
· (1)
compliance;
· (2)
direct defiance or refusal;
· (3)
passive noncompliance, which means the child ignores the directive; and
· (4)
negotiation, which means the child asserts his or her own agenda and negotiates a compromise.
Compliance is obedience to a specific request or rule, or long-term adherence to a set of general rules.
Direct defiance is a marker of behavior problems in older children, but not in toddlers. Well-adjusted toddlers can occasionally be quite defiant, although they are generally positive (Dix, Stewart, Gershoff, & Day, 2007). Research has found that mothers and toddlers argue roughly 20 to 25 times per hour on average, with a range of 4 to 55 times (Laible & Thompson, 2002; Laible, Panfile, & Makariev, 2008). A study of toddlers found that they initially disobeyed a request 39% of the time (Dahl & Campos, 2013). There is a shift in the preschool years. Between ages 2 and 5, direct defiance and passive noncompliance decline, but negotiation increases as children develop social skills (Kuczynski & Kochanska, 1990). Is 4-year-old Sammy’s defiance age appropriate? Not if he consistently defies adults. However, there is no need for concern if he is usually compliant and has good social skills.
You might think that compliance is always the ideal response, but negotiation may be more appropriate in many situations. For example, when a child is told to clean up, she might say, “I’ll clean up after I finish this puzzle.” Negotiation, rather than unquestioning compliance, marks the preschooler’s emerging ability to balance autonomy with social responsibility. Young children who say no to their parents and then engage in negotiation are likely to be securely attached and developmentally advanced (Crockenberg & Litman, 1990). They are more likely to become socially competent several years later (Laible & Thompson, 2002). Successful negotiation requires sophisticated social skills on the child’s part. Thus, adults who are open to negotiation during discipline may provide an opportunity for children to develop social skills. In addition, the type of discipline that adults use can promote children’s social skills and emotional well-being.
8-4cTypes of Discipline
We discuss three types of discipline: induction, psychological control, and power assertion. Both psychological control and power assertion are linked to negative child outcomes. Induction is more likely to result in internalization, so let’s begin with induction.
Induction
Induction is a type of discipline in which an adult explains the reason for rules and points out the consequences of breaking rules ( Photo 8.5 ). Discipline is more effective when accompanied by a good rationale (Maccoby, 1992). Giving children reasons for doing the right thing helps them understand why a rule is important. For example, when you say, “If everyone wrote in the library books, the pictures would not look nice, and other people might be disappointed,” you help the child understand your reasons and share in your goals. A particularly important form of induction is victim-centered induction, in which the adult points out how the child’s behavior has made someone else feel. For example, you might say, “You really hurt Juanita’s feelings when you didn’t let her join you.”
Photo 8.5
Induction is the most effective form of discipline for promoting self-control.
Induction is linked to self-control and social competence. Children who are disciplined with induction rather than other types of discipline are more likely to internalize values and obey rules even when adults are not present. They are more likely to negotiate about, rather than defy, directives. They also are more likely to be empathic, be kind to others, and have fewer behavior problems (Kerr, Lopez, Olson, & Sameroff, 2004; Krevans & Gibbs, 1996; Paulussen-Hoogeboom, Stams, Hermanns, & Peetsma, 2007). Recall from Chapter 5 that use of victim-centered induction promotes prosocial behavior in children.
Induction may be the most effective form of discipline regardless of age of the child. It makes sense that induction would be effective with older youth, but what about young children? If a young child approaches the parking lot, shouldn’t you just firmly say, “No!” rather than “Don’t go there; you’ll get run over!”? Apparently not. Much of the research on the positive effects of induction has been conducted with toddlers, indicating that even toddlers learn from induction. Although the first part of the communication—Don’t go there—may be the most important for preventing disaster, the second part—you’ll get run over—is also important for training future behavior. Simply saying, “No!” or “Stop that!” in response to misbehavior is the opposite of induction and may be effective at stopping a behavior (or not), but it does not guide the child with reasons.
Unlike induction, which appeals to children’s reason, psychological control appeals to children’s need for approval and affection. Although some disapproval of the child is communicated in any discipline, it is minimal in induction. In contrast, disapproval of the child is a central focus of psychological control.
Psychological Control
Power Assertion
Think about This
What type of discipline is a “time-out”? Is it an effective form of discipline? Base your answers on what you have learned about discipline in this chapter.
Power assertion is a form of discipline in which the adult relies on power or resources to control behavior, as Ms. Terry did with Markeet. Power assertion can take four forms:
· (1)
physical punishment, like spanking;
· (2)
deprivation of material objects or privileges, like taking away free play time;
· (3)
direct application of power, like carrying the child away from a conflict; or
· (4)
threats to use forms 1, 2, or 3.
Power assertion is common in schools, particularly removal of privileges. An easy way to recognize power assertion is the presence of an “or else” clause, either explicit or implied, in the command. For example, a teacher might say, “Quit talking or else you’ll be kept in from outside play.”
Costs of Power Assertion
There are five serious costs to using power-assertive discipline.
1. Children become less compliant. Adults using power-assertive discipline often achieve immediate compliance, which reinforces the adults’ use of power assertion in the future. However, it results in less compliance over the long run (Erath, El-Sheikh, & Cummings, 2009; Gershoff, 2013).
2. Children do not internalize values (Kochanska, Aksan, & Joy, 2007). Even if misbehavior improves, the emotions and thoughts that are influencing that behavior do not necessarily change. Situational compliance may be achieved, but not committed compliance.
3. Children resent the disciplinarian. Power assertion jeopardizes the caring relationship between adult and child. How do you feel toward someone who threatens you if you don’t do what they want? Children often have similar negative feelings toward those who wield power over them.
