BEHAVIOUR MANAGEMENT RAINBOW

Here's how we use traffic light colours to help littles understand consequences for their actions.

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The goal of this system is to also encourage littles to take control of their emotions and behaviour.

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It works on the basis that you already have clear rules in you household or classroom that your child understands and agrees are fair. (This can be verbal or you can create a visual poster)

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For example, some of our living space rules are:

Be gentle and be kind.

Balls are to be thrown outside (not inside).

We respect our plants.

We respect our toys.

We respect and listen to each other.

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Every morning, everyone starts on green. If someone breaks the rules, they move their peg down to orange, this is their first "warning". If another or the same rule is broken again, they move their peg down to "red" and receive a "consequence" or "time out". It is important to communicate what the consequences will be and be consistent.

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As my children are quite young, after a consequence, we all start a fresh on green. I find a little reflection and time out helps reset our spirits.

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Behaviour management is something that has to be in line with your own personal values and parenting/teaching style. Personally, this is just as much a system for me as well as my littles. It saves me having to nag and remind them AND also remember how many times I've already nagged and reminded! Also, as my littles are aware of their peg movements, they tend to accept the consequence.

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In conjunction with this we also talk about GREEN choices and RED choices. Green for Go and Red for STOP and make a green choice.

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NOTE: you don't have to use a rainbow, this is more commonly used as an actual Traffic Light. (But I just find rainbows a little more pleasant to have on display).