Young Exceptional Children

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Building Positive Relationship With Young Children

Gail E. Joseph and Phillip S. Strain
Young Exceptional Children 2004 7: 21
DOI: 10.1177/109625060400700403
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Gail E. Joseph, Ph.D., and

Phillip S. Strain, Ph.D.,
University of Colorado at Denver
BUILDING POSITIVE RELATIONSHIPS WITH

Young Children
elen
~

a child care provider and has a longstanding morning traditaking her class of toddlers to a neighborhood park to play.
They spend almost an hour each morning at the park. This day, however, Helen notices the sky turn gray and lightning ensuing.
~
She needs to return to the class immediately. The children
have been at the park for about ten minutes and Lucy is playing with her best friend, Tito. Helen says to Lucy, &dquo;Honey, Im
sorry, but it is starting to rain and we have to go back right
now.&dquo; Lucy begins to whimper and says, &dquo;But I was playing
with Tito.&dquo; Helen reaches down and hugs Lucy, saying, &dquo;I
know. We can finish playing with Tito indoors.&dquo; Lucy says,
&dquo;okay,&dquo; and she and her class hurry back to school.

is

tion of

/I
1

Eric has been a Head Start teacher for ten years. In that time
he has built a reputation as the teacher for the tough kids.
This year, Bill is assigned to Erics class because of his long
history of hyperactivity, negativity, and aggression toward
adults and peers. Two months into the year the Centers
administrator sheepishly asks Eric how things are going with
Bill. Eric replies, &dquo;Great! Boy, were folks wrong about Bill.&dquo;
Somewhat flabbergasted, the administrator decides to see for
himself. What he observes in less than ten minutes is as follows. Eric says to everyone, &dquo;Look at Bill, he is sitting so quietly in circle; too cool, Bill!&dquo; When Bill answers a question
about the story, Eric says, &dquo;Bill thats right, you are really concentrating today.&dquo; When transition is about to occur, Eric
says, &dquo;Bill can you show everyone good walking feet to snack?&dquo; At
snack, a peer asks Bill for juice and he passes the container. Eric,
being vigilant, says, &dquo;Bill, thanks for sharing so nicely.&dquo;

>

&dquo;

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21

After completing a functional

behavior assessment, Erin, an
ECSE teacher, determines that
Jessies long-standing tantrum
behaviors in the class are
~
designed to acquire adult
attention. Erin institutes a plan
to ignore Jessies tantrums
and to provide Jessie time
and attention when she is not
tantruming. After four days of
increased tantrums, Jessies
behavior has improved

dramatically.
In each of these

~&
scenarios, the

fundamental importance of building positive relationships with

children is demonstrated. Adults
successful in achieving
improved behavior change in contexts that many individuals might
predict would lead to continuing,
even escalating challenging behavior. However, in each case, the
children were obviously attuned
to the adults, focused on their
communication and prone to
value and seek out adult approval.
In each case, the adults had
invested time and effort prior to
the events in question communicating their noncontingent affection and unquestioned valuing of
these children. This prior history
of positive relationship building
may well serve as a prerequisite to
effective intervention practices for
challenging behavior, and thus
should be goal one for adults and
caregivers wishing to prevent challenging behavior and enhance a
childs sense of well-being and
social competence. How does one
go about the task of relationship
building? This article provides
were

information for early childhood

educators so that they not only
know the answer to this question,
but also can begin putting it into
practice. First, however, a brief
presentation of the empirical evidence for the importance of building positive relationships with
children is provided.

Why Build Positive

Relationships?
Children who enter kindergarten
without adequate social and emotional competence face a cascade
of problems throughout their
young lives and into adulthood
(Huffman, Mehlinger, & Kerivan,
2000). Social and emotional competence is rooted in secure relationships with primary adults
during infancy, toddler, and

preschool years (National

Research Council, National
Academies, 2001). All children
grow and thrive in the

context of
close and dependable relationships
that provide love and nurturance,
security, and responsive interac-

tions

(Bronfenbrenner, 1979;
Johnson, 1999). Building positive

relationships with young children

thus is an essential task and a
foundational component of good
teaching. A positive adult-child
relationship built on trust, understanding, and caring will foster
childrens cooperation and motivation and increase their positive
outcomes at school (Webster-

Stratton, 1999).
In their research review,
Huffman and colleagues (2000)
noted that several major factors
appear to preserve or build an

