Whole class silence for preschoolers aged 3

[littlemissexcited5]

My 3 year old has mentioned that they have had 3 minutes silences and has role played what happens. The first time it seemed to be that they were 'too noisy and shouting' at lunchtime and the staff made them sit there for 3 minutes as a punishment. Then today when I went to pick my child up a little earlier than usual the whole group were sat in a circle in absolute silence, all crossed legged, looking very sombre with a very large egg timer in the middle of the circle. As I got my child's things together the staff member said now we are having this silence because we didn't play the game properly. I mentioned to another member of staff about this and she said it's a minute per the child's age. But to me it seems wrong

1. to punish a whole class when they are only preschoolers (private nursery so some 2 1/2 year olds in there as well as four year olds),
2. to punish them for being too shouty and lunch or not playing a game properly - there were about 15 of them! Surely there are other ways?
3. timeout should be used as a thinking time for individuals and not as a punishment

I spoke to the nursery manager and she said she wasn't aware that they were doing this - she knew they were doing it for individuals but not whole groups.

I'd really appreciate your thoughts as it was a horrible experience to enter such a sombre room! I've noticed recently that my child's role play recently about preschool has been a bit more 'shouty'.

My child tests the boundaries like any preschooler and I am no expert but these discipline tactics just don't feel right.

Completely agree with you level3. In what way is a whole-class punishment training them for school? The behaviour policy of the school where I work specifically states that whole-class punishments are not to be used because they cause resentment amongst the "innocent". And agentzigzag, I'm struggling to work out why you think it's the responsibility of well-behaved children to control the behaviour of misbehaving ones. Surely that's the adults' job?

As a rule of thumb if you wouldn't condone a babysitter,nanny or grandparent meting out such a sanction then I'd start getting a bit shouty with the management myself. These are children not soldiers.

As a rule of thumb if you wouldn't condone a babysitter,nanny or grandparent meting out such a sanction then I'd start getting a bit shouty with the management myself. These are children not soldiers.

At 2.5 I want my child to go to nursery to have fun.

This is not a place that I would send my children to.

This nursery is not very nice. This is supposed to be the fun bit, poor kids.

IMO, I'd find somewhere that encourages her spirit, not crushes it.

I was talking about older children someoftheabove. Like when my 12 YO DD1 has to stay back at secondary 10 mins longer at the end of the day because 'they'd' been PITA through the lesson is so the savvy ones shhhh the ones acting up because they don't want to get done for doing nothing.

Or is she just telling me this is going on when she's really just accounting for the time she's over-dawdling walking home/getting up to stuff I don't want to know about?

I don't see a huge problem with the ones who behave well being a bit resentful of those who don't, peer pressure in that context can be quite effective.

I meant to say that I did think this would be inappropriate for such young children.

Agentzigzag, you did say you didn't think it's appropriate for younger children; I just happen to think it's not ok to punish a whole class whatever their age. Using peer pressure in this way is just lazy classroom management, IMV.

It would be inappropriate if you thought doing that would encourage the DC to think they had a justification for behaving in a way that could be described as bullying the DC playing up someoftheabove.

But I see it on a general scale of levels of acceptable behaviour in a classroom. If the majority of the class think it's OK to piss about chatting and throwing things at each other it makes it difficult to single out one or two (and it might just be a one off where the DC are a bit yippy because it's the last lesson on a Friday, rather than an ineffective teacher) so a scattergun approach (so long as it's not every time) can be a reminder to them.

When i was at primary school in the early nineties we were not permitted to speak during dinner. The dinner lady person was a dragon and woe betide anyone who whispered or chatted.

I hated it. It was a very tense and unnatural environment and whilst from the outside we probably looked like a group of well disciplined children, it was really a result of fear rather than good behaviour.

I don't think instilling a bit of fear in the little bleeders is necessarily a bad thing chrome.

We had a dragon dinner lady too and you didn't piss about in the dinner line for fear of your life.

Result?

I don't think the ability to instil a bit of fear in the little bleeders is one of the essential skills of being a teacher nowadays, Agent. Getting back to the OP, we're talking about very young children who are still highly egocentric. Making any of them sit quietly because somebody else was noisy makes absolutely no sense to them.

silence is a perfect discipline. i would be silent at home, with my mother, at the age of three. we did this once a week, in the morning, when we were ironing. i could iron handkerchiefs. we would bow, when we exchanged places at the ironing board. i loved the silence and was far better at it than my mother who couldn't last more than an hour and a half.

Silence is lovely, and we have times when we are silent in Nursery - when we are listening hard, when it's fun, but never as a punishment.

'I don't think the ability to instil a bit of fear in the little bleeders is one of the essential skills of being a teacher nowadays, Agent.'

The way you've written that makes me feel really old Level3

But I have to disagree, DD1s school uses lots of techniques which they are right to be scared of.

Getting detention results in a letter being sent home and DD is in fear of that (even though I go down disappointed route when I hear about it, which I think is much more effective than if I got angry), and she's also shit scared of her German teacher for various reasons.

They're not scared of the physical things that used to be done to children (Maybe I am that old because I used to get a good whacking with a small cricket bat at primary school) but sometimes the psychological techniques can be just as effective.

Just out of interest (and in a non-goady way) what kinds of techniques are you talking about which don't use some level of apprehension at the consequence of poor behaviour?

Well I would start with the classic noticing good behaviour and giving no attention at all to the bad. For Nursery aged children that really does work in most cases.

Didn't mean to make you feel old, Agent. I was just quoting exactly what you'd said which was the way things were when I was little too but isn't good enough now.