I work with a toddler class at New Generations, and I can tell you that helping children grow and become independent is not an easy task. If you have children of your own then some of the examples I give you might bring up past experiences. I truly have a stressful job and if I were to give someone advice about this type of career, I would just tell that person one word " patience ". I love children possibly more then anyone I know but some of the things they do are horrifying. There are a few ways that you can deal with problems between children or even deal with a problem with one child. Some of these ways include redirecting, time-ins, and sometimes it takes some old fashioned ignoring.
When a child starts playing with other children and it's getting to loud, messy, or you see the child getting frustrated that's when you need to step in and use redirecting. To redirect a child means to refocus the child attention in a positive way. What children learn from this is simply that exploration and involvement are more interesting then aggression or destructive behavior. For example here is situation that I personally have had to use this technique. I had two children in my class playing with puzzles, when one decides he wants the puzzle that the other one was playing with so he took it. Well the other child reacted by hitting the child who took his puzzle. Now what I did in this situation to redirect was I took the child that took the puzzle to another center in the room and got him interested in something else to play with. That is called redirecting.
The second way to deal with a situation is called time-in. Time-in is used everyday, all day. Time-in is a positive and affectionate interaction between teachers and children. What children learn from this is that they are valued and loved by teachers and that teachers accept them. The best way to do time-in is involvement with toys, play activities, and daily routines.
