Quality Rating 5: Positive Guidance
Instructions
To meet the requirements for Developmentally Appropriate Learning and Practice: Positive Guidance: DAP 3.5, your written policy for positive behavioral practices should clearly show how your program uses the following strategies with the children:
- Providing Choices
- Redirection
- Reflection and Problem Solving
- Clear Rules and Expectations Developed with Input from Children
The Policy or Statement Builder provides a step-by-step guide for creating your statement.
Positive Guidance
Your program’s policy for positive behavioral practices should contain positive strategies for addressing children’s behavior. The policy should clearly show how your program guides and supports children’s behavior in a way that is developmentally appropriate.
View this video to learn about positive guidance and how it relates to creating environments where children thrive.
Positive Guidance Strategies
Choose each heading below to learn more about the positive guidance strategies required for level 5.
Providing choices to children gives them opportunities to make decisions and guides their independence. Choices communicate to children that they have some control and responsibility, which helps to increase their interest, attention, participation, and overall engagement in daily activities.
View the video to explore providing choices in a child care program. Select the audio clip to hear examples of teachers providing choices to children.
What does the documentation look like?
Your written policy of positive behavioral practices describes in detail how children are offered choices throughout the day. Include specific examples of when and where children are offered choices.
Redirection is a proactive way to respond to challenging behavior. It helps guide children toward better choices when they are acting in ways that may be inappropriate. This approach can also keep children involved and focused, especially when they are starting to lose control.
Review the video to explore different types of redirection. Select the audio clips below each type to hear an example of each type of redirection.
What does the documentation look like?
Your policy on positive behavioral practices should describe the types of redirection used with children. It may also include the situations in which redirection is applied and how decisions are made about which type of redirection to use in those situations.
Reflection and problem solving both play important roles in helping children handle challenges. Problem solving provides children with tools to name their emotions and practice self-control. Reflection, when modeled and taught by adults, allows the child to think about what worked and what could be improved in different situations. Supporting children to reflect and problem solve encourages them to believe in themselves as successful problem solvers and builds healthy social and emotional skills at an early age.
View the videos to discover how problem solving and reflection are used in a child care setting. Select the audio clip to hear an example of a teacher asking questions that encourage reflection and problem solving.
What does the documentation look like?
Your written policy describes in detail how you use reflection and problem solving with children to guide their positive behavior. Consider providing specific examples to support your policy.
Rules help both children and adults understand what is expected. When stated clearly and positively, they guide specific behaviors that support those expectations. By following the same rules, adults model them for children. Consistently reinforcing rules helps children understand what to expect and choose more positive behavior.
When children are part of the process of establishing rules and expectations, they are more likely to feel a part of their environment and are better able to follow the rules. Children may also show greater interest in helping others to follow your program’s rules and expectations if they are involved in the process of establishing them.
View the video to discover how to develop clear rules and expectations in a child care setting. Select the audio clip to hear an example of a teacher setting clear expectations and asking for children’s input.
Hear it
Clear Rules and Expectations
Gathering Input from Children
What does the documentation look like?
Your behavior policy describes how you establish, model, and reinforce clear rules and expectations that guide children’s positive behavior. Check to be sure that your policy clearly describes how children are part of the process for developing the rules and expectations. Your documentation can include a list of your rules and expectations as part of your policy.
Policy or Statement Builder
Develop a policy that describes your program’s positive behavioral practices. The Reflection Questions below will help you think about what you do in your program to capture it when creating your policy. Once you have spent time reflecting on the questions below, you’re ready to build your policy.
Reflection Questions
- What positive behavioral supports and strategies do you use in your program?
- What kinds of choices do children have throughout the day?
- When do you use redirection as a behavior strategy?
- How do you share your program’s rules? Do the children help develop the rules?
- Are reflection and problem solving used as positive behavior strategies? If so, what are some examples of how they are used?
Policy Builder Resources
Use these optional resources to reflect on your program’s practices and create your Positive Guidance Policy.
Technology Tips
Choose the way that the provided resources will be most useful to you.
You can:
Download the PDF.
Save the PDF.
Print the PDF.
Edit the PDF.
Where can you learn more?
- The Value of Positive Guidance This video guides you through each type of behavior strategy required for a quality rating 5.
- Positive Behavioral Supports Understand how to provide choices and redirect children to promote positive behavior.
- Giving Children Choices This article explores how providing choices to children works to empower them and improve behavior.
- Understanding Behavior Expectations and Rules Educators cannot simply assume that young children will intuitively understand the expectations of a structured early childhood setting. Rather, early childhood teachers need to be prepared to support and promote appropriate behavior.
- Preschoolers Grow Their Brains: Shifting Mindsets for Greater Resiliency and Better Problem Solving This brief article from the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) explores specific strategies and scenarios for fostering the problem solving skills of young children.
