My Philosophy of Guidance Paper

This is what I wrote for my paper. I was supposed to cite things I had learned from my class and the book that have influenced my philosophy however, I haven't learned anything. So I said so... We'll see how it goes over.

In approaching this assignment I have found myself thinking about the questions being posed and struggling to describe a specific philosophy of guidance. Without digressing too far I have found most of these assignments very hard to do because my philosophy of guidance, my knowledge about how to interact with children, and my practical application of the classic theories of Developmental Psychology do not come from the things I have learned in this class. I also do no believe that these are things that can be taught in a classroom. How do you tell someone how to ride a bike? You can try to explain it to someone but they can't just learn to ride a bike because you tell them how, they have to go out and try it and they have to learn for themselves what works. I know that this paper is looking for me to cite a bunch of information that I have learned in class and from reading the book but the fact of the matter is I don't think guidance has anything to do with these things. If I cite these things as part of my philosophy I am then saying that people without formal education in these subjects do not offer good guidance or are incapable of it and that is not the case. My philosophy also isn't a logical compilation of various theories about child behavior. My philosophy comes from years of working with children and learning through experience what works, what's important, and what approaches are important in building relationships with children. Most importantly though, my experience has taught me that life never plays out like the examples in the books or in class and that the people who base their philosophy on these things struggle to cope with the reality of working with children.

In class we had a demonstration by Dr. Torrie of what an eight year old's behavior looks like. I have spent the last five years of my life working with this age group and walked away from this demonstration wondering how the class would react if they saw a real eight year old. My experience with eight year olds was totally inconsistent with what I was seeing in the classroom. What if I had based my philosophy on this incident? My philosophy would then be based on something that is not consistent with what I was faced with in reality. As for a philosophy statement, I don't have one because the biggest thing I have learned is that the minute you think you have children figured out, they will never fail to surprise you and throw you off your game. I don't have a “this is how you need to interact with or guide children”, instead I have developed a list of beliefs. I have developed opinions or theories about what approaches work best in general when dealing with various situations. I spent a lot of my time with children working in conflict resolution and crisis management and I had to act and think fast in order to literally not get hurt. I had to rely on these beliefs and theories for my personal safety and therefor they needed to be things I really believed worked. Did I quote some text book or theory of a famous psychologist? No, I listened to the children and this became my number one theory of child guidance. Don't ever put yourself in the authority roll in a way that dictates to a child. Children want to be heard. Most of the time they don't even care if they get their way but they want to know that you are listening to them. I am a huge supporter of the authoritative parenting style and use this model as the foundation to how I choose to interact with children. Authoratative parenting is the recommended parenting model but it is my opinion that it is the hardest to master. I believe this is because it can not be taught like a rule book. It is accomplished by parents who learn to trust their “gut” and really do parent from their heart. I think this model is often misrepresented though and people who try to achieve an authoritative relationship with children by following a set of rules end up giving children too many choices in the wrong areas, they try to create an adult like relationship with children when what children need is a supportive and consistent base from which to venture out from. Somewhere along the way the focus seems to have gone from children having authority figures to children having adult friends and I don't agree with this. It's not to say that you can't be friendly with children and have fun and act like a kid with them, but there should never be a doubt about what your role is in their life. You are their to guide and facilitate development, a child needs to see you as a safe and stable pillar in their life and when you don't create a structured environment for them then they don't see you as someone they can trust to know what is best for them. Authoritative relationships come about when you ask for the child's input and encourage discussion about the limitations you may choose to place on them. Rather than tell a child their curfew is 8PM, have a discussion with them and ask for input. It doesn't mean that when they tell you their curfew should be midnight you agree with them but you discuss the situation and they then learn to appreciate and respect you because you are showing them respect as well.

As far as being able to list any examples from lab, I can not. I think the lab in this class is a good idea but does not allow practical use of anything I have learned in this class and it does not allow me to explore my philosophy of guidance. I do not agree with how ACPC approaches child behavior and it has been really hard and frustrating for me to watch this program's beliefs in practice. I disagree with the fact that they believe there should be no consequences for behavior and that regardless of a child's actions they receive the same rewards as the rest of the children. I do not agree with setting up a reward system for behavior and then rewarding all children the same regardless of how they behave. In addition to this specific problem I have a fundamental problem with reward based programs, especially when it comes to behavior. It creates behavior based on extrinsic feedback rather than self regulation. The best example I can provide of this issue was an incident where a child in my lab was ran around all evening hitting his peers and no consequences were given. He wouldn't listen and was being extremely disruptive. I asked about the programs policy on time outs and they said they didn't do them. I suggested we offer the child an outlet, a more positive form of a time out. This is something we used to do with the kids I worked with and it worked really well. It provides the same purpose as a time out without creating a power struggle. Encourage the child to step away from the situation for a few minuets and take some deep breaths, encourage them to reflect on what is bothering them, and then process with the child after they have a few minutes to calm down. Suggest problem resolution ideas. We called this method going through SODAS with kids. SODAS stands for Situations, Options, Disadvantages, Advantages, Solutions. It encourages the child to stop and think and then self regulate their behavior by thinking about the positive and negative consequences of their behaviors. ACPC however would not even allow me to suggest an outlet for the child. They chose instead to ignore the situation and pretend that there was not a problem. I can appreciate not wanting to turn an after school program into a disciplinary program as this can be very difficult and requires a lot more training for the staff but I do not see anything wrong with letting a child know that their behavior is unfavorable and suggesting positive alternatives for them.

Continuing with the example of this child at the end of the day, he received the same three stickers that all his peers got. These stickers are supposed to be based on behavior. Three for great behavior, two for ok, one for good, and zero for bad. If you give the child who is hitting everyone three stickers and you give the children who really did do awesome three stickers then the reward system loses meaning to everyone. The misbehaving child is just getting his bad decisions rewarded and the good children are learning that it doesn't matter if they are good or not. It creates a negative environment and it does not encourage prosocial behaviors for any of the children. All of this in the name of 'being fair and having fun'.

I don't really understand the movement towards making all things fair for children. What is wrong with teaching children about competition and hard work paying off? Once again I see this as another fundamental theory that has become very twisted because a few people became too lazy to really apply the true idea of how a reward system works (should you decided to use one). You should know the children you work with and you should know what it means to have a good day or a bad day. I work as a tutor in the Ames schools and one of my classrooms has an amazing teacher. She has an extremely difficult child in her classroom, he spends on average about a third of his day being sent to the principles' office. For him a perfect day without any principle time is not a realistic expectation for him, so instead she focuses on lowering that time. Any day that he gets sent less than three times to the principle he gets a sticker. It used to be less than five times and then he was able to get stickers every day so now they are doing less than three. The reward system is based on his needs, his abilities, not the hard fast rule that getting sent to the principles office is bad and if you get sent then you had a horrible day. For him, that seems impossible and it's too hard, however he knows he can do less than three and he takes great pride in wearing his stickers proudly. All the teachers in the school know about this program and congratulate him when they see him wearing his stickers. This is a great program for him because it focuses on his ability and allows him to develop intrinsic motivation by making the real reward the ability to be proud of himself and his behaviors.

To conclude this paper I will sum up my main ideas about children. There is no theory from this class that I would be able to point to and tell you that my philosophy of guidance stems from. To write a paper doing this would be a lie, but I do feel what I have expressed fulfills the learning objective outlined by you for this paper. To be completely honest a lot of my ideas come from the work of Baumirind and from having read numerous research articles of hers and finding myself able to relate to her findings and theories. These were not covered in this class however. I wouldn't preach a philosophy to anyone but if I had to tell someone what my philosophy was I would summarize it like this, “Children are more complicated, more expressive, and more intelligent than any adult could ever imagine. The only way to even catch a glimpse into this world that we so quickly dismiss as adults is to be willing to listen to children. I do not believe in being the adult that has nothing to learn from children, my experience has taught me that there are many times I have much more to learn from them than they may ever learn from me. Children are not adults and as such they should not be treated like adults, but they should have their thoughts and actions respected. They may fight you and argue with you but this is natural development, despite their claims to want complete freedom children thrive in structured environments where they have regular input about their surroundings. Most importantly I believe that you shouldn't interact with children like you are reading from a script. You go to school so that you become familiar with information. Some of this information may be helpful, some of it you may never use but don't try to apply every situation to some theory that you have learned about. Most of the time you won't be able to. Trust your instincts, you were a child once too and when you don't know what to do remember the saying about walking a mile in their shoes. Ask yourself how you would want someone to respond in the situation you are being faced with. Use the fact that you have been a child, gotten through childhood, and can now reflect back to help guide you with the hard decisions. Most importantly though have fun. If children see you as someone that is uptight and worried they are not going to be comfortable around you. Show them that you want to be there and that they can trust you.” This is my philosophy, this is what I have learned from reading research on child development and parenting styles (I use parenting styles a lot as guidance since parents are the ultimate child guides) and from working as a professional with children for many years. If you over think things and try to over complicate children you will never be great at your job working with them. You will lose the big picture and you will miss out on a great opportunity.