1. Promoting Social Emotional Competence
Promoting Children’s Success: Building Relationships and Creating Supportive Environments
Module 1

2. Agenda Introduction Examining attitudes
Relationship between challenging behavior and social emotional development
Creating environments
Building relationships
Designing physical environment
Schedules, routines & transitions
Activities that promote engagement
Giving directions
Following rules & directions
Ignoring/redirecting
Ongoing monitoring and positive attention
Using positive feedback & encouragement
Pulling it all together 2

3. Learner Objectives
Participants will be able to describe the relationship between children’s social emotional development and challenging behaviors
Participants will be able to describe the importance of building relationships with children, families, and colleagues
Participants will be able to describe the relationship between a number of environmental variables and children’s challenging behaviors
Participants will be able to identify strategies to build positive relationships
Participants will use positive feedback and encouragement appropriately
Participants will evaluate their work 3

4. Examining Our Attitudes about Challenging Behavior
What behaviors make you crazy or
push your buttons?
How do these behaviors make you
feel? 4

5. Managing Personal Stress: Thought Control
Upsetting Thoughts
“That child is a monster.
This is getting ridiculous.
He’ll never change.”
“I’m sick of putting out fires!”
Calming Thoughts
“This child is testing to see
where the limits are.
My job is to stay calm and help
him learn better ways to behave.”
“I can handle this. I am in control.
They have just learned some powerful
ways to get control. I will
teach them more appropriate
ways to behave.” “ 5

6. Managing Personal Stress: Thought Control
Upsetting Thought
“I wonder if Wal-Mart is hiring?”
“He ruins everything! This is
going to be the worst year of my
career.”
Calming Thoughts
“I feel undervalued right now –
I need to seek support from
my peers and supervisor.”
“Having him in my class is going to
be a wonderful Professional
Development experience.” 6

7. Key Social Emotional Skills Children Need as They Enter School
Key Skills
Confidence
Capacity to develop good relationships with peers
Concentration and persistence on challenging tasks
Ability to effectively communicate emotions
Ability to listen to instructions and be attentive
When children don’t have these skills, they often exhibit challenging behaviors
We must focus on teaching the skills!! 7

8. Some Basic Assumptions
Challenging behavior is most often related to some skill deficit (e.g., language, social)
Behavior that persists over time is working for the child
When we have positive relationships with children, supportive classroom environments, and focus on teaching social and communication skills, we reduce the likelihood of challenging behavior 8

9. Classroom Preventive Practices - Promoting Children’s Success
Create a context that makes EVERY child feel good about coming to school
Design an environment that promotes child engagement
Focus on teaching children what To Do!
Teach expectations and routines
Teach skills that children can use in place of challenging behaviors 9

10. Positive Relationships with Children, Families, and Colleagues
Intensive Individualized Interventions
Social Emotional Teaching Strategies
Creating Supportive Environments
Positive Relationships with Children, Families, and Colleagues 10

11. Building Relationships with Children
Why is it important?
- Creating a safe environment for children
- Ensuring that all children, even those with the most challenging behaviors, have access to ongoing positive relationships
How do we build relationships with children? 11

12. Strategies for Building Relationships
Select a partner
Brainstorm a list of things you could do to
build or strengthen relationships with children, families, or other colleagues
From that list, identify 2-3 things you are going to work on in order to build stronger
relationships with the children, families, or colleagues 12

13. Positive Relationships with Children, Families, and Colleagues
Intensive Individualized Interventions
Social Emotional Teaching Strategies
Creating Supportive Environments
Positive Relationships with Children, Families, and Colleagues 13

14. Classroom Arrangement and Design: Traffic Patterns
Carefully plan traffic patterns
Minimize large open spaces
Minimize obstacles and other
hazards
Consider the needs of children with
physical and sensory disabilities 14

15. Classroom Arrangement and Design: Learning Centers
Physical Design
Clear boundaries
Visibility
Visual prompts when centers are not an option
Adequate number of centers
Size and location of centers
Number of children in centers
Organization of materials
Preparation of centers 15

16. Classroom Arrangement and Design: Learning Centers
Create Meaningful and Engaging Learning Centers
Relevant to children’s needs,
interests, and lives
Highly engaging and interesting
Variety of materials in each center
Changed and rotated on a regular
basis 16

17. Classroom Arrangement and
Design: Activity
With a partner, sketch a classroom. Review item 3 on the Inventory and consider what changes need to be made in the classroom based on what you heard or what is in the Inventory
Revise your sketch of the
environment and then share major changes with other participants at
the table 17

18. Schedules and Routines
Develop a schedule that promotes child
engagement and success
Minimize the number of transitions
Balance active and quiet activities, small
group and large group activities, teacher-
directed and child-directed activities
Teach children the schedule
Establish a routine and follow it consistently
When changes are necessary, prepare children ahead of time 18

19. Transitions Plan for transitions
Minimize the length of time children spend waiting with nothing to do
Prepare children for transitions by
providing a warning
Structure the transitions so that children
have something to do while they wait
Teach children the expectations related to transitions
Individualize supports and cues 19

29. Schedule Activity Divide into groups of people who currently
work together
Write down a schedule from one of the
participant’s classroom
Consider the things we have just talked
about. What changes could you make in the
schedule that might increase engagement
and prevent challenging behaviors?
Share your major changes with others at
your table and brainstorm possible solutions 29