4. Children need more and more coercion. When children are constantly threatened until they comply, they begin to ignore mild threats and comply only for stronger threats. They come to expect overt power assertion and threats before they will comply (Patterson & Bank, 1989).
5. Children imitate the aggression of power-assertive adult models. Children who experience power-assertive discipline are more likely to be aggressive and delinquent later (Bender et al., 2007). This is especially a problem with corporal punishment, a subset of power-assertive discipline.
Research robustly shows that heavy-handed, power-assertive discipline leads to angry, resentful children who are likely to become aggressive. This effect occurs for children of all ages, toddlers to teens. Secure attachment is a protective factor. This means that even when parents are power assertive, if they have a secure attachment with the child, the child is less likely to become aggressive (Kochanska, Barry, Stellern, & O’Bleness, 2009).
Corporal punishment , a form of power assertion, is physical punishment such as hitting or spanking. Spanking is common. About 35 to 45% of parents of children ages 1 through 9 spank their children weekly, though many parents choose not to spank (Berlin et al., 2009; Straus, Sugarman, & Giles-Sims, 1997). About 85% of teens report that they were spanked or slapped at some point in childhood (Gershoff, 2013). People hold strong, opposite opinions on whether spanking and other forms of corporal punishment are appropriate. What does the research say?
Like other forms of power assertion, corporal punishment is associated with less obedience in the long term (Gershoff, 2013; Lansford et al., 2009; MacKenzie, Nicklas, Waldfogel, & Brooks-Gunn, 2012). This is ironic given that adults spank children because they want the spanking to function as punishment and decrease a behavior.
In addition, children who are spanked become aggressive and antisocial over time, even if they were not prone to misbehavior to begin with. Spanked children tend to increase in aggression in the long term (Gershoff, 2013). Severe corporal punishment that goes beyond spanking, including punishment that could be considered abuse (see Box 8.3 ), is linked to later violence against dating partners in young adults, like shoving, slapping, and beating up the partner (Swinford, DeMaris, Cernkovich, & Giordano, 2000). Parents who were physically abused as children may be more likely to spank their own children, including 1-year-olds (Chung et al., 2009). Referring to corporal punishment, former president of the American Psychological Association Alan Kazdin summarized the research by saying, “We are not giving up an effective technique. We are saying this is a horrible thing that does not work” (Smith, 2012, p. 60).
Box 8.3
Challenges in Development: Child Abuse
Child abuse is related to discipline because over half of physical abuse instances may have started as attempts to correct behavior using corporal punishment (Gershoff, 2013). Child abuse takes four forms: physical, emotional, and sexual abuse and criminal neglect. Physical abuse refers to harming children physically, like hitting them with an object, or burning them with cigarette butts. Emotional abuse refers to nonphysical harm such as excessive criticism, blaming, or telling them they are not loved or wanted. Sexual abuse refers to any type of sexual violation against a child, including fondling, exhibition, or exposure to pornography. Criminal neglect refers to ignoring children or depriving them of food, shelter, and adequate hygiene.
Prevalence Each year in the United States, over 700,000 children are abused or neglected and about 1,500 died of that abuse or neglect in 2014. As distressing as these numbers are, they are probably underestimates. Much abuse is never reported. Among reported cases, neglect is most common, followed by physical abuse. Notice in Figure 8.3 that multiple maltreatments are more common than physical abuse alone and can include physical abuse.
Figure 8.3Rates of Child Abuse
This graph depicts the relative frequency of different types of child abuse in the United States in 2015. Of all types of maltreatment, what is the single most common? The second most common?
Source: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (2016, Table 3-10, p. 46; sum to more than 100% due to methods of counting).
Physical and emotional abuse and neglect begin anywhere from infancy to adolescence. Sexual abuse occurs most often at about ages 4 to 5 and 14 to 15 (Snyder, 2000). Some children experience a single incident of abuse, whereas others experience many years of abuse. Neglect is the most likely to begin early and last a long time. Girls are more likely to be reported as sexually abused than boys (Dong, Anda, Dube, Giles, & Felitti, 2003). Boys and girls are about equally likely to be victims of other kinds of abuse.
Who Abuses? Most children know the person who abuses them. About 80% of abuse and neglect perpetrators are parents or stepparents. The exception is that sexual abusers are more likely to be friends and neighbors, followed by relatives, and then child care providers (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2009). Men are more likely than women to murder children, and killers are most likely to be the father or the mother’s boyfriend (Fujiwara, Barber, Schaechter, & Hemenway, 2009).
What Factors Predict Child Abuse? Children resulting from unwanted pregnancy are more likely to be abused. Children with vulnerabilities, such as low birth weight, poor health, and developmental delays are more likely to be abused, although this does not mean that children invite their own abuse (Sidebotham, Heron, & The ALSPAC Study Team, 2003). Mothers who suffer from depression or who feel they have little control as parents and who think power assertion is the best way to discipline are more likely to abuse (Bugental & Happaney, 2004). Most families (90%) in which a child is abused report significant financial hardship (Bolger & Patterson, 2001). Families are likely to be poor, live in subsidized housing, and have an unemployed father. Poverty may explain why maltreatment varies by neighborhood. For example, in Washington, D.C., one neighborhood had 0.3 victims of substantiated maltreatment per 1,000 population, while another neighborhood had 35.4 (Murphey & Cooper, 2015).
What Are the Long-Term Consequences of Child Abuse? Abuse is linked to lower academic achievement. Physically abused children are more likely to be distractible and inattentive than nonabused classmates because they are always on the lookout for others’ aggression. Abused children are more likely to be in special education, to have low achievement test scores, to fail a grade, and to have poor work habits at school (Shonk & Cicchetti, 2001).
