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9th Annual Early Childhood Mental Health Conference – We Can’t Wait

E‐5 and F‐5 Longstreth and Garrity© 2018 1

Effective Discipline Policies that Support Social‐Emotional Competence

Dr. Sarah Garrity & Dr. Sascha Longstreth

SDSU Department of Child and Family Development

9th Annual Early Childhood Mental Health Conference: We Can’t Wait

Objectives

To identify the reasons why a new approach to discipline is needed on a systematic level

To describe a humanistic approach to discipline that values the potential of every child

To introduce the TAGPEC, a simple program self‐assessment tool that can be used to evaluate and

improve the quality of discipline policies and practices



Poll: Getting to Know You

Which best reflects your current role?

Center Director/Site Supervisor/Principal

Teacher/ Provider

Student Support Specialist

Psychologist/ Therapist

Other





Quality Equity



Early Care and Education

.

Caring for and educating young children in early childhood programs is rewarding yet difficult work, and we believe it is critical that systems are in place to support children, families, and staff to be their very best.

Effective, high‐quality behavior‐guidance policies are one way to support both teaching and learning and to prevent and address challenging behaviors in early childhood settings.



• Early childhood teachers report behavior problems as the single greatest challenge in their work (Friedman‐Krauss, Raver, Morris, & Jones, 2014).

• They feel the least prepared to deal with children’s challenging behavior (Stormont, Reinke, & Herman, 2011).



Behavior Guidance Policies

Systems‐Level Approach

ClassroomProgramPolicy



How Could Stronger Discipline Policies Have Helped?Jack is 14 and is living in a temporary emergency shelter for displaced youth. Since he was 2, Jack has been in the custody of the state, having been removed from his home after his parents were convicted of physically abusing Jack and his 2 older siblings. Over the last 12 years, he has lived in over 8 foster care homes and 3 residential group homes. He has a history, beginning age 3, of aggressive behavior towards other children and adults. When he was 4, he was suspended from preschool for tying a classmate up with a jump rope during recess and threatening to strangle her. By the time he was 5, he had been expelled from 2 preschools and suspended for 3 days from kindergarten for violent behavior, including kicking a teacher in the leg and injuring her so severely that she required surgery. Jack’s aggression, fueled by his deep‐rooted fear of rejection, abuse, and abandonment, continued to escalate throughout his childhood until, ultimately, at age 13, he was arrested for vandalizing school property and assaulting a security guard. With a juvenile record and no family, Jack’s social worker placed him in a temporary emergency shelter. This morning, the shelter had to call the police to come and arrest Jack. He is accused of beating a counselor at the shelter, nearly to death, along with two teens the same age. The counselor, despite being critically injured, responded to the police with conflicting emotions – he wanted to help Jack. Helping kids was why he entered the profession. And yet, it felt like Jack had turned on the very person who was trying to help. The counselor didn’t know what else to do at this point but to press charges. Jack was charged, and the police took him to juvenile hall.

The Teaching and Guidance Policy Essentials Checklist (TAGPEC)

The TAGPEC is a checklist that rates guidance policies using point values.• Yes = 2 points• Emerging = 1 point• No = 0 points

The higher the score, the higher the quality of the behavior guidance policy



Our Study

•286 Guidance Policies from NAEYC accredited centers

• Scored them using the TAGPECSo what did we find?

POLL ‐ out of a possible 56 points….

40 and Above 30‐39 20‐29Under 20



POLL ‐ out of a possible 56 points….

These finding made us think critically about the underlying assumptions about children in the policies we reviewed



Case Study –Why Did This Happen?

• 4 year‐old Mike

• Second day at preschool

• Gets scared, throws his lunch

• Entire classroom witnesses

• Teacher picks him up, takes him out of room kicking and screaming

• Mike has multiple ACES

• This is Mike’s 3rd preschool in 2 years

TAGPEC Philosophy

• Focus on guidance rather than discipline• Role of the caregiver to teach children appropriate ways to behave

• Use of strategies that are punitive, degrading and/or dehumanizing are prohibited

• Preventive rather than reactive

• Child behavior is transactional in nature, with both caregivers and the child contributing to the relationship• Problem behavior occurs within the context of caregiver‐child relationships

• Best resolved within these relationships via the socialization practices of the caregivers.