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22

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i

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0

individuals resiliency. An ecological framework was used to organize these protective factors into
the following levels: individual
ontogeny, microsystems of family
and school, and exosystem of

neighborhood/community
(Huffman et al., 2000). Figure 1
displays this framework and presents several of the empirically
derived protective factors. Note,
in the microsystems level of
schools, that having a warm and
open relationship with his or her
teacher or child care provider is
identified as an important protective factor for young children.
This relationship protective factor

operates to produce direct, ameliorative effects for children in atrisk situations (Luthar, 1993).
Adults need to invest time and
attention up front with children in

developing a positive relationship

progressing to other interventions designed to enhance
before

social skills. There are two reasons

that this sequence is so important.
First, it should be noted that the
protective factors promoted during relationship building can and
do function to reduce many challenging behaviors (Rutter, 1979,

Figure

Getting

Systems Perspective of

Protective Factors

to Know You

Before the children show up

in Erics classroom at the
beginning of the year, he completes a home visit with each
child and family. While he is
visiting, he interviews both the

parents and child to find out

little more about them. One of

the first bulletin boards he
puts up each year is the &dquo;All
About Me&dquo; board. This board
features a new classroom
member every two weeks. The
board is comprised of family
photos, candid shots of the
child in the classroom, and the
dictated answers from an
interview with the child. At the
beginning of the year, Eric features the classroom teaching
team on this board so that the
children get to know more
about the adults in the
classroom as well.

1990). Carr and colleagues (2003)

documented a powerful, positive
correlation between poor rapport
and the occurrence of problem
behavior in dyads of caregivers
and clients. Moreover, their
research showed that instruction
in rapport building for the caregivers resulted in reductions in
problem behaviors in children. As
such, taking the time for relationship building may save time that
would be spent implementing more
elaborate and time-consuming
assessment and intervention

strategies.
Second, as adults build positive
relationships with children their

influence on the childrens behavior grows exponentially. That is, children cue in on
the presence of meaningful and
caring adults; they attend differentially and selectively to what adults
say and do; and they seek out

potential

ways

to ensure even more

~vj&dquo;

positive

attention from adults (Lally,

Mangione, & Honig, 1988). It is

this

positive relationship foundation that allowed Helen, with minimal effort, to leave the park early
with Lucy; for Eric to experience
Bill in a much more positive way
than prior teachers; and for Erin
to alter Jessies tantrums in such
short order, for example.

~,j ovell
0 Oey

.~ r~g t~ysro~ider

e~at~or~s~~~
h~~d ;y*p
eare ~ o~ta~t
p,c~ ~y
o~,r~g
I

&dquo;to,
10,
0 tt .,Ve Jac,
~.s

cb~lafeyt.

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23

In order for adults

to

information

build

meaningful positive relationships

children, it is essential to gain
a thorough understanding of childrens preferences, interests, background, and culture (Landy,

with

2002). For very young children

and children with special needs,
this information is most often
accessed by observing what children do, and by speaking directly
to parents and other caregivers.
With this information, adults can
ensure that their play with children is fun, that the content of
their conversations is relevant, and
that they communicate respect for
childrens origins and experiences.
Whenever possible, this kind of

exchange should be
reciprocal as possible. That is,
adults should, as developmentally
appropriate, share their own interests, likes, backgrounds, and origins
as

with children as well. The left column of Table 1 provides a brief

summary of some strategies that
teachers might try to get to know
the children and their families in
their class.

Making Deposits
For many children, developing positive relations with adults is a difficult task. Prior negative history and
interfering behavior often conspire
to make the task of relationship

development long and arduous.

example, research has demon-

strated that teachers may come to

avoid social and instructional
interaction opportunities with children who display chronic problem
behavior (Shores & Wehby, 1999;
Wehby, Symons, & Shores, 1995).
Thus, on occasion adults should
consider that they will need to
devote extensive effort to relationship building. The easiest, most
straightforward way to achieve a
high level of intervention intensity
in the relationship building
domain is to think about embedding opportunities throughout the

day (Horn, Lieber, Sandall,

Schwartz, 2001; Losardo &

Table 1

Practical

Strategies for Building Positive Relationships With Children

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24

For

&

caregvers
caye .,Veys.

e
~
w
v
r
t
e
a
g
v
s
t
o
b
i
f
h
e
y
ji, st~ ckt CV) il5
s

Bricker, 1994). While there is no

known &dquo;magic number,&dquo; teachers
can provide several dozen positive,
affirming statements to children
each day. For children who have
mostly heard criticism, it takes a
lot of messages to the contrary to
rebuild their positive self-concept.
Because this is sometimes easier
said than done, some practical
strategies for building positive
relationships with children
throughout the preschool day are
provided in the right column of
Table 1.
A

particularly helpful analogy

for building positive relationships
is from the work of WebsterStratton (1992): that of a piggy
bank. Whenever teachers and caregivers engage in strategies to build
positive relationships, it is as if
they are &dquo;making a deposit&dquo; in a

childs

relationship piggy bank.