Abuse is also linked to emotional and social problems. Abused children may have less empathy, lack warmth toward others, and not read others’ emotions as well as nonabused learners. They may experience poor emotion regulation, such as being depressed or falling to pieces under stress (Kim & Cicchetti, 2006; Teisl & Cicchetti, 2008). Children who are maltreated often have disorganized attachment and may become aggressive or overly compliant and too eager to please adults (Cullerton-Sen et al., 2009). Mothers who were abused as children show lower levels of responsiveness and empathy toward their infants (Bert, Guner, & Lanzi, 2009).
Abuse is also linked with poor physical development and poor health through adulthood. Recall what you learned about adverse childhood experience in Chapter 2 . Both physical and emotional problems may result from brains that are altered by the chronic, uncontrollable stress of maltreatment (Hanson et al., 2013; Pollak, 2008). Stress can cause chronic inflammation and undermine the immune system, resulting in illnesses such as depression, heart disease, and asthma (Jaffee & Christian, 2014).
However, some children survive abuse reasonably well. The degree of negative outcomes depends on the risk and protective factors operating in their lives. Outcomes depend on how severe, frequent, and early the abuse and how much shame, depression, and stress the child feels.
Implications for Teachers Teachers are mandated reporters . Mandatory reporting laws, which vary by state, require professionals who work with children to report evidence of child abuse. School personnel are the largest single source of abuse reports, responsible for 17% of reports (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2009). The most obvious signs of physical abuse you may see are bruises, broken bones, and burn marks that are unlikely to have happened through normal accidents. The main evidence of sexual abuse is when a child tells someone of the abuse (Goodman, Emery, & Haugaard, 1998). Emotional abuse and neglect are difficult to detect. Can children accurately report their own abuse? They can, although memories are subject to distortion (Bruck, Ceci, & Principe, 2006; Goodman & Quas, 2008). There is a widespread belief that anatomically correct dolls help children report abuse, but there is little evidence to support the use of such dolls, and they can increase erroneous reports of inappropriate touching (Poole, Bruck, & Pipe, 2011).
Some teachers assume they should involve parents when a learner in their class needs discipline. However, if parents are abusive or have very poor child management skills, they may respond by harshly punishing the child. This could undermine the child’s self-control and cause the child to resent you, while making him or her vulnerable to further abuse. Thus, caution is called for when involving some parents in disciplining learners. If you suspect abuse, work with the school counselor, who should be trained in appropriate questioning (Brubacher, Powell, Skouteris, & Guadagno, 2015). Some schools have implemented child sexual abuse prevention programs that attempt to teach learners how to recognize abuse, appropriate touching, and good versus bad secrets. Such programs may have some positive effects, but the evidence is sparse (Topping & Barron, 2009). Maltreated children are particularly prone to want a close relationship with their teachers, even though they may be more challenging to bond with (see Chapter 4 ). Attachment to teachers may foster resiliency in abused children.
How can you decide which is the best disciplinary approach? There are three principles of effective discipline that can guide your decision.
8-4dPrinciples of Effective Discipline
The first principle of effective discipline is that you must achieve compliance. If you can get a child to obey you today, that child is more likely to obey you tomorrow, and so are observing classmates. Conversely, if you do not achieve compliance in one encounter, it will be even harder to achieve compliance in the next encounter. You can never completely ensure compliance. No matter how much power you have, you cannot force children to do what you want. Without taping his mouth shut, you cannot force Markeet or any other learner to stop talking. You cannot force Sammy to pick up the blocks. Children must choose to obey you. However, there are ways to increase the likelihood of compliance.
One way to increase the likelihood of compliance is to use high-probability requests, or requests that you know the child will obey, before working up to requests that are low probability (Lee, 2005). For example:
Five-year-old Jesse’s teacher told him he could not go outside to play without his coat on because it was too cold. Jesse refused to put his coat on. For several cold days, the conflict over the coat grew. The teacher decided to try using high-probability requests. Jesse loved to clap his hands when asked. The teacher said, “Jesse, clap your hands!” He did, and she clapped hers. She asked again. He did again. She asked a third time. He did it again. She said, “Jesse, put your coat on!” He did.
Compliance with high-probability requests creates a cooperative mindset in the child that increases the likelihood of complying with low-probability requests (Williams & Forehand, 1984). Another way to increase the likelihood of compliance is to ask nicely, in the context of a warm teacher–child relationship, which brings us to the next principle.
The second principle of effective discipline is to keep the emotional tone positive during the discipline encounter. Commands are more effective when adults give them accompanied by positive acts, such as smiling or complimenting the child. Children in a positive mood are more likely to comply with requests (Feldman & Klein, 2003). Children in a warm, secure relationship are more likely to respond with committed compliance (Kochanska, Aksan, & Carlson, 2005). Keeping the tone positive is particularly important for difficult, anger-prone children.
One way to keep discipline emotionally positive and to promote compliance is to cooperate with your learners. Whenever it is reasonable, cooperate with their agendas, allowing them control of activities, rather than always imposing your agenda on them. (Recall from Chapter 4 that this is one way to promote secure relationships with learners.) One concrete strategy to help you become more cooperative with learners is to say no less often. Instead of saying, “No, you can’t paint now,” you could say “Okay. As soon as you finish putting your blocks away, you can paint.” The message is the same—you must put away blocks before painting—but the second approach acknowledges the child’s agenda, is cooperative, and is more likely to elicit compliance. The more you say no, the more often you will hear it come back to you.
The third principle of effective discipline is to use the least amount of power that is sufficient to achieve compliance. All discipline involves some form of power. Yet, when power is minimal in discipline encounters, children are more likely to believe that they complied because they chose to (Lepper, 1983). The children may think, “I’m doing this because it’s the right thing to do, and I chose it.” On the other hand, when power is blatant and excessive, children will likely believe they complied because of the teacher’s show of power. The children may think, “I’m doing this because if I don’t, I will be punished. I don’t want to do it, but I will to avoid punishment.” In this case, the children’s compliance is situational. The children will probably feel free to change their behavior when the teacher is out of sight.
