Sometimes it can be hard to put your foot down; when children fight, shout or stop listening, the situation can feel overwhelming and sometimes hopeless. That's why it can be particularly important to know the best ways to talk to children, according to child psychology. Alma von Hogerlinden, a substitute teacher at a preschool, talks about the different tricks she has learnt during her time at work.
The importance of positive reinforcement
Alma, who has recently started working as a substitute teacher in a pre-school, was previously very interested in child psychology and wanted to learn more about communication between children and adults. Nowadays, she uses different methods to deal with difficult situations that arise at the preschool.
The two methods she talks about are positive reinforcement and the 5 to 1 method. Positive reinforcement, Alma explains, involves focusing as much as possible on what the child is doing well and placing great emphasis on the behaviours that you want to see more of. This is done by verbally expressing what you think the child did well, for example saying 'how nice that you put your shoes on' or 'how nice that your friend got to borrow your Lego piece'. Positive reinforcement is not a new phenomenon, as early as the 1970s it was understood that attention to positive behaviours leads to their repetition. But new research that can be linked to child psychology shows that this should also be applied when working with children.
5 to 1 method
What is the 5 to 1 method, and how is it used as a tool in child psychology? Alma tells us:
- The way I interpreted the 5 to 1 method is that for every negative attention you give the child, you should give 5 times more positive attention. Negative attention means things like reprimands, nagging or different demands you make on the child. It could be that you tell the child to get dressed or that they should clean their plate after themselves," she says.
For Alma, these practices are super important. She explains that otherwise you end up in a vicious circle of nagging and children who never listen.
- If you constantly focus on what the child is doing wrong and constantly tell them what not to do, you will see more of those behaviours. You want to focus as little as possible on what the child does wrong. And as much focus as possible on what the child does right. It's important for children to feel successful and to hear all the good things they do. That's how they learn what's right," she explains.
Focus more on desired behaviour
When it comes to her own experience of these methods, related to research in child psychology, she says it has only been positive.
- I think you can clearly see how the day goes much smoother when you have given a lot of positive reinforcement instead of nagging the children a lot. Positive reinforcement works both in the short and long term. In the short term, it works by making the child happier and not feeling like a failure in the moment, and in the long term it works by the children showing more of the behaviours you have reinforced," explains the substitute teacher.
Alma also describes concrete situations where the two child psychology approaches really help.
- For example, we have tried to give a lot of positive reinforcement when the children are cleaning. Then we put all the focus on the children who clean and say 'how nice that you clean' or 'how nice that you help' loudly so that all the children hear. But we don't focus on the children who don't clean by saying 'why don't you clean' or 'all their friends clean except you', but we can instead encourage them to clean by asking for help or giving them a specific task such as collecting all the red Lego pieces. I have noticed that this has worked both in the moment and later. Some children come right away and help when they hear that you give praise to others. And other children improve in the long term the more you praise them when they help," she says.
