New behaviors in your child: S/he must have learned it at school!

by Lorie Hammond, Ph.D., Academic Director

Every year we hear the same comments from parents: “My child never did THIS before! S/he must have learned it at school.”

The implication might even be: “What kind of school is that, where this gets taught?

These comments can be sources of dismay, in parents who have never seen their innocent child socializing in a group, trying out new behaviors, and problem solving by trial and error. Several things must be kept in mind.

The first thing is that your child has never done X before because s/he has never been two, or three, or four, or five…. before. Developmental stages bring on new behaviors, like clockwork, each geared to a particular child’s internal clock, and new things will always come up.

The second thing is that children do try on behaviors they see, in a trial and error fashion, seeing what will happen. This is how human beings learn. We are explorers, we humans, which is why Peregrine School is organized the way it is, with chances to explore in all areas. Just as a young child learns to measure or to write by trying things over and over, making mistakes and trying again, young children also do the same thing in the social sphere. In many ways, social learning is more complex than anything else they do, and takes more experimentation. Many of us are comfortable with the idea that a young child has a “cute” misconception about science, but are less comfortable with misconceptions about how to act toward others. But it is all part of the marvelous experiment of learning how to be.

The third thing that is important to know is that at school, we spend a lot of time working with children to help them learn to make good choices rather than bad. We do this through a method called “Positive Discipline”, which emphasizes helping children to LEARN how to act rather than telling them what to do. We help children to talk to each other, to listen to how others’ feel, and to problem solve. If things go badly in one area, we encourage them gently but firmly to play in another area. The emphasis is on the positive. It assumes what is known in child development: THAT EVERY ACTION CHILDREN TRY IS AN ATTEMPT TO GET SOMETHING IMPORTANT TO THEM. Young children do not do “bad” things because they want to hurt someone or to bother adults. They are trying to accomplish something they want: getting a toy, making a friend, or whatever. Our job as adults is to help them learn better ways to accomplish their ends. It is not a quick and easy job, but when children are surrounded by helpful and caring adults, as they are at home and at Peregrine School, they will learn.

A final point: learning is what it is all about, in social life as well as academic. Our purpose is not to train or control children, but to teach them the reason behind actions, so that they can take increasing responsibility for their own effects as they get older. Learning is a messier process than controlling, but the result is really important: it is the only way to create a humane, problem solving human being!