Limits and guidelines

Before you can expect the children in your care to behave appropriately at your centre, the guidelines and limits you want children to adhere to need to be stated clearly and up front.

You must ensure that children are aware of these guidelines, and the limits on their behaviour. If the children are not aware, they will not know what is appropriate and what is not.

Communicating behaviour limits and guidelines

These guidelines and limits must be clearly communicated, and role modelled by yourself and the other caregivers in your centre. By being upfront you know that everyone has been informed and therefore there should be no misunderstandings, or 'not knowings.'

To be clear, you need to ensure that the children have heard and understood you when you explain the limits and guidelines. If necessary, have them repeat what you have told them so you can be sure. Ask them what the limits and/or guidelines mean to them, so you can see if the message has been understood.

Limits need to be worded in a positive way to allow children to understand what they can do.

Applying limits and guidelines to children's behaviour

Applying these limits and guidelines to children's behaviour involves directing the children towards the desired behaviour in a positive and caring way. Directing (or redirecting) behaviour is similar to refocusing someone's attention - you do it to change the pathway on which they are heading. This does not always mean that the pathway they are heading on is wrong, it just may be inappropriate at that time.

For younger children, these guidelines and limits are important as they are still developing their understanding of what's right and wrong. Knowledge of why the limit is in place is equally important for older children, who are more likely to already be aware of what behaviour is acceptable. By understanding the reasons why they exist, the children are more accepting and willing to respect the limit.

For example, if you were asking a child to stop running in the centre, if you explained why running is dangerous it would help them to understand why the limit exists.

Redirecting children’s attention

One of the techniques used by caregivers to modify a child's inappropriate behaviour involves redirecting the child to something else more appropriate; in other words, get them to focus on something else.

When redirecting a child’s behaviour, the language you use needs to be appropriate to their age and stage of development. This means that you will need to alter your approach accordingly. You also need to ensure that you are modelling appropriate behaviours yourself - in other words, 'practise what you preach.'

Like many things in life, redirection will become a habit after you have performed it a few times, you just need to break the old habit first if you have one.

Responding to children's behaviour according to policies and procedures

To ensure that limits and guidelines on children's behaviour are consistent and appropriate in the centre, you will find a manual that will describe to you the policies and procedures the centre has on various topics. One of these should be 'Guiding children's behaviour.’

Before a centre can be accredited and recognised as having a high quality service, they must have a policy and procedure on guiding children's behaviour. This is required by the National Childcare Accreditation Council.

Before you start work at any child care centre, always ask to see their policy on guiding children's behaviour so that you understand the guidelines and limits that you will be required to support and monitor.

For more information you can have a look at the Cybertots policy on Guiding children's behaviour. You can find this on the Cybertots Intranet under Policies.