Teaching Children How by Judy Lyden

One of the most important things any early teacher can teach a child is how to manage himself in a public situation. We always begin with a little something called a line. Now granted, many adults would view a child's line up as almost sad. Putting little kids into a formation that seems to take their personalities away seems brutal. So let's look at the child and his needs and his desires to better understand why the line is so important.

In his first group, a little child is not going to understand why he can't be the first and the only. After all, he is the first and many times the only at home, and that is what he is accustomed to. When there are thirty first and onlys there are often collisions - heads get bumped, and children are pushed down. There are tears, hurt feelings and a sense of loss of the parent that all emerge at the same time. Chaos raises its pernicious head, and nobody is happy.

Establishing the order of a line is not an easy process. It's about like herding cats. We often put marks on the floor and have the children each find a mark to stand on. If the marks or stickers are different, most of the children find a great satisfaction with a particular sticker. Getting a child to remain on the sticker while the other children find stickers is the hard part. That sense that "I don't really have to" is rampant in today's child care.

Over the months, children begin to understand that somehow when the line is ready and everyone is in it, and that includes them, the line will magically take them outside. It's still a fractured line - a noisy, broken line with children facing in all directions. But none the less, it's somewhat functional as it does somehow get the children from the school to the playground.

Understanding that formation begins with listening and following directions is not always easy especially when there is little back up at home. But stopping, listening, and then doing are the steps to being socially attuned to what is going on in public, and this one ability - to stop self, to listen to another, and to do what is required will make the difference between a success and a failure in big school.

So this is our job. Lately we've been working on being quiet at the table. The idea it's OK to scream at the table and wave arms and kick under the table are bad habits to be broken in order that a child can go off to big school and manage his lunch in a reasonable time with reasonable success.

We have also been working on washing our hands properly and looking at them to see for ourselves that our hands are clean. Self management is a tough thing to teach. From the first scramble to be first and only, a child will not desire to be the cleanest or have the best scrubbed hands. It doesn't work that way. Instead, he will dash to the bathroom, stick his hands under running water and then make a wet bee line to the classroom in order to be first where upon he will tumble and roll and toss around until he is sent back to the bathroom to start all over again.

There is a maturity peak of about late five or six when suddenly a child begins to understand that getting quiet, standing properly in line, washing well the first time, and being quiet at the table makes everything that "must" be done go faster. When they begin to grasp the concept, it's spring and then summer and then it's back to herding cats.

Helping a child at home is really just a two step little dance. The parent makes a request and then asks the child to repeat verbally what has been asked. Then the parent waits for the child to comply. Works.