Focusing on Positives Improves Child Behavior and Mental Health

Child behavior, attention and mental health are improved when teachers focus on positive behavior instead of focusing only on disciplining minor problems, a new study shows. The original study, conducted at the University of Exeter Medical School (Webster-Stratton, Reinke, Herman, & Newcomer, 2011), examined the outcomes of a training program for teachers called the Incredible Years Teacher Classroom Management Programme.  

The main factors of the program involved establishing strong interpersonal relationships between the children and teachers and helping teachers learn how to ignoring minor disruptive behavior problems. Other facets of the program included proactively manage more major behavior problems, attending to positive behavior and encouraging appropriate behavior with age appropriate reinforcement techniques.

The program emphasizes behavioral principles long used in parent management programs and other classroom related programs.  In particular, an attempt is made to reverse contingencies frequently used with children who have behavior problems whereby adults ignore good behavior, fearing to disrupt it, but immediately attend to bad behavior.  Children will often work to get any type of attention. So when they learn that good behavior doesn’t seem to get them anything but bad behavior does, they will display disruptive behavior to earn adult attention. Overtime, as children observe other children getting attention for positive behavior, they will begin to imitate the children who are behaving appropriately.  So, the program works through the direct intervention of the teachers and through observational learning with peers.

Numerous studies have been conducted to date on the outcomes of the program. Results have demonstrated a high level of teacher satisfaction, a  significant intervention effect on Positive Climate in the classroom, and significant prosocial behavioral and attention benefits for children with social-behavioral problems (e.g. Murray, Kuhn, Pan, & Sabet, 2018), improved mental health in elementary school children (e.g. Sanchez, Cornacchio, Poznanski, Golik, Chou, & Comer, 2018), and decreased externalizing problems and improved behavior and attention in children with ADHD (e.g. Mohammed, 2018).  The program has corresponding parent and child training systems.

 

References

Mohammed, F. (2018). Effects of a Tailored Incredible Years Teacher Classroom Management Programme on On-Task Behaviour of School Children with ADHD in Addis Ababa. Journal of International Special Needs Education, 21(1), 1-13.

Murray, D. W., Rabiner, D. L., Kuhn, L., Pan, Y., & Sabet, R. F. (2018). Investigating teacher and student effects of the Incredible Years Classroom Management Program in early elementary school. Journal of school psychology, 67, 119-133.

Sanchez, A. L., Cornacchio, D., Poznanski, B., Golik, A. M., Chou, T., & Comer, J. S. (2018). The effectiveness of school-based mental health services for elementary-aged children: A meta-analysis. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 57(3), 153-165.

Webster-Stratton, C., Reinke, W. M., Herman, K. C., & Newcomer, L. L. (2011). The Incredible Years teacher classroom management training: The methods and principles that support fidelity of training delivery. Online submission, 40(4), 509-529.