This helps explain why power assertion tends not to foster internalization. You can promote internalization by helping your learners think in a way that emphasizes motives for good behavior. For example, you might say, “You feel bad because you hurt Teresa’s feelings,” rather than saying, “You feel bad because I caught you.”
One way to minimize the power you exert in a discipline encounter is to use subtle rather than obvious forms of control. For example, you can whisper so a noisy class must be quiet to hear you instead of threatening them with less outside play if they don’t quiet down. Similarly, if Markeet is distracting nearby learners, you could simply move Markeet near you and gently tap his shoulder rather than scolding from the front of the class. In each case, your behaviors are likely to reduce noise, but one draws attention to your power, and the other minimizes awareness of your power.
What can you do if you prefer to use induction but feel trapped into power assertion because some children are already angry and defiant, come from families that emphasize power assertion, and have already adapted to high levels of coercion? You need a form of discipline that is powerful enough to encourage compliance but subtle enough to allow children to believe they obeyed because of personal choice. The discipline should also foster a positive relationship. One approach you could use is to persuade children in a persistent way until they obey. Let’s look at how this works.
Applying the Principles of Effective Discipline: Persistent Persuasion
When a child in your classroom is not complying, you can continually restate the command until the child complies, but without increasing the level of power assertion (Bergin & Bergin, 1999). You don’t need to use threats or increasingly hostile tones. Instead, present commands in a reasonable or friendly tone of voice. You don’t need to use an “or else” clause (either implicitly or explicitly), as in “You better do this or else…” Avoiding threats helps lower expectations for coercion. You can reframe the command or give additional rationales for compliance with each repetition. You should respond to the child’s negotiation and remain in control until compliance is achieved. Afterward, you can attribute the compliance to the child’s good intentions. For example, you might say, “You are so helpful; I knew you wanted to do what is right!”
The critical aspects of this persistent persuasion approach are
· (1)
you do not quit making the request until compliance is achieved, and
· (2)
you do not escalate demands by getting louder or by making threats.
Thus, you achieve compliance without encouraging the child to expect coercion and threats. Mrs. Sanchez used it with Sammy.
You can follow up persistent persuasion by reminding the child of previous compliance when the same or similar rules are broken later. “Do you remember yesterday, when I asked you to pick up the blocks, and you did it?” Children are more likely to obey in the next encounter with less effort on the part of the adult. Recall that with power assertion the opposite is true.
You may have noticed that induction takes patience, effort, and time. Yet it can take less time away from instruction than other, less effective, forms of discipline. For example, Ms. Terry spent 12 minutes doing nothing but trying to get compliance from Markeet. Her power assertive approach cost outdoor playtime for Markeet and damaged her relationship with him. Markeet is not likely to internalize appropriate values from this encounter, but is likely to come to dislike school. Ms. Sanchez, in contrast, who used persistent persuasion with Sammy, achieved compliance with less time and effort, still maintained her authority in the classroom, and fostered a positive atmosphere.
Why Persistent Persuasion Should Work
Some teachers might disapprove of Sammy’s teacher because she failed to punish disobedience. However, remember that effective discipline has two goals. The first is to obtain compliance. The second, more important goal is to teach self-control, or help children internalize positive values. The persistent persuasion used by Mrs. Sanchez incorporates all three principles of effective discipline that lead to internalization:
1. The discipline does not rely upon obvious power. Although teachers do have more power than learners, in persistent persuasion the display of power is weak, unclear, and not enough to account for learners’ compliance. This allows learners to interpret their compliance as the result of choice rather than force. Learners are not obeying just to avoid a threat of punishment, because there is no clear threat.
2. The interaction is not negative. Too often disciplinary encounters become struggles for control between an angry teacher and an angry learner, whereas neither Mrs. Sanchez nor Sammy was angry. Persistent persuasion helps teachers maintain a positive feeling in the classroom. One teacher said that she had not realized how negative her classroom had become until she tried persistent persuasion. She said that the classroom became more pleasant; she liked the children more; and she was less exhausted at the end of the day.
3. The child can negotiate. Some teachers believe that negotiation with children shows weakness, and children should obey simply because they are children. However, allowing children to negotiate with you during discipline has three positive effects:
· (1)
It creates a more reciprocal relationship;
· (2)
it increases the likelihood of committed compliance; and
· (3)
it provides you with opportunity to develop increased empathy for children as you listen to them.
4. The process of negotiation can also reveal to you when your requests are inappropriate. One teacher found that when he tried to give a reason why the child had to comply with his command, he could not think of one. He abandoned the command.
Persistent persuasion is a form of induction that has a sound theoretical basis derived from research. You may find other discipline approaches that you are comfortable with. Whatever approach you adopt, evaluate it to be sure it improves compliance, internalization, and emotions in your classroom.
Applying the Principles of Effective Discipline: Skill Development
Although persistent persuasion can help you achieve compliance in a positive atmosphere, sometimes the problem underlying the child’s misbehavior is lack of skill, not a lack of motivation to behave well. Often children want to behave well but don’t know how (Greene, 2011; Ollendick et al., 2015). If this is the case, it will be more effective to figure out what skills are missing and then teach those skills. The missing skills could be academic (e.g., how to write letters), self-management (e.g., difficulty handling transitions or uncertainty), or social skills (e.g., how to join a play group).
A skills-based approach, called “collaborative and proactive solutions” (Greene, 2011), involves conversing with the misbehaving child and has three key components:
· Empathy. You deeply desire to understand the problem from the child’s point of view. You listen without criticism or suggestions. You might state, “I am still confused” or “Can you explain that?”
