Discipline - approach it in a positive way (How to Discipline Children)

Member Name: starfish2000

Product:	How to Discipline Children
Date:	09/09/00 (81 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: .

Disadvantages: .

I used to work as a teacher in an elementary school in Indonesia, teaching English to children between the ages of four and seven. The school was an expensive private school and the families that sent their children there, some of the richest in the region. The children of well off families in Indonesia are looked after by live-in nannies who in extreme cases are basically there to do whatever the children ask them to, they receive little discipline from their parents and by the time they reach school age to these children have no respect for adults. For example a child who drops his pencil in the classroom will sit there and expect the teacher to pick it up for him, if another child does something he doesn't like he'll hit and kick that child. Not all children are like this but in a class of 25 children I probably had about 10 with real discipline problems.

When I started teaching them I was faced with a dilema, how to get these children to behave themselves, bearing in mind that most of them didn't even speak English. I looked to the other Indonesian teachers in the school for ideas, but most of them either didn't bother with discipline and let the children run riot in the classroom, or used fear, scaring the children into being quiet.
Using fear seemed to work, the children were quiet and well-behaved in class, but the idea of punishing children for bad behaviour using verbal violence, like the idea of smacking, seemed wrong to me. The children knew the rules and they stuck to them out of fear of being punished but when I asked them about the rules they had broken they had no idea why those rules were there.

I decided to try and discipline the children in my class through the positive reinforcement of good behaviour instead of the negative punishment of bad behaviour. I told the children what the rules in the classroom were, but stated them in a positive instead of negative way, 'You must walk' instead of 'No r
unning', I also explained why the rules were important, most children think we make rules for the sake of it instead of for their own safety. I then set out to reward the children who were good, everyday giving them stars and stickers and good behaviour awards, if the whole class was good they could have a story, watch a video or play a game. The better they behaved, the more fun my classes were; the worse they behaved, the more boring the classes were. It didn't take long before I had a class of obedient, enthusiastic and lovely children who understood why they should be that way, they wanted to please me because then I would please them, they wanted to behave well.

I'll admit there were times when my patience was pushed to the limit and I've actually had to leave the room to stop myself yelling at or hitting one of the children, but those times were rare and I never would have actually done it.

I'm now about to have my own child and intend on disciplining her in the same way, explaining and demonstrating clearly the difference between right and wrong, rewarding her for being good (love and affection being the best rewards, even in the classroom) punishing her for bad behaviour but never in a violent way and never, even for a moment, making her fear me.

Summary: