In the career of an early childhood professional, they must understand and incorporate two concepts for the behavioral development of children. Reward and punishment are the two most important concepts of discussion. Therefore, this paper discusses why early childhood professionals must understand the concepts, how to incorporate them into work, how the ideas are involved in behavioral guidance, and how they could use them with children.
A reward is given as a result of doing good or evil. In the concept of early childhood development, the reward is used to mean something offered as a result of a good deed. Teachers can use school rewards to improve children’s learning behaviors and recognize educational achievements (Birn et al., 2017). However, despite the goodness that comes with rewards, young children are intrinsically motivated. It means that young children are motivated mainly by the thing itself rather than rewards. Much research has been done concerning the reward system, and the results have shown that using rewards on children may have mixed responses. A study has shown that teachers can use motivation and rewards in the early years of a child (Birn et al., 2017). Study shows that if an activity is enjoyable, there is no need to use rewards, as introducing them at that point may be counterproductive. However, rewards are not entirely a bad thing for the motivation of children, but it only depends on the situations in which they are used. It is vital for early childhood development professionals because it enhances the effectiveness of behavior in learning since the children will always respond well to rewards depending on the situation. The day-to-day motivation increases in understanding the reward concepts, promoting observational learning
On the other hand, punishment is inflicting a penalty due to a misdeed. Children are involved in misdeeds in the early childhood profession, a concept that professionals must understand. Some early childhood professionals must understand this concept because (1) punishment in young children will make them feel unworthy and rejected; hence this may make them feel more challenged in learning social skills. Secondly, punishment can make the children feel more rejected, angry, and hurt. As a result of these consequences to the children, early childhood professionals must simultaneously understand the concept of guidance and punishment (Nichols et al., 2014). Instead of imposing punishments, early childhood professionals can learn to interact with the children and help them to learn from their mistakes and show them how. The professionals can apply this technique to all children but, most importantly, to children they find too difficult to connect. In this case, teachers can use to show children how to mediate and solve their problems (Nichols et al., 2014).
For the rewards part, using a behavior chart can help the teachers track the behaviors of the children while still incorporating the concept of reward. A behavior chart is created by including the type of behaviors the teacher would like to see in the children. Across the top of the chart, the teacher can then create a list of weekdays. She can then create a column showing behaviors of concern for each day. Whenever a child shows up or completes a task, the teacher can put a sticker in the appropriate days’ box. The children can use these stickers as points to either redeem toys, free time, or privileges (“7 Tips for Rewards and Consequences | Child Behavior and Motivation”, 2022). Incorporating a behavior chart and the sticker reward system is one of the many ways an early childhood professional can incorporate rewards in two-year-old children. However, whenever a child does not manage to uphold the behavior of a specific day as a form of punishment, the teacher can impose the withdrawal of a particular privilege, but it should not be prolonged.
In the preschool setting, the familiar sources of conflicts are territory, property, and privileges. These common areas can make the children have unwanted behaviors. Rather than using stiff punishments, the teacher can show the children how to solve these disputes amongst themselves. One of the many ways a teacher can use is mediation in a play or a game. Creating a space about an instance of interest, then showing the children how to mediate between themselves can help improve their behaviors.
In conclusion, early childhood professionals have to understand the concept of rewards and punishment in the early childhood profession. It is essential to understand the reward system in children as it helps them to improve their learning behaviors. It helps them strive to do good to get the teacher’s reward. The teacher can provide both tangible and intangible rewards. However, rewards sometimes provide mixed outcomes; thus, the teacher needs to learn to incorporate motivations. Punishment can negatively impact children; therefore, teachers must understand the guidance concept to know when and how to incorporate the punishment. Using a behavior chart and creating plays can be ways in which early childhood professionals can incorporate the ideas of rewards and punishment.
References
Reward systems support pupils to learn and teachers to teach | TokensFor. TokensFor. (2022). Retrieved 12 September 2022, from https://www.tokensfor.com/advice-centre/reward-systems-support-pupils-to-learn-and-teachers-to-teach/#:~:text=Simple%20rewards%20produce%20a%20sense,translates%20into%20more%20effective%20learning.
Nichols, S., Briggs-Gowan, M., Estabrook, R., Burns, J., Kestler, J., & Berman, G. et al. (2014). Punishment Insensitivity in Early Childhood: A Developmental, Dimensional Approach. Journal Of Abnormal Child Psychology, 43(6), 1011-1023. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10802-014-9950-1
Birn, R., Roeber, B., & Pollak, S. (2017). Early childhood stress exposure, reward pathways, and adult decision making. Proceedings Of The National Academy Of Sciences, 114(51), 13549-13554. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1708791114
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