Conversely, when adults make
demands, nag, or criticize children, it is as if they are making a
relationship withdrawal. For some
children, because there has been
no prior effort to make deposits
in their relationship piggy banks,
nagging, criticism, and demands
may be more akin to writing bad
checks! It may be helpful to

Making Deposits
Through Play

ye ri 0,1 ~ivi~ Vigob

vela t~00

Two

&dquo;deposits,&dquo; play and praise,

special attention because
of their powerful impact and their
occasional misapplication in practice. Play is an extremely powerful
and effective way to build positive
relationships with all young children, and young children with
challenging behavior in particular
(Garvey, 1977; Webster-Stratton,
1999). Many early childhood professionals spend time playing with

warrant

the children in their care on a

daily basis. However, the type of
play emphasized here may look
different from typical play. These
play episodes are those in which
the child is in control and the
adult follows the childs lead.

The adult allows the child to organize all of the play. And, instead of
asking questions, the adult imitates
the childs play and uses descriptive commenting to facilitate language, literacy, and engagement.
Descriptive commenting has been
likened to a &dquo;sportscasters
interaction (Webster1992). The adult acts like

approach&dquo;
Stratton,
a

to

sportscaster

by-play

by providing a play-

account

of what the child

Figure 2

Making Relationship Deposits and Withdrawals

reflect on the interactions you

have with an individual child and
think to yourself, &dquo;Am I making
a deposit or a withdrawal?&dquo; Or,
for example, &dquo;Have I made any
deposits in Bills piggy bank
today?&dquo; Figure 2 illustrates example deposits and withdrawals
from a relationship bank.

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25

~Yt

o ogi>iCLSS
.,O&dquo;vfo 01)llli*1 lap, .1 sctjl*ii e to ti~

CoItte$lt tr~

i~~~

doing (see Table 2 for an example). Descriptive commenting

lengthens the childs engagement
in play; builds vocabulary (Dale,
Crain-Thoreson, Notari-Syverson,
& Cole, 1996; Tomasello &
Farrar, 1986); and fosters positive
adult-child relationships (Websteris

Stratton, 1999).

structure

are

learncan

in which chiltry ideas, take

risks, assume different roles, and
share their thoughts and feelings.

provide

context

dren feel safe

to

of the adult-child

relationship as the child is in control, thus allowing more intimate

and trusting relationships to form.
The play context also provides the
adult with an opportunity to
model positive social skills (e.g.,

sharing, giving compliments, helping, etc.) for the child, and has
been shown to be an effective context in which to intentionally
teach social skills (Yoder, Kaiser,
Alpert, & Fischer, 1993).

P,
,~hv e~,s~ ta~e ,~ish.tb
d sh a~e their

eitt
jokes
~0~

Making Deposits
With Praise

Play between a teacher and

child can temporarily even the
power

Remember that children

ing through their play. Play

ii~~~

While there is an enormous body

of research to support the use of
adult praise to influence the
behavior of young children (see

Brophy, 1996; Gettinger, 1988),

adults often do not consider how
praise can also help build positive
relationships with children

(Webster-Stratton, 1992, 1999).

Not only do comments such as,
&dquo;You did so well sharing your
toys,&dquo; &dquo;You are so generous,&dquo;
&dquo;You are so good at helping your

friends

during clean up,&dquo; and

Table 2

Examples of Descriptive Commenting During Play

&dquo;You are so friendly&dquo; tend to

increase the behaviors that they are
contingent upon, but the messages
can have an additional, beneficial

impact on relationship building.

