Analysis Of Perspectives On Discipline By Bonnie Neugebauer

Discipline varies within cultures as well as from generation to generation. The article “Perspectives on Discipline” by Bonnie Neugebauer, expressed the common link between parents was the desire for their children to be confident, to be outspoken and in control so they are not taken advantage of. The parents wanted their children to be self-regulated, independent thinkers and responsible individuals. The parents wanted them to give respect to others as well as demand respect for themselves. The certain that if the children possessed these characteristics this would create a successful individual who is able to face life and any difficulties they may face. Parents interviewed in the article alleged that there were some similarities regarding

The one instance that I have had to deal with was Talia, a three and a half year old. She was repetitively hitting and pushing the other children and taking their toys away. The child was experiencing behavior problems at home as well. Talia lived with her single mother and grandmother. Mom worked evenings and the grandmother took care of her granddaughter after working all day. The only time Talia saw Mom, was on the way to childcare in the morning. Every other weekend she was court ordered to go to her dad’s. A difficult situation, dad was a recovering alcoholic and drug abuser who could not hold a job to pay her child support. Having knowledge of the background and how difficult her family life was I found it necessary to encourage the use of rules that we all had to abide by at our childcare. We would discuss the rules, each day, repeating how we needed to treat others the way we wanted to be treated. Talia became accustomed to the rules of the classroom over times at childcare, but she had very little structure at home. She was not able to self-regulate herself and had difficulty with social development. Talking to both her mother and her grandmother was ineffective, as they both made excuses for her

I introduced a behavior modification program that consisted of a “bee journal”. The journal was made up of a daily bee hive that the children were responsible to color in according to their behavior. The colors assigned were colors that related to the green, yellow and red lights at the intersection. The children would begin by coloring in the first portion of the bee hive green, which represents “go”. The goal was for each child to stay on green all day. If there was inappropriate behavior by Talia or any other child, the child was instructed to get their journal and depending on the severity of the behavior, color the next segment of the bee hive. Yellow represented the child had a warning and red represented the child would need to sit with the teacher and talk about what happened and what they should have done. At the end of the day each child sits with the teacher and their journal and they talk about their day and what color the remainder of the beehive should be. The teacher had the ability to write a note to the parent and the journal went home with the child each day. The following day the journa was returned with a comment or an initial so we know they saw it. The parents began using this strategy at home as well. The children would arrive in the morning saying with great pride, “I was on green all weekend”. This method actually helped Talia, control her