Positive Relationships: Behaviour - To be expected

Ours is a workplace nursery that offers extended provision. To cover the hours, we have quite a large staff team across two shifts each day, some of whom are part time. Parents can also drop in any time, although most do this during their lunch breaks and spend half an hour or so with their children. While it is a happy nursery, I feel that some of the older children at times play up in front of their parents and with part-time staff. Last week, for example, a child in front of a staff member told his mother to 'shut up' while another refused to tidy up with a new member of staff. Have you any suggestions?

First, may I say how lovely it is hear to that your nursery actively supports parents who wish to come in and see their child during the day. This is great news for parent-child relationships even if it does seem to present its own challenges, which we will come to later. In terms of your question, I suspect that there are several issues that need unpicking, although they all relate to expectations of children's behaviour and subsequent boundary setting.

A good starting point when looking at children's behaviour is to think about what is age/stage appropriate, as well as what is realistic. This is worth doing as a whole team exercise.

To assess age/stage appropriate behaviour, practitioners should draw on their basic knowledge of child development. Yet it is surprising how, after a while, many nursery staff base their expectations of an individual child not on the classic developmental norms but rather on comparisons with other children in the group. This can lead to individual children being seen as having challenging behaviour whereas in reality, they are 'bang on the money' for their age/stage.

Once you have looked at age/stage expectations, the next thing is to consider what is realistic for these children. Short-term factors such as tiredness and being away from home do kick in after a few hours. Children who are pretty good at sharing might after seven hours in the company of others be on the wane and adjustments to routines and expectations need to be thought through.

COMFORTABLE RELATIONSHIPS

You might also like to consider whether it is realistic or, may I dare to say it, desirable for children to be 'co-operative' with adults all the time. In my experience both as a parent and also a key person, children who have comfortable relationships with adults are at times cheeky and 'push their luck', so to speak. This is because in a strong relationship children are relaxed and, therefore, do not have to be on best behaviour all the time.

You say that you are in a happy nursery, which I assume means that children have strong relationships with the adults, especially their key persons. If this is the case, you might like to think about whether some aspects of children's behaviour fit into this category. Provided that they are only minor infringements, my advice would be to recognise them for what they are - a sign of feeling at ease.

While the comment from the child to his mother to 'shut up' also reflected this concept of feeling at ease, I suspect that it should not have been left unchallenged. This leads us on to the importance of consistency of boundaries and expectations.

CONSISTENCY

You say that you are a large team with part-time staff. There are also changes of staff during the day, which means that from a child's point of view, there is a lot of coming and going over the week. While everyone working with children has their own unique style and strengths, it sounds as if your setting may need to check that there is consistency in terms of how positive behaviour is promoted, but also how unwanted behaviours are managed.

Children, particularly, as you pointed out in your question, older ones, can be quick to play the system; working out which staff are confident and which ones are less sure. This was perhaps the reason behind the example of the child who refused to tidy up with the new member of staff.

Consider creating a simple guide that unpicks the behaviour policy for your setting. It should have a clear summary of how staff should promote behaviour and also strategies and situations in which unwanted behaviour should be managed. I would expect that this would include dealing with acts of aggression, rude or unkind remarks, as well as tantrums and attention seeking.

It is also worth having clear statements to let new or temporary staff know about your expectations of their general conduct, such as going over to children rather than talking across the room, modelling thoughtfulness and using an appropriate tone of voice.

Think, too, of creating a simple chart that shows the routine events of the setting and the expectations of children that have developed in your setting. For example, children take finished plates over to the hatch or put games back on the shelf.

ULTIMATE RESPONSIBILITY

Then, finally, it sounds as if you need to have a clear policy as to who takes ultimate responsibility for children's behaviour when parents are present. Often when children play up, parents are hindered from action by embarrassment, while staff are concerned about interfering. The trouble is that some children have an uncanny knack of sensing this unease and this unsettles them further.

In some nurseries, the agreement with parents is that while the children are on the premises, nursery 'terms and conditions' apply. This can be very helpful as it means that everyone is working together and children respond well to the consistency.

If you decide to adopt this type of approach, do spend time talking it through with parents. I think that it would be interesting to hear their feedback so that you can build positively on the open-door policy that you have been developing.