Keys to using praise as a means for
increasing behaviors and fostering
relationships include:
* Praising with enthusiasm
Being contingent
* Making praise personal and
varied

Being specific about the positive behavior

children seemSuch
children
ingly reject praise.
become disregulated when they
receive praise and may in fact
increase their challenging behavior
and/or outright reject the positive

However,

comment

some

by offering a counter,

such as &dquo;I am not friendly!&dquo; or &dquo;I

am bad at art!&dquo; This behavior
from a child can be disturbing to
teachers and, unfortunately, can
cause them to stop praising the
child. Child psychologists (e.g.,
Rutter, 1990) believe this type of
rejection occurs because the child
has come to know himself or herself as a &dquo;bad kid&dquo; and not worthy
of such positive accolades. In a
sense, such children feel comfortable as the &dquo;meanest&dquo; or &dquo;baddest,&dquo; and they count on being
regarded in this way by all adults
and peers they encounter. Thus,

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26

these children feel very uncomfortable when they are described

as quite the opposite. An analogy
that can be helpful here is that of
comfortable clothes. Think of the
child who tends to reject praise as
one who wears the &dquo;bad kid&dquo; label
like a worn-in, comfortable pair
of jeans. When the adult begins
to praise and label the child as

&dquo;friendly&dquo; or &dquo;generous,&dquo; it is as
if the child has been dressed in a
new, stiff, three-piece suit. It feels
uncomfortable. However, if worn
day after day (i.e., the child is
praised often) this new label
becomes worn in, comfortable,
and fits like a glove.

get angry, raise their voice, or

child. Yet, the
very children with whom relationships are the most difficult to
build are the ones who need positive relationships with adults the
most. It is a natural reaction to
feel emotional when a hot button
is pushed. However, rather than
feeling frustrated, angry, or discouraged about it, it is more productive for the adult to think of
the emotional response as a warning sign that he or she will have
to work extra hard to proactively
build a positive relationship with
this child.
to

actively avoid the

Building positive relationships

simple with some children, requiring a frequently
is far from

Building Relationships
With Difficult Children

Undoubtedly, teachers and child

care providers strive to build positive rapport with all of the children in their care. Typically, these
adults have the best relationships
with children who respond to
them, seemingly like them, and go
along with their plans. It is, however, more difficult to build positive connections with some
children than with others. Most
every teacher has experienced a
child who pushes his or her &dquo;hot
buttons.&dquo; Maybe the child
demands more attention than others ; is disruptive, unmotivated,

renewed commitment and a consistent effort. In addition to the

general strategies previously

presented, the following are some
strategies to consider for children
who may be more challenging:
Carefully analyze each compliance task (e.g., &dquo;time to go to
paints&dquo;) and when that compliance task may possibly be
more

shifted

(e.g.,
~

oppositional, or aggressive; or
does not provide the same positive
feedback to the teacher that the
other children do. When teachers
&dquo;buttons get pushed,&dquo; they may
feel frustrated, stressed and discouraged, or bad about themselves
as teachers, possibly causing them

to a

choice for children

&dquo;Do you

want to

paint or

do puzzles?&dquo;).
Consider if some forms of
&dquo;challenging&dquo; behavior can be
ignored (e.g., loud voices). This
is not planned ignoring for
behavior designed to elicit
attention but ignoring in the
sense of making wise and limited choices about when to
pick battles over behavior.
Self-monitor ones own deposit
and withdrawal behaviors, and
set behavioral goals accordingly.
Teachers might self-monitor

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27

one

(Webster-Stratton, 1999). Finally,

providing a child with the opportunity to have a warm and responsive relationship with his or her

remember

teacher means that the adult has

the pleasure of getting to know
the child as well.

using golf wrist counters to

record their commenting, or
by moving a plastic chip from

pocket to the other. A

strategically posted visual
reminder also can help teachers
to

make

numerous

relationship deposits.

Note
You can reach Gail E. Joseph by e-mail
[email protected]

Conclusion

References

Implementation of the broad

strategies of getting to know a
child and working on making
&dquo;deposits&dquo; such that they significantly outnumber the &dquo;withdrawals&dquo; will lay the important
foundation of a positive relationship between teachers and each of
the children in their care. A majority of this article has focused on
what children gain through positive relationships with adults.
contend that adults
also receive something valuable
from the time and attention they
expend to build these meaningful
relationships. First, as mentioned
previously, the children with
whom adults build relationships
will be easier to teach, more willing to try, and less likely to engage
in challenging behavior (WebsterStratton, 1999). Second, teachers
will feel more positive about their
skills and their effort-and they
might like their jobs even more

However,

we

(Educational Productions, 1999).

Third, adults will begin

to see

the

&dquo;ripple effect&dquo; of relationship

building. As children learn in the
context of caring relationships
with adults, they will become
more skilled at building positive
relationships with other children

at

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