Teaching Violence Prevention to Kindergartners
The best time to each violence prevention to anyone is to stress the importance of it at an age as young as possible. We teach babies not to hit, spit or kick their siblings or playmates and continue that teaching throughout their formative years. Sometimes children learn these behavioral principles early on, and sometimes it takes other children a little longer to understand that they shouldn’t do those aggressive things.
By the time those little ones get to kindergarten, hopes are that they’ve learned social skills and there won’t be any problems with aggressive behavior. It sounds good, but it’s not always the case and behavioral skills just have to be re-taught. Teaching children how to avoid violent behavior as kindergartners should start early on and as quickly as possible.
The first step is helping them to understand social and interactive skills that teach them how to respect others by talking and sharing. Something as small even as sharing a pair of scissors or crayons can help little kids interact and learn how to practice patience while dealing with other people. Violence begins when there is no understanding or appreciation of another person’s opinion, resulting in a breakdown of communications. Teaching kindergartners to share and be polite avoids aggressive behavior and is a step towards reducing violence in their future.
To help kindergartners avoid violent behavior, adults should de-emphasize any instances where violent behavior is exhibited. This means ignoring them when they do things they shouldn’t. Aside from addressing issues that are overly-aggressive, small things like breaking in line, yelling out in class, shoving their classmate or snatching crayons from their neighbor are all things that the teacher should react calmly and quietly too. Giving the situation too much attention or dwelling on it too long reinforces to the child that they can get attention if they do “that thing.” The situation can often be diffused by addressing the problem quietly, away from the crowd (if possible) and following it up with what “is” expected from the child. Most often, by confronting the situation in this matter, they will exhibit the behavior that you want them to as long as they continue to receive a positive reaction to their behavior.
