Nurtured Heart Approach

I've decided to implement the Nurtured Heart Approach as my classroom management strategy. I learned about this approach at the school I worked at this summer. Howard Glasser created this approach in the 90's as a response to working with difficult children when nothing else seemed to work. This approach supports the belief that positive behavior should be reinforced and rewarded and negative behavior should receive a neutral response. Any attention given to a negative behavior is giving wanted attention to children and can feed into the behavior patterns (e.g. Saying: Stop annoying him, you should not be doing that, I told you to stop, this is your last warning OR giving a child a negative consequence such as a time-out). Oftentimes children act out or display unwanted behavior due to a need for attention or a simple reminder to stay on task.

Research shows this approach can especially help with difficult students and students who have ADHD. "The Center for Disease Control (CDC) implemented a program where children who were referred to them because of behavior management problems were supported with Nurtured Heart before seeing a physician. When a physician typically saw a child, medication referral rates were close to 75%. Children who went through a nurtured heart program were referred for medication less than 3% of the time. Additional studies show statistically significant benefits associated with this program."

The only problem is following through. It's hard to solely give neutral responses to kids who exhibit negative behaviors. For example, when a child is pushing others on the playground my natural response would be to say something along the lines of, "It is not okay to push someone else" and then have the child move to a different area.

In my classroom I introduced the kids to Nurtured Heart by telling them whenever I say "reset" I want them to take a deep breath and think about what they are doing and then make a new choice. We practiced as a class many times. The kids picked up fast. Every student knows to take a deep breath at their cue. The biggest problem now is that 30 seconds after a reset is given, some students continue on with the unwanted behavior. (Typically the naturally distracted ones- who I totally relate to.)

The nicest thing about this approach is that I can say one word to have a child change a behavior without stopping a lesson, interrupting the flow of the class, or embarrassing a child with a punishment.

I'll keep practicing and hope this sticks. I really want to avoid a system where for example I move kids' names from green to yellow.

I also have positive reward marble jar. I put a marble in when I catch the students doing something good like staying quiet during independent work time. I haven't quite figured out the prize when the jar is full. Extra recess or free choice time? Popcorn while I read stories?