One day on placement a child (child A) was upset because another child (child B) wouldn’t let her play with the trains too. Child A came to me crying and told me that Child B wouldn’t let her play with the trains, I went to find to find child B at the trains table and asked him if he said Child A couldn’t play with the trains. He said that he did because there wasn’t enough room for child A to play at the train table even though he was the only one person plating there.
In turn I said child B there is enough room, 3 people can play here at a time and asked “what do we do at school with toys” he replied I don’t know, so I asked child A if she knew and could help child B, she said we share them. At this point the class teacher came over and asked if everything was alright. I explained the situation, She then asked child B if that was right and he said “Now, she wouldn’t let me play with the trains”. The teacher conversed with the children to try and get a clear picture of what had happened and then said to me that I could deal with child B’s behaviour in the way that we usually do.Child A went on to play with the trains and I took child B to one side went down to his level and explained to him that he needs to sit on the chair in the other room and think about what he had done and why you must tell the truth and why it is important to share toys.
In 5 minutes I went back and asked if he had thought about what I asked him to he said yes and told me that school toys are for everyone and do not belong to him and that lying is a bad thing to do and gets you in trouble. I told him that was right and asked what he needs to do now.He said say sorry to child A. I let him go and apologise to child A and he then went on to share the trains with her. From this experience I learnt that the ‘time out’ technique that I used and is commonly used in my setting work as since this event child B has shared more and been more forthcoming in telling the truth straight away. I think that this technique works because the children are used to it and it provides consistency, I have seen this technique used before and know the steps in using it.
