Ready For School

Personal Development

• Personal Development
• Behaving well

Personal Development

Children need confidence and the ability to cooperate in order to be happy and make academic progress. This section provides adults with some supportive strategies.

Respecting yourself and others

Children who feel good about themselves learn well. You can build your child's self esteem if you:

• join in play, letting the child lead while you are attentive and have fun

• teach good manners

• use books and learning materials which include pictures of people like your child

• give access to a wide range of learning experiences, rather than limiting to "boys' toys" or "girls' toys"

• show confidence in the child with phrases like
  Let's try again
  You'll do better next time

• help practise phrases we use to keep ourselves safe:
  No, I don't want to
  No, I'm not coming
  No, I don't like it

Making friends is a skill which children can learn

• help your child make friends, share toys, take turns, win and lose well

• praise a child's generosity to others

• set a good example by valuing different cultures, groups and beliefs

• explain and exemplify that feeling angry is acceptable but hurting others is not

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Behaving well

It is normal for children to misbehave. Sometimes they simply want to get attention or test how far they can go. Blaming the child or yourself is unhelpful. It is better to improve the interaction between you.

Give praise

Children work for attention from others. If positive attention is not forthcoming, they will seek negative attention because it is better than none. So "catch" your child being good and give praise then. Praise immediately, consistently, and, sometimes, in front of other people.

A child who controls tears or temper deserves praise.
You did really well then, I know you were angry but you talked instead of hitting.

Use planned ignoring

Inappropriate behaviours like whining and tantrums are not dangerous to others and can often be eliminated if they are systematically ignored. This can be very hard for an adult so only do it where you know you can maintain it. Be prepared for testing. If you give in you teach the child that you can be outlasted, which makes it worse. Carry on ignoring until the behaviour changes and praise as soon as you can.

Allow your child to learn from consequences

This helps to develop responsibility and learning from mistakes. For example:

If you don't eat at meal times, there will be no food until the next meal and you will be hungry.

The adult needs to decide the strategy in advance and stay calm.

Let your child learn problem solving

Help your child to use this sequence of questions and talk about feelings as you do so:

What is the problem?
What things could I do?
What would happen if I did?
Which plan shall I use?
Am I using my plan?
How did I do?

Understanding right and wrong

Children need to be told what they may do or not do. They also need sensitive discussion to understand why some things are right and some wrong. Stories can be very useful for discussion. If we support children in this way they will develop their own moral code for adulthood. Useful questions are:

Is it right to do that?
What was good and what was bad about doing that?
Is it honest?

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