Now that we have a shared understanding of how behavior is defined, this section of the chapter will support you to explore and reflect on the connection between relationships and behavior. Did you know that relationships with others may influence behavior either positively or negatively?

Look closely for a moment on this photo of the young boy playing Jenga. As he moves and/or removes the blocks, the structure becomes unbalanced and even unpredictable. A child’s behavior and the relationships in his or her life can mirror this game of Jenga.

According to the National Scientific Council on the Developing Child (NSCDC) at Harvard University (2004/2009), young children experience their world as an environment of relationships, and these relationships affect practically every aspect of their development:

Stated simply, relationships are the “active ingredients” of the environment’s influence on healthy human development. They incorporate the qualities that best promote competence and well-being – individualized responsiveness, mutual action-and-interaction, and an emotional connection to another human being, be it a parent, peer, grandparent, aunt, uncle, neighbor, teacher, coach, or any other person who has an important impact on the child’s early development. Relationships engage children in the human community in ways that help them define who they are, what they can become, and how and why they are important to other people. (p. 1)

When children have secure and stable relationships with caring adults, they tend to be more proficient in developing warm and positive relationships with others. They are also “more excited about learning, more positive about coming to school, more self-confident” (NSCDC, 2004/2009, p. 2), and have stronger skills getting along with others.

It is also important to understand that the relationships children have with other children also inform and influence their behavior (Bandura, 1977). Young children learn from each other how to share, how to participate in shared interactions such as, taking turns, the reciprocal acts of giving, and receiving, how to respect and accept the needs and wants of others, and how to manage their own impulses.

Simply being around other children, however, is not enough to build the skills for positive behaviors. The development of friendships is critical, as children learn and play more competently in the relationships created and nurtured with their friends rather than when they are struggling with the social challenges that may occur when interacting with casual acquaintances or unfamiliar peers. Positive relationships and positive behaviors all add to healthy brain development and depend upon the relationships with individuals in the child’s close community as well as in the family (NSCDC, 2004/2009).

It is within that context of family that we must remember that “everything we think, say, and do is processed through our own cultural backgrounds” and our individual lens (Kaiser & Rasminsky, 2019-2020, para. 1). Recognizing the diversity that exists in our communities, schools, and classrooms will help us be more aware of influences on children’s behaviors and therefore develop realistic expectations and interventions regarding behaviors.

We begin developing this understanding of culture by looking critically at ourselves. This includes a close inspection of our beliefs, our values, and our practices. When thinking about behavior specifically, it is important to identify our cultural expectations for:

• independence vs. interdependence,
• standing out in a group vs. being modest or less visible
• promoting self vs. group focus
• personal property vs. shared

Knowledge of ourselves then becomes the foundation to scaffold and build an understanding of how the cultures of the families we work with impact their children’s behavior. We can only learn about the cultures of others through conversations and interactions with them. This knowledge comes directly from the families and is very personal and individual to the family.

Your culture and those of the children enrolled are the starting point for being culturally responsive. Going further, it is important to remember that:

Every school and early childhood education program has a culture too. The cultures of most American schools are based on White European American values. As the makeup of the U.S. population becomes more diverse, there is more cultural dissonance—which impacts children’s behavior. (Kaiser & Rasminsky, 2019-2020, para. 17)

Think about this in terms of classroom practice. Children may not understand the classroom rules you have set because they do not speak the language used at school. Did you know that some languages have no words for I, me, or mine (Kaiser & Rasminsky, 2019-2020)? It is because the way you respond to children’s behavior and conflict is bound to your own culture, that it is common to get the wrong idea about a child’s words or behaviors. When you observe a child’s behavior that appears to be noncompliant, ask yourself if that behavior could be culturally influenced. Honest and open conversations with the family will help you understand and respect their cultural beliefs and practices regarding education and child development.

Engaging in informed practice on our part will influence equity in our approaches and expectations, guiding us to support all children to succeed in our classrooms and programs. With growing diversity in the U.S. population, children will find themselves more frequently in classroom environments that may not match or reflect their home culture. It is our goal to support children to feel included and understood, versus being “confused, isolated, alienated, conflicted, and less competent because what they’ve learned so far in their home culture simply doesn’t apply” (Kaiser & Raminsky, 2019-2020, para. 20).

“Affirm the child, not the behavior”
Dan Gartrell (2020, p. 10)

Relationships and Responsive Teaching

In terms of relationships, when you as the teacher are responsive to the children’s culture, you are better able to form genuine and caring relationships with the children and their families. You can scaffold on this to build on what the child already knows and can do and identify their next steps for learning. This information will help you choose and implement appropriate activities and strategies that honor children’s cultures as well as life experiences and teach children what they need to know and do to be successful in the world today (Kaiser & Rasminsky, 2019-2020).

The Center on the Social and Emotional Foundations for Early Learning (CSEFEL) outlines the fundamental importance of positive relationships in a handout by Gail Joseph and Phillip Strain (2010). When adults invest time and effort in teaching proactively prior to behavior “events,” children are more successful in achieving improved behavior change, even in situations that might lead to escalating challenging behavior. The key is communicating non-contingent affection and unquestioned valuing of children. The bottom line is that success is dependent on building a positive relationship first. Adults need to invest the time and attention with children as a precedent to the optimum use of sound behavior change strategies (Joseph & Strain, 2010).

The first step is to invest the time in relationship building, and the second is to understand that as your relationships with the child become stronger, so does your potential influence on their behavior. Children will “cue in” on the presence of you as a meaningful and caring adult and will attend differentially and selectively to what you say and do, continuing to seek out ways to ensure even more positive attention from the adult (Lally et al., 1988).

Joseph and Strain (2010) share these strategies for you to use as you work to build relationships with children:

• Carefully analyzing each compliance task (e.g., “time to go paint”) and, where possible, shifting that compliance task to a choice for children (e.g., “Do you want to paint or do puzzles?”);
• Carefully considering if some forms ofchallenging behavior can be ignored (e.g., loud voice)—this is not “planned ignoring” for behavior designed to elicit attention but ignoring in the sense of making wise and limited choices about when to pick battles over behavior; and
• Self-monitoring one’s own behaviors and setting behavioral goals accordingly. Some teachers have easily done this by using wrist golf counters to self-record or by moving a plastic chip from one pocket to the next. A strategically posted visual reminder can help teachers remember to make numerous relationship deposits. (p. 3)

There will be times that you should and will need to give feedback to children that is in the form of corrections and reminders. This will not hinder your relationship building. The important take-away is that your positive interactions need to happen in a greater number and frequency. As you learn to do this, you can begin to keep a tally of how many times you remind a child about an unwanted behavior. Then, try to find at least twice the number of positive things to comment on and tally those also (Joseph & Strain, 2010).

When children do not receive positive feedback, they are less likely to enter the positive cycle of motivation and learning. The conclusion here is that when children have positive interactions with teachers and other adults, they have fewer instances of challenging behavior When children feel safe and understood they can use those positive interactions to help build positive relationships. This will build motivation and stimulate within the brain a cycle of repetition focused on motivation and learning.

Attributions

1. Figure 10.3: Playing jenga with my 6 year old by Michał Parzuchowski is released under CC0 1.0