Did you know that some percentage of the challenging behavior in early childhood classrooms is due to activities and expectations that are not realistic for the age group?

...or, sometimes our activities are generally great for the age group but are not a good match for one or two kids.

How’s it going?

I’m writing to have a quick chat with you today about dragons.

Ha! Yes, dragons.

I’m wondering if you’re reading dragon books, playing dragon games, doing dragon things?

Do you have kids who are trying to run out of the room, refuse to come to story time, or otherwise resist joining the group?

This is a VERY COMMON phenomenon in toddler, preschool and kindergarten classrooms...and even in the older years.

Especially at the beginning of the school year.

It's perhaps especially common this year when so many young children are joining in-person early childhood classrooms for the first time in their lives.

And it's undoubtedly especially common for…

Every so often in the past year and a half, when I sit down to write to you, all I really want to say is:

How are you doing? ....no, really?

All the strategy in the world is the last thing on my mind and I'm just wondering, gosh, how are you holding up over there?

Something about so many schools finally going back to 100% in-person learning (I know many of you have been in-person for months or over a year) just highlights how little our society - policy makers and all too often program administrators - look to teachers and early child caregivers as the experts that you all are.

Just once, I'd like to see decisions made about whether and how to do things in early childhood programs and classrooms fall into the laps of the actual people doing the work.

by Barb O’Neill

Conference Creator, Host and Interviewer

(NOTE: this is a numbered list but the order is random, not based on order of importance).

I started sharing the 10 things in a separate post but it was getting LONG so I decided to split it up (let’s face it even I have a short attention span and even when I am writing about my favorite things). Read 1-5 from the list here: transformchallengingbehavior.com/blog/10things

6. You can give your art materials a name like “Mr. Glue” and then use a little story to teach children how to use glue in ways that keep Mr. Glue safe (and that don’t result in squeezing out the whole bottle on the first go).

Hats off to Sally Haughey for turning little lessons in to magic moments infused with play…

by Barb O’Neill, Conference Creator, Host and Interviewer

(NOTE: this is a numbered list but the order is random, not based on order of importance).

1. You can buy a puppet for $.25 and make magic in your classroom for the rest of your life.

   Whaaaaaaaat!? YES. Jamie White told us…

Last week I was on a Coaching Call with the Founding Members of the TCB Teachers’ Club and one member shared about a child who always wanted to be at the front of the line.

Every day, every time.

You know what I mean, right?

I shared with the group what came immediately to mind:

“I learned somewhere that sometimes the kids who always want to be first actually…

Do you relate to any of these 3 scenarios...?

"We were cleaning up for lunch. It was not play time. One child saw a dinosaur display in the classroom and walked over saying “dinosaur”. I stopped and took a minute to look at the display with him. Then, I said, “ok let’s clean up for lunch”. The child started screaming "dinosaur!" I explained it was time to clean up but he kept screaming dinosaur. Eventually,,,"

“...do they just play around all day...or do you teach them?”

Yep, those words came right out of my mouth.

It was 1993 and I was working as a part time Teachers’ Aide in the Twos/Threes Classroom at a local child care center.

One week earlier, a friend had asked me, “...you like kids, right? Do you want to be an aide in my classroom?”

Next thing I knew I was sitting in the dramatic play corner pretending to eat plastic spaghetti.

I remember that first year I was working as an Assistant Preschool Teacher hearing almost every other teacher at my child care center telling children: “Use your words!”

I can still hear the exact tone they all used in my head.

(Can you hear it too?)

I quickly added this phrase into my own teaching toolbox.

…and I leaned into using it OFTEN. Like, countless times per day. It’s what we did.

Perhaps you and your coworkers use this phrase too?

Flash forward 2-3 years later and I was enrolled in a Masters program and I learned something concerning in one of my courses...

How we prompt children to "use their words"? Um, my coworkers and I were basically doing it wrong.

Yep, wrong…