Increased Expectations for Preschoolers Behavior
As today’s kindergarten requirements are becoming more academic with greater learning expectations, problem behaviors such as children’s inability to control their behavior by inhibiting inappropriate behaviors such as biting a classmate who has a toy they want and initiating appropriate behaviors, such as raising their hand when they want to say something, is becoming increasingly necessary. Bodrova & Leong point out that this new stringency placed on young children means teachers can simply wait for children to outgrow their problem behaviors. Rimm-Kaufman, Pianta & Cox reported that teachers indicated that more than half their kindergarten classes have difficulty regulating their behaviors, rating “difficulty following directions” as the biggest problem they experience when teaching. Thus, teaching behavior regulation skills becomes their number one goal. So discovering strategies for achieving this goal has become paramount.
Self Regulation
Bodrova and Leong define children referred to as self-regulated as able to tolerate frustration and not respond immediately to what they’re presented with, delay gratification long enough to think ahead regarding the consequences of their actions and inhibit them if they are inappropriate, or come up with better strategies to handle the situation. These skills are necessary for successful social interactions and learning appropriate responses to problems decreases displays of aggression and other types of acting out.
While this may be considered by many as expecting too much from 5 year olds, it is expected in school setting none-the-less. Bodrova and Leong appear to first contradict their previous statements indicating that children’s ability to regulate their emotions and thoughts in this way develops as they get older and the responsible part of the brain becomes more developed. However, the go on to say that by exercising these skills from a young age help that area to develop and the failure to do so may result in children not reaching their full potential in this area.
Parental Concerns May be Easily Solved
Rodriguez in an interview mentions that such statements sometimes concern parents who feel these expectations may be too high for young children, and have no idea how to teach what they consider skills for older children becoming resistant.
Yet it may not be as hard as all this rhetoric suggests. It appears that language skills could be behind the development of self- regulation skill even in young children. Vallotan & Ayoub studied language development and the breadth of children’s vocabulary in terms of their ability to control their behavior. Their findings were consistent with earlier studies conducted by Wertsch which indicated that the number of spoken words a child knew and could use provided the ability for them to gain control over their thoughts, emotions, behaviors, and perhaps environment. Vallotan & Ayoub’s findings indicated something that parents might find easier to manage – that it’s a child’s vocabulary that is most strongly related to self-regulations skills both while in preschool and later on in third grade as demonstrated by follow-up studies.
Conclusions
So the bottom line? It all boils down to helping children increase their vocabulary and the ability to use it which leads to all the technical sounding concepts the experts talk about. But could the answer really be as simple as reading to your child? It just may be.
Sources
Bodrova, E., & Leong, D., (2008, March). Developing Self-Regulation in Kindergarten: Can We Keep All the Crickets in the Basket? Of Primary Interest: Young Children on the Web. Retrieved July, 8, 2011.
Rimm-Kaufman, S., R.C. Pianta, & M. Cox. 2001. Teachers’ judgments of problems in the transition to school. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 15: 147–66.
Rodriguez, B., (2008). Critical Issue: Meeting the Diverse Needs of Young ChildrenVideotaped interview with Brenda Rodriguez (North Central Regional Educational Laboratory). Retrieved July 8, 2011.
Vallotton, C., & Ayoub, C. (2010). Use your words: The role of language in the development of toddlers’ self-regulation Early Childhood Research Quarterly. Retrieved July 8, 2011. DOI: 10.1016/j.ecresq.2010.09.002
Wertsch, J. V. (1979). From social interaction to higher psychological processes: A clarification and application of Vygotsky's theory. Human Development, 22, 1-22.
Join the Conversation