· Defining the problem. Introduce your concerns into the conversation, for example, how will the problem affect the child and others? Don’t bring up solutions yet. For example, you might ask, “I am curious. Why don’t you go to tutoring after school?” or “My concern is that when you yell at Hillary, you disrupt the class and undermine your own learning.”
· Invitation. You and the child brainstorm solutions that are realistic and satisfactory to both. Instead of telling what should happen, you wonder out loud what the child thinks should happen, and together you generate a plan. You might say, “I wonder if there is a way…”
This approach does not assume that learners lack motivation to behave well; it maintains a positive relationship; and it generates solutions to the problem behavior.
8-4eGroup Diversity in Discipline
What kind of discipline did you receive when you were growing up? Your answer may be influenced by your gender, SES, and cultural background. Boys get in more trouble at school than girls. We’ll discuss the gender and ethnic “discipline gap” more in Chapter 16 . What about SES and ethnicity?
Socioeconomic Status
Research consistently shows that low-SES children are more likely than high-SES children to experience and approve of power assertive or harsh discipline at home, including corporal punishment (e.g., Evans, 2004; Kochanska et al., 2007). This is true across cultures and countries (Douglas, 2006; Erkman & Rohner, 2006; Tang, 2006). One reason for this may be that low-SES families are more likely to live in unsafe neighborhoods and use power-assertive discipline in order to protect their children.
Ethnicity
Rules about how children should behave during discipline encounters may vary by ethnicity. For example, in some ethnic communities children are taught to look a parent in the eye when they are being disciplined to show that they are paying attention. In other ethnic communities, including some African and African American communities, looking an authority figure in the eye is a sign of disrespect. For another example, in some (but not all) East Asian cultures, children may smile or even giggle while being disciplined. American teachers may think the child is laughing at them, and become angry if they do not realize that smiles in this situation can mean that the children admit guilt (Weinstein, Tomlinson-Clarke, & Curran, 2004).
Corporal punishment also varies by ethnicity. Spanking is used more and viewed more favorably by Black than White and Latino parents in the United States, although spanking is linked to behavior problems in children (Berlin et al., 2009; Lansford et al., 2009; Lorber, O’Leary, & Slep, 2011). In countries outside the United States, mothers who believe that men are justified in hitting their wives are also more likely to endorse hitting children as useful for child rearing (Lansford, Deater-Deckard, Bornstein, Putnick, & Bradley, 2014). You may have children from U.S. subcultures or immigrant children from other countries where corporal punishment is common.
8-4fClassroom Implications of Discipline
Discipline is one of the primary tasks of teachers. You may eliminate about 75% of the misbehavior in your classroom if you use effective discipline, even if you teach difficult-to-manage children (Balfanz, Herzog, & MacIver, 2007).
How do you know if your discipline is effective? Ask yourself: “What did I teach?” If the answer is good values and self-control, you are on the right track. Think of discipline encounters as teaching moments. You will hear about many approaches to classroom discipline—Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports (PBIS), Behavior Intervention Support Team (BIST), Assertive Discipline, Discipline with Dignity, Positive Discipline, and Teacher Effectiveness Training, to name just a few. Before you select an approach, confirm whether it has been evaluated using good science (see Chapter 1 ). You will be an effective disciplinarian if you follow these guidelines suggested by research:
1. When deciding how and when to use discipline in your classroom, keep in mind that effective discipline
· (1)
results in compliance,
· (2)
is positive in tone, and
· (3)
uses the least amount of power possible.
2. Use induction as your primary approach to discipline because it promotes self-control. However, power assertion may be appropriate when children are physically hurting each other and you need to forcibly separate them quickly.
If you choose to use power assertion, there are more- and less-effective ways to use it. In the next section, we discuss behavior modification, which can be quite effective.
Behavior Modification
When teachers deliberately apply operant conditioning to children, it is called behavior modification or applied behavior analysis . Recall from Chapter 3 that as behavior becomes associated with certain consequences, behavior will increase or decrease. Reinforcement refers to a consequence that increases the probability of a specific behavior. Punishment refers to a consequence that reduces the probability of a specific behavior. Behavior modification is power assertion in that it operates by virtue of the teacher wielding power, or control of resources, that the child does not have. However, power-assertive discipline tends to be negative and punishment-oriented, whereas behavior modification tends to be positive, emphasizing reinforcement rather than punishment. You have seen a negative example of power assertion in this chapter. Ms. Terry used it with Markeet, and their discipline encounter was not successful. Behavior modification, on the other hand, can be quite successful when used effectively.
Our program was located in the center of a subsidized housing neighborhood. We were tasked with helping the children develop strong pre-reading skills so that they were ready for success when they entered elementary school. We had 30 children with challenging backgrounds. On some days, we’d get a phone call instructing us to send the kids home to their apartments, and we [the teachers] were to leave the neighborhood because a drug bust was about to go down. In the first month, things went well; the children were thrilled to be in the classroom and enjoyed everything we did. However, significant behavior problems began to emerge; one of the 5-year-olds even took to throwing chairs at other children, and a security guard had to restrain him. It felt like all I did was quell fights. Things were out of control.
We decided to use heavy-handed behavior modification. We gave the kids popsicle sticks every time they engaged in appropriate academic or prosocial behaviors. They could turn the sticks in for small prizes. Within a few weeks, we saw an amazing turnaround in behavior. But we became concerned about our use of the popsicle sticks. Pretty soon the kids seemed more interested in earning the sticks and keeping track of them than in our class activities. We decided to gradually transition to just using them on special days, and focus on induction the rest of the time. The children’s behavior continued to be relatively good for the rest of the year.
