Guidance Principles  

If the curriculum is the “brain” of our program, then the guidance principles are the “heart.” Parents learn about the guidance principles during parent education and have the opportunity to practice them during class time with the children. When parents and educators use the guidance principles, they help the children feel secure, respected, and empowered as well as help the children build esteem and learn to problem solve in social situations.

In our classrooms, parents and educators:
  • Use a warm, pleasant, reasonable manner to set clear, consistent limits and to offer choices where possible.
  • Sit at the child’s eye level whenever possible, and make an effort to listen to and understand what the child is saying.
  • Encourage children to try new skills and let them participate at will. Limits are set only when health, safety, or respect is compromised.
  • Show a genuine interest in a child’s work and understand that the product is not generally the important factor; the child may simply be doing some basic research into color, feel, or taste of materials.
  • Respect each child’s personality, and accept him/her as an individual, letting the child work by his/her own methods.
  • Offer encouragement ("You really enjoyed mixing the red and blue paint on your paper") instead of flattery ("You are such a wonderful artist").
  • Encourage a child to complete tasks on his/her own so that s/he may grow in independence; when needed, adults give enough help so that the child may feel success in a task completed.
  • Use a positive rather than a negative approach in talking with children, by attributing developmental intent to the child ("You really want to climb. Let’s go over to the climber.") rather than thinking that the child is manipulative ("I told you not to climb on the table"). Adults avoid trying to change behavior by methods that may lead to loss of self-respect, such as shaming or labeling behavior as naughty or bad.
  • Handle conflict in a consistent manner by redirecting the behavior and/or coaching the children to express their emotions and needs in a socially acceptable way. When appropriate, adults enlist the children’s ideas for solutions to the conflict.