30. Large Group Activities
Planning the activity
Consider the length
Be clear about the purpose and goals of the
activities
Use circle time to teach new things
Implementing the activity
Provide opportunities to be actively involved
Assign jobs to children
Vary your speech and intonation patterns
Have children lead activities
Pay attention to children’s behavior 30

31. Circle Activity Clip 1.2: Are the children engaged?
What tells you that?
Describe the teacher’s behavior in this clip.
Clip 1.3:
What is the teacher doing that engages the children?
Both Clips:
What strategies can you suggest that would help the teacher engage the children even more? 31

32. Small Group Activities
Importance of small group activities
Skill building
Individualized attention
Planning and implementing
Be clear about the goal
Use peers as models
Ensure participation by all children
Make them fun
Provide feedback throughout 32

33. Adaptations and Modifications (Sandall & Schwartz, 2002)
Environmental support
Materials adaptation
Simplify the activity
Use child preferences
Special equipment
Adult support
Peer support 33

34. Giving Directions
Make sure you have the children’s attention before you give the direction
Minimize the number of directions given to children
Individualize the way directions are given
Give clear directions 34

35. Giving Directions Give directions that are positive
Give children the opportunity to respond to a direction
When appropriate, give the child choices and options for following directions
Follow through with positive acknowledgment of children’s behavior 35

36. General Guidelines about Rules and Directions
Have a few simple classroom rules
Involve the children in developing the rules
Post the rules visually
Teach the rules systematically
Reinforce the rules at high rates initially and at lower rates throughout the year 36

37. Involving Children in Developing the Rules
Have children help generate the rules
Name the rule and have a child
demonstrate the rule
Name the rule and have the children
identify the visuals that might go on a
poster
Have children help decorate a rules 37

38. Rules Should Address Noise level Movement inside
Interactions with property
Interactions with adults
Interactions with peers 38

39. Rules Activity
Develop a list of 3-5 rules you use or would use in a classroom
Discuss these rules with others at the table
Brainstorm fun and creative ways for teaching the rules 39

40. Fun Ways to Reinforce the Rules
Rules Bingo!
Make a big book about school rules
Homework – what are your rules at home?
Play “rule charades” 40

41. Ignoring Misbehavior
Is one of the most effective techniques that can be used with students
Maintains positive teacher-student relationships based on respect rather than fear
Requires that adults give attention for positive behaviors as opposed to negative ones
Can be a powerful tool for changing behavior since access to attention is such a positive thing for children 41

42. Ignoring Misbehavior
Will only be effective with students who desire teacher attention
Is probably the hardest teaching strategy for teachers to carry out
Is unnatural - our natural tendency is to attend to students who are being disruptive 42

43. To Use Ignoring Identify the specific behaviors you want to focus on
Plan carefully to provide attention and positive feedback to the prosocial behaviors
Neutralize your reaction to what the student is doing
Return your attention by acknowledging appropriate behavior as soon as student begins to behave appropriately
Teach other students to ignore inappropriate behaviors 43

44. When You Ignore
Most children will initially react to ignoring with an increase in the challenging behavior to see if they can recruit the adult’s attention
Be prepared to wait out the testing period
Remember that consistency is the key to using ignoring! 44

45. Redirecting
When children are withdrawn or off task, it is important that teachers do not ignore them. That can send the message that the teacher has low expectations for them or does not care 45

46. Redirection Can be nonverbal, verbal, or physical in nature
Should not be confrontational
Should focus on the behavior you saw and provide specific feedback 46

47. Ongoing Monitoring and Positive Attention
Give children attention when they
are engaging in appropriate
behaviors
Monitor our behavior to ensure that we are spending more time using positive descriptive language and less time giving directions or correcting inappropriate behavior 47

48. Positive Attention Activity
Count the number of positive comments the teacher makes (and positive nonverbals)
Have a large group discussion about what types of comments and nonverbal behaviors the teacher exhibited
Generate some ideas to help adults remain focused on the positive throughout the day
Encourage participants to include some of these ideas on their Action Planning Form 48

49. Using Positive Feedback and Encouragement: 4 Principles
Contingent on appropriate behavior
Descriptive
Conveyed with enthusiasm
Contingent on effort 49

50. Using Positive Feedback and Encouragement
Remember to use nonverbal forms of positive feedback and encouragement
Individualize use of positive feedback and encouragement based on children’s needs and preferences
Encourage other adults and peers to use positive feedback and encouragement 50

51. Increasing Positive Behaviors: Activity
What are 3-5 behaviors you would like to see increase in your setting?
Review item 8 on the Inventory
What changes might you make in your use of positive feedback and encouragement in order to increase the behaviors you just identified.
Add this to your Action Plan 51

52. Sample Certificate SUPER FRIEND AWARD!!!
This certificate is to certify that Marleco is a SUPER FRIEND!!
Today, Marleco used his words to ask Malen nicely for a turn on the swing. When he was done swinging, he asked Malen if she wanted another turn and then helped to push her. At circle time, he gave his friend Cesar a compliment! YAY Marleco!! What a Super Friend you are!!
Give yourself a pat on the back!!
Signed by: Miss Gail & Mr. Jim
Date: January 7, 2003 52

53. Major Messages
The first and most important thing that we can do is to build positive relationships with every child and family
Focus on prevention and teaching appropriate skills
Promoting social emotional development is not easy. There are no quick fixes to challenging behavior
It requires a comprehensive approach that includes building relationships, evaluating our own classrooms and behaviors, and TEACHING 53