How can teachers help young children learn expected behaviors?
Page 2: Understanding Behavior Expectations and Rules
For most young children—that is, those ages three to five—school is a complex and novel setting. Educators should not simply assume that young children will intuitively understand the expectations of this new environment. Rather, early childhood teachers need to be prepared to support and promote appropriate behavior. When children understand what is expected of them, they are more likely to display appropriate behavior. Thus, it is important for teachers to establish behavior expectations and rules as part of the overall classroom behavior management system because they explicitly describe how to behave. Although the terms behavior expectations and rules are often used interchangeably, they actually refer to different things. Let’s take a closer look.
Behavior Expectations
Sample Behavior Expectations
- Be safe
- Be responsible
- Be respectful
Behavior expectations define the broad goals for behavior or the general ways that educators would like children to act. They serve as guidelines for behavior and apply to all children across all settings and to the adults in these settings.
Ideally, behavior expectations are developed for the entire school or center and are used as a framework for helping educators establish rules and provide guidance to children. Because behavior expectations are often broad concepts and somewhat abstract for very young children, educators should create rules to help clarify their meanings as they are applied within specific activities and contexts. Educators who work in centers where such expectations are not in place can still establish rules and expectations to guide children’s behavior.
Rules
Rules define the appropriate behaviors that educators want children to demonstrate. These behaviors should be concrete, observable, and measurable. Rules might vary depending on the setting (e.g., classroom, lunchroom, outside). Educators can use a matrix to specify the explicit rules that reflect each behavior expectation across settings when appropriate and to clarify for children how behavior expectations will vary in these different settings. For example, consider how the expectation “Be safe” can be defined in various settings. In the hallway, “Be safe” translates to the rule “Walk or wheel slowly.” However, on the playground, “Sit on bikes, slides, and swings” might be a more appropriate rule.
The matrix below illustrates how some behavior expectations can be translated into rules for the classroom, playground, and hallway.
| Behavior Expectation | Classroom Rules | Playground Rules | Hallway Rules |
|
Be safe |
|
|
|
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Be responsible |
|
|
|
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Be respectful |
|
|
|
For Your Information
When creating rules, educators should carefully consider the wording so they are considerate and respectful of all students in the classroom. The table below lists some commonly stated rules and suggestions for doing so.
|
Commonly Stated Rules |
More Inclusively Stated Rules |
|
Use walking feet |
Move safely |
|
Use listening ears |
Follow directions |
|
Use quiet hands |
Use gentle touches |
Rules can also be established to encourage children to communicate their feelings and needs to educators and other children. These might include rules such as “Share your feelings,” “Tell us what you need,” or “Ask for help when you need it.” Rules like this can help establish a shared expectation among educators and children that children can and should advocate for themselves.
Listen as Amanda Higgins and Mary Louise Hemmeter discuss the differences between behavior expectations and classroom rules. Mary Louise Hemmeter further explains how establishing behavior expectations and rules can help prevent problem behaviors before they happen.
Mary Louise Hemmeter, PhD
Nicholas Hobbs Chair
in Special Education and Human Development
Vanderbilt University
(time: 1:08)
Transcript: Amanda Higgins, MEd
When I think about behavior expectations, I think about these sort of broad or general goals that we have. These are things that really transcend every activity that we’re doing throughout the school environment. So it’s things like being respectful, being responsible, being safe. One of the ones we have at our school is being a team player. There’s these broad concepts that organize what positive behaviors we want to have. When I think about rules, I think about specific behaviors that fall under these things. At the school I work, our whole school has these expectations, and then I sat down with my kids and I thought about, “All right, responsible doesn’t really feel very meaningful for them. What can we do to teach them what being responsible looks like in our classroom?” We came up with some more specific rules, like use your walking feet, use your quiet voice or your nice words, use your gentle touches. Those were our classroom rules, and so they had really concrete images of what it meant to be a team player, to be safe in the school environment.
I think that the benefit of having a classroom where these rules and expectations are pervasive throughout everything you do is that kids know what to expect. They know what they’re supposed to be doing. More often than not, when you give kids the chance to do what they’re supposed to be doing, do what you’ve asked them to do, what positive behaviors you’ve told them to do, they’re going to choose to do that rather than something that is a more challenging behavior. Creating these environments really just helps kids know what to do and what to expect.
Transcript: Mary Louise Hemmeter, PhD
Generally, we think expectations are broader statements about what we want children to do. They might be something like be safe, be a team player, be a friend, be kind, be responsible, be respectful. But when you think about three-, four-, and five-years-olds who aren’t going to know what it means to be safe, be respectful, be responsible, the rules are more specific behaviors that would be tied to those expectations. So if we had an expectation that was “Be responsible,” some of the rules might be “Clean up your toys after you play with them,” and that’s a way to be responsible. Or if one of your expectations is to “be a team player,” then one of the rules might be “We help our friends.” If your expectation is to “be safe,” then we might say, “We clean up our toys so children don’t trip on them.” The rules are really the specific behaviors that would be associated with the more broad general statement, which is the expectation.
For Your Information
When establishing classroom expectations, educators should recognize the role that backgrounds and experiences play in behavior. For instance:
- The acceptability of behaviors are often influenced by a person’s background and experiences. Behaviors such as talking while another is talking, calling out in response to a question, making eye contact, and many other behaviors are heavily influenced by one’s background and experiences.
- When there is a mismatch between the background and experiences of a child and the background and experiences of the educator, the educator might perceive the child’s behavior as challenging.
- Expectations and rules can help children crack the code about how to behave in different settings.
- It is critical to focus on respect and relationships with all children. Adults should monitor their own behavior to make sure they are responding to children fairly and consistently.
Revisit Mrs. Rodriguez's Classroom
Mrs. Rodriguez has never really thought about trying to align her classroom rules with the behavior expectations of her school. She likes the idea of using the school-wide behavior expectations (“We are safe,” “We are team members,” and “We are respectful”) as a framework for developing rules for her classroom and other areas of the school. She wonders how she can do that and whether it will make a difference in how her children follow the classroom rules.
