 Since my little one has been in pre-school (more than a month now), the random peer experience has offered her many undesirable traits to imitate. In a recent post I discussed my concerns and questions.
What has intrigued me about this situation is thinking of what techniques might be useful to help my daughter maintain a healthy internal balance while still allowing for peer interaction in a school setting. As I previously mentioned, in certain situations where she was ordinarily positive, her attitude can drift negative. Where she’d ask politely for something, she can be a little more aggressive in her demand. When moving around the house, she had long gotten past the overactive, jumping and yelling response; but now she’s exhibiting that “itchiness” again. Where she would generally be ready for play, academic or physical subjects at home, she now needs more time to settle in and shows a little resistance.
What I’m starting to understand is that when a child is exposed to a peer group that has different specific traits, it’s perceived by the child (rightfully so) as a new situation. In new situations, a child seems to go into the “I need to learn more” mode. They see that the peer group has different traits and intuit the difficulty in changing the group, so they seem to go the simpler route and alter themselves. Makes sense.
Any techniques to help our little ones stave off the group’s negative tendencies would have to take into account the “newness” of the situation to the child and the fact that they are trying to learn how to respond. Much of the positive things we are teaching our children are helpful when confronted by the peer group -- but they may need to be reoriented and reinforced.
So what I’ve been doing with my daughter is first making sure that the skills necessary to filter out the negative attitudes of the other children are understood. Not just understood in the home setting, but at school. So I role play the specific school situations at home; then go with my daughter to her school during off times and role play there. This way she sees that skills are transferable.
Next, I scrutinize the areas at home where she’s pushing past the given boundaries due to influence from school. Once I have a handle on those areas, I reinforce or re-teach boundaries such as: who’s in charge? how do we ask for something? How do we shift our inappropriate aggressiveness to gentleness?
When she's getting “itchy” and starting to jump and "dance" inappropriately while, say, talking or reading, I help her become aware of where she is by asking, “Honey, where are we at the moment?” She will answer, “Uh, at home.” I respond, “Let’s save the jumping and screaming for the playground, OK?” She then slows down and says, “OK, Daddy.”
When taking more time to get into activities that used to take only a few minutes to start, I’ve lessened them a little; slowed myself down so there isn’t that whiff of impatience. I also aim for limited distractions overall (observe what things distract your child at a given moment, like picking up another toy, chatting about something not related to whatever you asked, etc.). I also make sure the activities we do are done well. This helps our little ones learn completion.
With a show of resistance in areas where it didn’t exist before, I bring her back to basics -- such as, requesting something only one time; being clear on what I’m asking; not over stressing; showing the effectiveness of calm and patience; and moving further into the activity of helpfulness. Update to come (smile).all content The New Parent © 2007
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