The Humanistic Approach

Our approach to behavior guidance views children as

having an innate capacity for self‐actualization and is

grounded in the belief that each child has the creative capacity and free will to work towards his/her best

self

Culture and LanguageChapter 3

The TAGPEC and our humanistic approach can guide programs to develop policies that promote cultural and linguistic diversity as

strengths

In diversity there is beauty

and there is strength. —Maya Angelou

Language and culture are the

frameworks through which

humans experience,

communicate, and understand

reality. —Lev Vygotsky



The Role of Trauma‐Informed Care in Discipline Policies and Practices

(Chapter 7)

Webinar:

https://home.edweb.net/webinar/bookchats20180911/

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs





Five Assumptions

The role of the adult is to teach children appropriate social‐emotional skills

Relationships guide and regulate behaviors

Behavior is communication

Each child is a unique individual

Implicit bias affects decision‐making

The Structure, Administration, and Scoring of Teaching and Guidance Policies Essential Checklist (TAGPEC)

“Every day, in a hundredsmall ways, our childrenask, ‘Do you hear me?Do you see me? Do I

matter?’Their behavior oftenreflects our response.”

—L. R. Knost



Essential Feature

Item

Score

Structure of the TAGPEC

Early childhood behavior guidance policies should reflect an instructional, proactive approach to behavior guidance that supports the learning and practice of appropriate pro‐social behavior of all children, regardless of individual differences and/or cultural and linguistic background.

The policy clearly states that the goal of behavior guidance is

to teach social emotional skills to all children.

yes emerging no

Essential Feature

Item

Score



7 Essential Features of the TAGPEC

1. Intentional Focus on Teaching Social‐Emotional Skills

2. Developmentally and Culturally Appropriate Learning Environment

3. Setting Behavioral Expectations4. Preventing and Addressing Challenging

Behaviors Using a Tiered Model of Intervention

5. Working with Families6. Staff Training and Professional Development7. Use of Data for Continuous Improvement

Intentional Focus on Teaching Social Emotional Skills

Essential Feature 1

Early childhood behavior guidance policies should reflect an instructional, proactive approach to behavior guidance that supports the learning and practice of appropriate pro‐social behavior of all children, regardless of individual differences and/or cultural and linguistic background.

Item 1 The policy clearly states that the goal of behavior guidance is to teach social emotional skills to all children.

Item 2 The policy clearly describes the role of the teacher in proactively teaching all children social‐emotional skills.

Item 3 The policy clearly describes the role of positive and consistent interactions among teachers and children in promoting positive behavior.

Item 4 Multiple, evidence‐based, developmentally and culturally appropriate strategies are described.



Developmentally and Culturally Appropriate Learning Environment Essential Feature 2

Early childhood behavior guidance policies should describe the importance of a developmentally appropriate learning environment that is predictable, engaging, and relationship‐based.

Item 5 The policy clearly describes the importance of nurturing and responsive teacher‐child relationships as essential to preventing challenging behaviors.

Item 6 The policy emphasizes the importance of the sufficient and active adult supervision of all children.

Item 7 The policy describes the need for staff to continuously (at all times) monitor and respond to children’s behavior.

Item 8 The policy clearly describes the use of ecological arrangements (classroom environment and materials) as a means for promoting positive, pro‐social behavior.

Item 9 The policy clearly describes the need for a predictable, intentional, and developmentally appropriate daily schedule (e.g. small and large group times, carefully planned transitions, child and adult initiated activities).

Item 10 The policy clearly describes the value of an engaging curriculum that takes a strengths based view of culture and language as a deterrent to challenging behavior.

Setting Behavioral Expectations Essential Feature 3:

Early childhood behavior guidance policies should describe clear and consistent expectations for behavior.

Item 11 The policy has clearly stated program‐wide behavioral expectations that are developmentally appropriate and reflect the natural learning abilities typically associated with the age groups of children served. If this item is answered no, items 12‐15 must be answered no

Item 12 Behavioral expectations are stated positively and emphasize what children can and should do rather than what they cannot do.

Item 13 Behavioral expectations are designed to promote children’s self‐regulation, promoting external to internal foci from staff to self.

