This course is recommended for Early Childhood educators and can be used to earn annual inservice hours. Module 3: Guidance for Working with School Aged Children Positive, trusting relationships between adults and school age children are critical to high quality learning environments. This module will focus on how to build positive, trusting relationships with youth through effective communication and guidance strategies. Adult-youth and peer-peer relationships are discussed and strategies offered for promoting overall cooperative environments. Characteristic behaviors of school age children are reviewed and guidance techniques for dealing with behaviors are explored. Having mixed ages in programming can present unique challenges, which are acknowledged as well as the benefits of them in this module.

This module covers Nebraska School-Age and Youth Development Core Competency Areas:

A. Growth and Development
B. Health, Safety, and Nutrition
C. Relationships
D. Professionalism

Unit 1: Building Relationships Objectives:
To identify the importance of adult-youth interactions in the development of positive relationships
To discover communication styles and their effectiveness in working with youth
To become familiar with strategies in helping youth develop peer relationships

Unit 2: Behaviors Objectives:
To become familiar with the role Emotions play in the overall development of school age children
To examine appropriate and inappropriate behaviors and strategies for working with each
To discover effective strategies for building competence in youth

Unit 3: Guidance Objectives:
To examine the differences between Discipline and Punishment
To become familiar with effective strategies for dealing with youth conflict in programming
To discover multiple strategies for positive guidance when working with school aged children

Unit 4: Successful Mixed Age Groups Objectives:
To become familiar with characteristics of development of mixed aged groupings
To explore challenges and advantages for successful programming with mixed aged groups
To explore the role of the adult in programming for youth

Unit 5: Extending Your Practice Objectives:
To become familiar with outside resources (books, websites, videos) to assist in understanding the content within the module
To apply information from outside resources to individual practices