We use renewal time, not time out at The Shyne School

September 23rd, 2013

by Katrina Brooke

Many schools and parents use a time out to stop inappropriate behavior. We use renewal time if the children are unable or unwilling to cooperate.  The children are in charge of if or how long they need to sit down until they are able to participate appropriately in the program.

At the Shyne School we consider ourselves to be disciplinarians. Our goal is to model and teach appropriate behavior. We teach children to control their impulses and learn what behavior is inappropriate.

We do that by setting limits and following through with a consequence.

First we bring children together to identify the problem. Once the problem is identified we are able to guide them through the problem solving process.

It is so important to teach children to be empowered and learn to stand up for themselves by telling the other child, “I want you to…”  They can say how they feel, why they feel that way and what they want the other child to do.

It is difficult to take responsibility for our own actions. We teach children to listen and take responsibility for their action by stating “I will stop….”  Children can tell the other that they are sorry, (we do not ask them to)  but we want them to say what it is that they will stop doing to the other child.  We tell the child that then the other person can feel safe, to continue to play with them, if they know they will stop. Children’s feelings can be so big to them.  When solving a problem we want to validate the child by helping them name how they feel.  After we validate how they feel we work with the child that hurt to understand what they did and how it effected the other child.

One way we teach empathy is  by having the child that hurt someone else,  help make the hurt child feel better.  They could ask if the hurt child needs a hug, ice pack or a gentle back pat. The child that hurt misses out on play while they help them feel better.

Repetition is how children learn and we do not want the child to continue to hurt others.  Teachers state what the consequences will be it the behavior happens again. We use the process from Dewdrops (Waddlers) to Sunshiners (Pre-K).  With the younger children we also use distraction, by redirecting or removing children from the problem.

Until a child is able to participate cooperatively they may have a renew time or be separated from the group. The important part is that it is up to the child how long they will sit out.  They may need more then one renewal time if they come back before they are really ready.

The children are responsible for their own behavior.  Some are ready to cooperate right away and some are to full of emotion or stubborn and need to sit down for awhile. It is up to them.  Once the class moves on to the next activity of the day we would ask the child to rejoin the group. We hope the time they take themselves away from play will reset and calm them so they can make better choices.

A child may lose privileges if he disregards the limits set. They start each activity over with all the privileges, but can lose the choice of who, what and where they get to play during outside, free play, special project.  A teacher may need to choose where they will play, who they will play with or if they will play alone and what their choices will be.  This only happens if children continue to make poor choices and are not following the classroom limits.

You can find more of our discipline guidelines in our Parent Handbook posted to our Registration Page of our Parent Handbook.

Katrina Brooke

director@shyneschool.com

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