Positive engagement
By Sue Wiedermann
We all want children to be safe and respectful while playing, interacting and engaging with others and the environment. Rules and expectations are therefore put in place to help children learn these necessary skills. However children are often confronted with so many rules which can be challenging for younger children to understand, remember and follow, and often challenging for teachers/educators and parents to consistently reinforce. I have found that setting and following these three rules helps to simplify the process.
1 - We stay safe
2 - We are respectful towards ourselves and others (with young children the word kind could replace respectful)
3 - We respect our belongings and the environment (with young children the words, we look after could replace respect)
If you think about every rule you’ve ever made or had to follow, could it fit under one of these categories? These three rules can be used for any age group and in any setting. Conversations can be had about what each rule means in different settings or situations. Children can be asked if what they are doing is safe or respectful and could then be offered or encouraged to contribute ideas on how to make adaptions so it is. This gives children some autonomy and agency in their play. These three rules also allow for flexibility. Many centres have a rule that there is no playing with sticks as they could be unsafe. What if several children were quietly playing with sticks in the sandpit building a house or a bridge, involved in wonderful co-operative play, sharing ideas, communicating with each other, problem solving ……. do we stop this play because they have broken a rule or do we ask if this play is safe? Obviously if a child was hitting another child, chasing others with a stick or breaking sticks off plants then that would be unsafe and not respectful of the environment so there would need to be a conversation and possibly redirection. The rules can also be adapted to different conditions or for different children. For example climbing on top of monkey bars maybe safe in dry weather but not safe when wet, or children who are competent climbers maybe safe on top of monkey bars, however children just learning to climb may not be safe so may have to be redirected or supported to learn the skills required. In my experience children respect these rules and feel very involved in the decision making and implementation process, especially when their opinion and thoughts are sought on how to make play safe and respectful. I was recently with a group of four year old boys who wanted to throw small rocks into a pond. Now throwing rocks usually isn’t allowed in a kindergarten, but they were fascinated by how high the splash would be depending on what force and angle they threw the rocks. A perfect science and maths experiment! They were all very engaged, involved and were sharing their ideas and problem solving together, so I didn’t want to stop it. We therefore had a conversation about how to ensure this would be safe. Together we agreed that one child at a time would throw while the others stepped back, no one would throw while the rocks were collected from under the water and the rocks had to be aimed down into the water not across the top. All children were happy with this and the experiment continued with a few reminders from me when they became distracted with excitement.