| The number of early childhood students with disruptive, antisocial behavior at one elementary school has increased significantly over the past few decades. The purpose of this phenomenological research study was to understand the perceptions early childhood teachers had of their difficult students' behavior after the teachers implemented the Love and Logic classroom management and discipline program. This system provides educators with nine practical skills that build a caring classroom culture, improve teacher-student relationships, and build student competence for solving problems and making decisions. The conceptual framework of this study focused on both cognitive and social learning theories. The specific research question for this study asked how early childhood teachers' perceptions of their students' behavior are affected by implementing the system. Four teachers were trained in the Love and Logic program, implemented it, and then were interviewed to share their perceptions of student behavior. Data were analyzed through coding for emergent themes. Participant teachers reported that the program helped them be more positive, remain calm, neutralize student arguing, provide fair consequences, spend more time teaching, get students to cooperate, and build stronger teacher-student relationships. Implications for positive social change include more effective student-teacher learning time when teachers have training in dealing with problematic classroom behavior. |