Applied behavior analysis also uses principles from operant conditioning and is especially common in the treatment of learners with autism, ADHD, and intellectual disabilities (e.g., Eikeseth, 2009). It has also been used to change a variety of behaviors in typically developing children, such as to be physically active during recess (Hayes & Van Camp, 2015), move more quickly during classroom transitions (Hine, Ardoin, & Foster, 2015), tackle properly in football (Stokes, Luiselli, & Reed, 2010), and stay on task in the classroom (Austin & Soeda, 2008). Figure 8.4 shows how two 3rd-graders’ physical activity increased when they were reinforced with small toys for increasing the number of steps they took during recess.
Figure 8.4Applied Behavior Analysis during Recess
The authors of this study wanted to increase vigorous activity of 3rd-graders during 20-minute recesses. These data are from two girls, Ellen and Sarah. During time A, the investigators just observed the two girls until their activity stabilized. During time B, the intervention, they gave the girls a Fitbit to count steps and set goals for the number of steps. They also reinforced the girls with small toys. Activity increased. During the second time A, the investigators stopped giving reinforcers or goals. Activity decreased. When reinforcers and goals were given again, activity increased again.
Source: Data from Hayes and Van Camp (2015).
School psychologists and special education teachers often use behavior modification and applied behavior analysis because they are powerful methods for quickly changing behavior, even with challenging children. You can also use them successfully with typical children. To be successful, you must analyze the child’s behavior and carefully develop a solution. Follow these guidelines:
1. Before you begin an intervention, document a base rate for behaviors. Count the misbehaviors. Note the events that occur before the behavior (antecedents), and the consequences that follow the behavior that may be reinforcing it. Then, systematically alter the antecedents and consequences, and observe what happens. Figure out what combination of antecedents and consequences best changes the target behavior (Epstein, Atkins, Cullinan, Kutash, & Weaver, 2008).
2. Apply the principles of operant conditioning deliberately:
· Provide positive consequences for positive behavior.
· Change the child’s behavior in small steps (i.e., shaping).
· Give immediate feedback.
· Be consistent.
· Set explicit goals.
· Allow adequate practice or rehearsal.
3. Reinforce good behavior rather than punishing misbehavior. Most advocates of behavior modification and applied behavior analysis are critical of using punishment because it can elicit aggression, fear, or resentment; it does not teach anything new; and it provides a negative model that learners may imitate.
4. If you feel you must use punishment, tell your learners exactly what behavior will result in punishment and exactly what the punishment is. Administer the punishment as soon as possible after the infraction. Do this in the context of a warm, caring environment. Combine the punishment with induction; that is, give reasons for why the behavior is prohibited.
Punishment is quite challenging to use effectively in classrooms. Markeet’s experience illustrates important pitfalls you want to avoid in your classroom:
1. Avoid punishing children in ways that remove them from opportunities to learn. Markeet is missing substantial outdoor playtime that could promote social and motor skills.
2. Make sure that intended rewards are actually reinforcing.
3. Avoid punishments that send a negative message about doing productive things, like making children clean up as a punishment.
4. Make sure that intended punishment is not reinforcing. For example, if time-out is intended to punish by removing the child from sources of reinforcement, verify that the child is not being reinforced with attention or being removed from a situation the child wants to escape.
Time-out is a widely used behavior-modification approach in preschools in which a misbehaving child is removed from ongoing activity and from access to reinforcement. It does not require isolation; time-out works through a contrast between the normal, presumably attractive, environment and the time-out environment, which is devoid of reinforcers. It does reduce misbehavior (Morawska & Sanders, 2011). How do children feel about being in time-out? In one study 2- to 4-year-olds said they felt lonely, disliked by their teacher, and scared. Some children were put in time-out for trivial infractions, suggesting it may be overused by preschool teachers (Readdick & Chapman, 2000). A criticism is that time-out does little to teach appropriate behavior.
If you apply behavior-modification principles effectively in your classroom, you are likely to see improvement in children’s behavior. However, there are important criticisms of behavior modification, even when the focus is on reward rather than punishment. One criticism is that behavior change may be short-lived and may not generalize to other situations. Another criticism is that controlling consequences may undermine children’s feelings of autonomy in a way that makes them want to rebel. Finally, while behavior modification changes behavior, attitude change and internalization of values may not accompany behavior change.
This last problem—lack of internalization—is particularly linked to use of material reinforcement. Some teachers reward good behavior with objects like a sticker, candy, or prizes. Although this may seem positive, there can be subtle, unintended negative effects on internalization. In a famous experiment, preschoolers who liked to draw were randomly assigned to a group that was rewarded for their drawing or to a control group that was not rewarded (Lepper, Greene, & Nisbett, 1973). Later, the children who received the reward showed less interest in drawing. The reward appeared to undermine intrinsic interest in the task. This effect has been replicated many times with children, teens, and adults doing many different tasks (Lepper, Keavney, & Drake, 1996; Ryan & Deci, 1996). This suggests that rewarding learners for good behavior can undermine their intrinsic motivation for the behavior, possibly short-circuiting their development of self-control.
Think about This
The president of the National Association for the Education of Young Children visited a school in China, where she witnessed forty 3-year-olds sit still at their desks for 40 minutes watching a peer performance. In India, she saw sixty 1st-grade boys sit on the floor (only the teacher had a desk) in rapt attention during a lesson. There was no misbehavior in either class (Katz, 1999). What might explain these children’s self-control? Base your response on what you know about the development of self-control, cultural differences, and classroom management.
