WF, 8/8/2019 | Wee Friends Early Childhood Program LLC

Hello!

*Just as a reminder, please make sure that your child’s fall paperwork is filled out and return by tomorrow. Thank you!

Another Teacher Tom blog post that attracted my attention (thanks to Tami’s post on Facebook earlier today!). What I love about Teacher Tom is that he doesn’t claim to be an expert. He simply shares his ideas and thoughts based on several years of experience with children.

“Rewards and punishments may appear to work in the moment — the promise of ice cream may well motivate a child to eat a few peas; the threat of having toys taken away may well motivate a child to tidy up — but human nature dictates that, being unnatural consequences, the value of the rewards and the severity of the punishments must be regularly increased or they lose their effectiveness. Not only that, but the lessons taught in the long run, to be motivated by the approval or disapproval of others, are certainly not what we wish for our children. Values must come from within; they are not imposed from without: that’s called obedience an unsavory and even dangerous trait.”

Rewards and punishments. It’s always going to be a topic of conversation amongst parents and educators. When we want a child to do something (clean up for example), we want them to do it without complaining and in a timely fashion. This almost NEVER happens. Children don’t like to switch from one activity to the next ESPECIALLY if they’re enjoying themselves. Rewarding them by saying, “If you clean up, you can have ice cream after dinner”, is extrinsically motivating them. Instead, we should be offering an opportunity where they are intrinsically motivated. For instance, saying, “If you clean up your room, you’ll be able to take pride in the fact that your toys are put away nicely which shows that you respect them!”—yes ice cream sounds SO much better but it doesn’t last. We want children to be proud of the choices they make as well as the people they are becoming and what they’re starting to value.

“If you value healthy food, then eat it. If you value being well rested, then sleep. If you value a tidy bedroom, then keep yours tidy. And ultimately, with time, sometimes lots of time, it will be your role-modeling of these behaviors that your child will come to imitate, not on your schedule, but one of his own, which is all we can expect of our fellow humans.”

http://teachertomsblog.blogspot.com/2019/08/instilling-values-in-children.html

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Enjoy the pictures from our day!