Item 14 The policy describes the need for clearly defined rules that are observable and measurable at the classroom level.

Item 15 The policy describes the need for a connection between program‐level behavioral expectations and classroom rules.

Item 16 The policy clearly describes practices that are unacceptable for use by staff (e.g. humiliation, depriving meals, snacks, rest, etc.).



Preventing and Addressing Challenging Behaviors Using a Tiered‐ Model of Intervention

Essential Feature 4

Early childhood behavior guidance policies should identify primary, secondary, and tertiary preventative and intervention practices for promoting pro‐social behavior and reducing challenging behavior in young children.

Item 17 Procedures are in place to screen children for behavioral concerns.

Item 18 The policy clearly describes the need to understand challenging behavior as children’s effort to communicate.

Item 19 The policy clearly describes primary strategies to teach and reinforce pro‐social behaviors in all children (see Items 1‐10).

Item 20 The policy describes targeted secondary strategies for children who are at risk for problem behaviors (e.g., the use of social skills curricula, intentional small group instruction).

Item 21 The policy clearly describes the use of tertiary strategies for helping children who exhibit chronic and intense problem behaviors (e.g., developing a behavior support plan, early childhood mental health consultation, trauma‐informed care).

Working with Families Essential Feature 5:

Early childhood behavior guidance policies should reflect the family‐centered nature of early childhood education.

Item 22 The policy promotes pro‐active (rather than reactive) collaborative relationships as a means of promoting social competence in children.

Item 23 The policy promotes authentic staff‐family collaboration in effectively dealing with challenging behavior and families are given an opportunity to participate in developing and implementing interventions.

Item 24 The policy describes the need for obtaining contextually and culturally relevant information (e.g. at‐home sleeping and eating habits, family events, favorite toys and activities) from families in order to understand children’s inappropriate behavior.

Item 25 The policy promotes embedding individual behavior support plan goals and objectives into family/home routines and activities.



Staff Training and Professional Development

Essential Feature 6

Early childhood behavior guidance policies should ensure that staff has access to training and technical assistance in implementing policy guidelines and promoting the social competence of young children.

Item 26 The policy describes practices that are in place to ensure that staff understand and can articulate the behavior guidance policy.

Item 27 The policy describes a process for ongoing professional development opportunities to support staff in the use of evidence‐based prevention and intervention strategies.

Item 28 The policy describes the intent of the program to ensure that staff have a strong understanding of culture and diversity and are provided opportunities to engage in self‐reflection and ongoing professional development that encourage awareness of implicit and explicit biases that may affect their work with children and families.

Use of Data for Continuous Improvement

Essential Feature 7

Early childhood behavior guidance policies should reference the use of a data collection system by which the relative success or failure of the behavior guidance policy will be evaluated.

Item 29 Policy evaluation procedures are in place and clearly describe how the success or failure of the policy will be measured.

Item 30 The policy describes how data will be used to engage in continuous improvement in order to ensure that practices are in line with the intent of the behavior guidance policy and to ensure fairness and equity for all children.



Using the TAGPEC

Build a Team (Appendix E, Worksheet #1, p. 127)

• Administrator (Director/ Principal/ Assistant Director/ Assistant Principal

• Office/ Support Staff

• Classroom Teacher

• RTI Coordinator

• Special Education Teacher

• Parents

• School Psychologist

• School Counselor/ Social Worker

• Invited Specialists (e.g., Behavior Coaches/ Consultants, foster youth services staff, Social Worker)



Gather Available Discipline Policy Documents (Appendix E, Worksheet #3, p. 132

Administer the TAGPEC (Appendix A, p.103)



Rainbow School –An Example



Next Steps

• In what ways to do the policies and practices of your program reflect the Essential Features of the TAGPEC?



An Example of How Trauma Can Be Addressed in a School Discipline Policy

An Example of How Trauma Can Be Addressed in a School Discipline Policy



Next Steps

•What challenges do you see?•Writing policies?•Implementing policies?

Next Steps

•What benefits or opportunities do you see?



Thank you!

• To learn more about our research and the TAGPEC, please visit our website at http://go.sdsu.edu/education/tagpec/

• You are welcome to also contact Dr. Garrity or Dr. Longstreth by email at:

[email protected]

[email protected]