Digging Deeper: Looking Beyond Behavior to Discover Meaning

Digging Deeper: Looking Beyond Behavior to Discover Meaning
A Unit of Three Lessons

Understanding a child’s behavior is not easy. Lesson 1 helps you recognize how hard understanding behavior can be. The steps in the Responsive Process are discussed and the first step of the process, Watch, is explained. A short video clip of a toddler (Katie) arriving at an Early Head Start Program offers an opportunity to practice the “Watch” skills.

Lesson 2: Ask ‘I Wonder Questions’

Lesson 2 helps you make sense of the many meanings of a behavior. Four key factors that affect behavior are explored using the “I Wonder” strategy for asking questions. You practice developing “I Wonder” questions using the video clip of a toddler (Katie) arriving at an Early Head Start Program.

Lesson 3: Adapt Using ‘Flexible Responses’

You’ve “Watched” and asked “I Wonder” questions. Now you are ready to choose ways to respond to the behavior. In Lesson 3 you use the answers to the “I Wonder” questions (Lesson 2) to help select responses to address the child’s behavior. Muk (Katie’s teacher) shares the answers to her “I Wonder” questions as she explains her responses to Katie’s behaviors.