However, the undermining effect of rewards generally applies only to activities that learners already like. It is difficult to undermine intrinsic motivation if there is none to begin with. Rewards can be useful to get learners to do things they do not like. In addition, subtle reinforcers are less likely to undermine motivation than tangible rewards. That is, a pat on the back or word of praise is less likely to undermine motivation than stickers, candy, or prizes. Another problem with using rewards is that it is remarkably difficult to distribute them fairly in real classrooms. Not all deserving learners may get recognized, and children come to feel they are unfair.
How do you balance the pros and cons of behavior modification? One approach is to use explicit behavior modification only in situations in which learners’ behavior is substantially out of control. Use it for the short term until behavior is back to reasonable levels, and then discontinue it, or use it intermittently over time, while gradually increasing use of induction. Be sure to assess whether the underlying problem is a lack of some skill that needs to be taught. You may have to problem-solve to see what approach works best in your classroom, but keep in mind that short-term compliance is not the only goal of effective discipline; you want to help learners internalize good behavior and develop self-control.
Effective classroom management is a key to avoiding disciplinary confrontations. If you manage your classroom well, there should be less need for discipline. That is the next topic.
Classroom Management
A casual observer often cannot see the skill behind a well-managed classroom because it looks like the children are naturally obedient. Skilled classroom managers carefully organize appealing classroom procedures that prevent misbehavior and foster learning. Discipline is a part of classroom management, but classroom management goes beyond discipline. Classroom management refers to all aspects of managing the classroom, from setting clear rules to scheduling daily events, to the attachment relationship between teacher and children. Skillful classroom management can reduce the need for discipline by preventing misbehavior before it happens. Here are some guidelines for managing your classroom effectively:
1. Establish procedures or routines for common classroom activities like arriving in the morning or transitioning to group activities (Emmer, Evertson, & Worsham, 2000).
2. Have a few clear rules that everyone knows, such as “listen quietly while others are speaking.” You can have learners help develop the rules.
3. Create a physical environment that fosters appropriate behavior. This can include removing distracting objects, placing barriers for quiet activity areas, or setting up materials to promote collaboration.
4. Avoid negative control and coercive discipline.
Teachers who are good classroom managers spend time at the beginning of the school year establishing rules and procedures. Teachers who are less-effective classroom managers set rules but do not clearly explain or enforce them. When teachers give vague rules or do not teach children how they should behave, children use their own impulses to guide their behavior. Children may want to please the teacher but do not know exactly what they should be doing.
Your approach to discipline and classroom management is the foundation of your teaching “style.” You can learn from the research on parenting styles about how different teaching styles may affect self-control in your learners.
8-5Teaching Self-Control: What Parenting Styles Tell Us
Teachers who rigidly enforce rules in power-assertive ways are unlikely to promote self-control in children. At the same time, teachers who are lax with rules are also unlikely to promote self-control. So what teaching style is the best for promoting self-control? Research on parenting style suggests some answers.
8-5aFour Styles of Parenting
Parenting style is defined primarily by two dimensions:
· (1)
the degree to which parents are warm, accepting, and responsive toward their children; and
· (2)
the degree to which parents are controlling and demand mature behavior of their children (Maccoby & Martin, 1983).
You might mistakenly think “controlling” is always negative, such as when parents are intrusive or domineering. However, it also refers to positive control such as guidance, firmness, and structure (Grolnick & Pomerantz, 2009). Many decades of research have found that both parenting dimensions—warmth and control—are critical to children’s well-being. Four parenting styles have been identified based on whether parents are high or low on the two dimensions (see Table 8.1 ). We describe each style and the child outcomes associated with them next.
Table 8.1
Parenting Styles Based on Control and Acceptance
|
|
|
Control and demandingness |
|
|
|
|
Low |
High |
|
Acceptance and responsiveness |
Low |
Indifferent style |
Authoritarian style |
|
|
High |
Indulgent style |
Authoritative style |
Indifferent Style
Children of indifferent parents tend to have the lowest self-control and poorest academic performance of the four groups. They are more likely to be obese (Kakinami, Barnett, Séguin, & Paradis, 2015). As teens they are the most likely to engage in delinquent behavior (see Chapter 16 ).
Indulgent Style
Indulgent , or permissive, parents are high on acceptance and responsiveness, but low on control of their children. They have few rules governing their children’s schedules, like regular mealtimes or bedtime. They seldom discipline and avoid asserting authority or imposing restrictions on their child. For example, they may not require their children to follow through on directives. But they are warm and supportive toward their children.
Children of indulgent parents have relatively low self-control and poor academic performance (Clark et al., 2015; Durbin, Darling, Steinberg, & Brown, 1993; Steinberg & Silk, 2002). They are also likely to be delinquent and peer-oriented.
Authoritarian Style
Authoritarian parents are high on control of their children, but low on acceptance and responsiveness to the child’s agenda. In authoritarian households, rules are not discussed or negotiated; in fact, negotiation with children is often viewed as a threat to the parent’s authority. Authoritarian parents do not welcome input from their children or give reasons why something should be done. They use phrases like “Because I say so.” Authoritarian parents tend to be more punitive than other parents and use power-assertive discipline (Maccoby & Martin, 1983).
Children of authoritarian parents are somewhat obedient and often conform to rules set for them. They have been pressured into obedience but may misbehave when the pressure is absent or they get older. They perform adequately in school and also are more likely to be obese (Kakinami et al., 2015).
Authoritative Style
Authoritative parents are high on both acceptance and control of their children. A key attribute of authoritative parents is that they support autonomy in their children (Steinberg & Silk, 2002). How can parents be highly controlling and still support their children’s independence and self-direction? They do so by having clear standards and high expectations for mature, polite behavior, but without taking away choice (Grolnick, 2003). They firmly enforce rules, using commands and sanctions when necessary, but give reasons for their decisions. They provide household structure, like set bedtimes. However, there is also open communication between parents and children, with encouragement of verbal give and take. Authoritative parents are interested in what their children have to say. Although children are required to be responsive to parental demands, parents are as responsive as possible to their children’s reasonable demands and points of view (Maccoby & Martin, 1983).
