How to Promote Children’s Social and Emotional Competence

Review

‘The book is clearly written and nicely structured so that you don’t need to be doing the course or have completed the course to find it accessible. It would be an extremely useful, practical, ‘how to’ guide to people working within the educational field who wish to optimise their management of challenging behaviour, and to promote socio-emotional skills and well-being amongst the children they work with’ –
Youth in Mind

`The book offer an interesting variety of concrete tools aimed at enhancing children’s self esteem, as well as children’s self control, and good behaviour. It values positive reinforcement, incentives and problem-solving modelling is a safe setting’ – International Journal of Children’s Spirituality

`The book is full of sensible and practical ideas. The chapters are easy to access, and charts and illustrations are well used to support the ideas of the text…. The author also weaves a strong value of partnership with parents, with some helpful scenarios about positive and negative ways for teachers to talk with fellow adults’ – Jennie Lindon, Nursery World

`This is a “must-buy” for teachers and other professionals working with children presenting with aggressive or other child behaviour problems. The book details the Dinosaur School curriculum for children (4 – 8 year olds) with social and problem-solving difficulties…. The practical ideas would also be of great interest to parents. Inspirational read!’ – Andy Gill, Practical Parenting

`I found this to be a fun and practical book which, given Carolyn Webster-Stratton’s research background and her “hands on” experience as a psychologist, may not be so surprising. I also feel that she achieved her stated aims. I would certainly recommend this book to psychologists, teachers and parents’ – BPS Newsletter (Division of Educational and Child Psychology)

“This books is readable, packed with advice on managing children’s misbehavior, and reminds us of future dangers stemming from escalating violence and aggression in young children.” 

(Nancy Elliott Children’s Social and Economics Education)

Synopsis

‘The book offer an interesting variety of concrete tools aimed at enhancing children’s self esteem, as well as children’s self control, and good behaviour. It values positive reinforcement, incentives and problem-solving modelling is a safe setting’ – International Journal of Children’s Spirituality ‘The book is full of sensible and practical ideas. The chapters are easy to access, and charts and illustrations are well used to support the ideas of the text…The author also weaves a strong value of partnership with parents, with some helpful scenarios about positive and negative ways for teachers to talk with fellow adults’ – Jennie Lindon, Nursery World ‘This is a “must-buy” for teachers and other professionals working with children presenting with aggressive or other child behaviour problems. The book details the Dinosaur School curriculum for children (4 – 8 year olds) with social and problem-solving difficulties…The practical ideas would also be of great interest to parents. Inspirational read!’

– Andy Gill, Practical Parenting ‘I found this to be a fun and practical book which, given Carolyn Webster-Stratton’s research background and her “hands on” experience as a psychologist, may not be so surprising. I also feel that she achieved her stated aims. I would certainly recommend this book to psychologists, teachers and parents’ – BPS Newsletter (Division of Educational and Child Psychology) This book is for teachers of children aged four-eight years. It shows how teachers can collaborate with parents in addressing children’s educational and emotional needs. The author presents a variety of classroom management strategies, which teachers can choose from to strengthen children’s social and academic competence. She believes that children’s emotional literacy is as important as academic literacy. The book shows how teachers can set up individualized programmes which address the special social and emotional needs of children at particular risk with social and academic problems, because of problems such as learning difficulties, hyperactivity, impulsivity, attention deficit disorder, language and reading delays and aggressive behaviour.The author shows how teachers can integrate individualized interventions for such children in the mainstream classroom, while enhancing the social competence of all their students.

Teachers understand that just as a child’s cognitive competence is important for their ability to learn so too does a child’s social competence and emotional security affect their ability to learn. This book will support teachers in developing social competence and emotional well- being in all children. Based on the empirically validated Dinosaur Social Skills and Problem-solving Curriculum, this book emphasizes the management of hyperactive, inattentive and aggressive children. It includes practical scripts, games, activities, pictures and circle time role-plays and plans for use with children 4-8 years. Carolyn Webster-Stratton is an educational psychologist who for twenty years has been developing and evaluating interventions to help children with behaviour problems. She is the author of the well-known parent book: The Incredible Years: A Trouble-Shooting Guide for Parents for Young Children (Ages 3-8 Years).