Children of authoritative parents tend to have the highest self-control of the four groups. They tend to be securely attached (Karavasilis, Doyle, & Markiewicz, 2003). They also tend to be highest in self-esteem, social competence, and academic achievement (Fletcher et al., 2008; Padilla-Walker, Carlo, Christensen, & Yorgason, 2012; Spera, 2005; Steinberg et al., 2006).
There are four possible reasons for positive child outcomes of authoritative parenting:
1. Authoritative parents tend to use inductive discipline, which promotes self-control. Furthermore, parents who use induction typically remain in control of themselves when disciplining their children, which serves as a model for the child.
2. Authoritative parents’ warmth and respect for their children’s views makes the children more willing to adopt their parents’ views.
3. Authoritative parents are very clear about rules or standards for behavior, so children know how to behave in a variety of situations.
4. Authoritative parents permit negotiation and compromise, when appropriate, which fosters their children’s development of these important social skills, even in very young children (Kuczynski & Kochanska, 1990).
Parents do not always fit clearly into a single parenting style, and parents may change across time. For example, parents may be authoritarian with their older children but become indulgent with the youngest. In addition, there can be considerable variation within each of the four parenting styles. For example, some authoritarian parents are consistently harsh, whereas others are occasionally warm toward their children. Furthermore, parents may have a somewhat different style with different children; some children may draw more control or more warmth from their parents. Unfortunately, children whose parents treat them differently from the way their siblings are treated tend to have more risk factors and behavior problems (Meunier, Boyle, O’Connor, & Jenkins, 2013). This sort of favoritism has negative repercussions for the entire family.
8-5bGroup Diversity in Parenting Style
Religion, socioeconomic status, family structure, and ethnicity are associated with parenting style. Authoritative parents are more likely to be religious, at least among Protestants, Mormons, Catholics, and Jews (Gunnoe, Hetherington, & Reiss, 1999). This may not be true for other religious groups. Authoritative parents are also more likely to be middle class than working class or impoverished and more likely to be part of an intact family than of a single-parent family or stepfamily (Carlson, Uppal, & Prosser, 2000; Deater-Deckard, 2000). Parents who lack a stable relationship, adequate income, and social support may find it more difficult to be authoritative. In addition, parents who fear the future because they think the world is unsafe or that they cannot make a decent living are more likely to be highly controlling with their children (Gurland & Grolnick, 2005). Thus, parenting style is a reflection not just of parents’ personality, but also the context in which they live.
Authoritarian parenting is linked to more behavior problems and lower achievement, as compared with authoritative parenting, for all children, but the effects are weaker for Black or Asian American children than for White and Latino children (Hill, Bush, & Roosa, 2003; Ho, Bluestein, & Jenkins, 2008; Pittman & Chase-Lansdale, 2001). In addition, although authoritarian parenting is linked to lower academic achievement among Latino children, it is also linked to respect for elders and family cohesion, which are highly valued outcomes within the culture (Halgunseth, Ispa, & Rudy, 2006).
What might explain ethnic differences in authoritarian parenting? Perhaps quality of neighborhood. Parents who raise children in difficult settings, such as unsafe neighborhoods or in societies that are racist or foreign to them, may be more restrictive in an attempt to protect their children (Supple & Small, 2006). African American children living in high-crime neighborhoods are not as negatively affected by restrictive parenting as children of other ethnicities or in other neighborhoods. However, even in this subgroup, by the time children finish elementary school, restrictive parenting becomes linked to depression and lower academic achievement (Dearing, 2004).
Another explanation is that the meaning of parenting behavior may vary by culture (Soenens, Vansteenkiste, & Van Petegem, 2015). For example, Chinese mothers are more controlling and critical than European American or African American mothers; they are quite involved in their children’s learning and criticize weaknesses even after success (Ng, Pomerantz, & Deng, 2014; Pomerantz, Ng, Cheung, & Qu, 2014). However, children may interpret this as caring. Strict Asian American and Latino parents are often more indulgent and warm than strict European American parents. This hybrid style is primarily authoritative, but with some authoritarian components, and the warmth seems to diminish negative effects of the strictness.
In summary, authoritative parenting predicts more culturally valued child behavior across ethnicities as compared with authoritarian parenting. However, in cultures in which restrictive, authoritarian parenting is prevalent and accepted, if combined with warmth, children may not develop the behavior problems associated with authoritarian parenting. Therefore, how your learners respond to their parents’ style depends on nuances in that style and the values of the community in which they live.
8-5cClassroom Implications of Parenting Style
A critical lesson from this discussion on parenting styles is that the effect of discipline depends on whether it takes place within the context of a warm adult–child relationship. The same lesson applies to teaching. Teachers have patterns of control and warmth that parallel parenting styles. At the conclusion of this chapter you should have a clear understanding that, as a teacher, you promote or undermine learners’ self-control through the way you discipline them and through your interaction style. Induction and authoritative teaching style promote self-control.
In summary, in this chapter you have learned about preschoolers’ emotional competence and their developing self-concept; a key predictor of both is secure attachment (see Chapter 4 ). One way you promote a secure relationship with your learners is to use noncoercive discipline. This is easier to do with secure children, who tend to be compliant, whereas insecure children may draw more discipline from you because they tend to be disruptive. Yet, if you use induction and an authoritative interaction style, you are likely to promote a positive self-concept and self-control in your learners.
https://cacnc.org/resource/about-child-abuse/
https://www.preventchildabusenc.org/resource-hub/recognizing-responding-to-child-maltreatment/
