Dr Dora Chen, the principal of an experimental playschool at Temasek Polytechnic, explains what you should do when children act out. Here are four scenarios.

If your child…

1. Runs and screams in the classroom

Children need to learn self-regulation, which means knowing how to make decisions and to think before one does something, says Dr Chen.

“The other day three kids were running and screaming in the classroom. I said: ‘I can’t let you go to the pool if you can’t make decisions to be safe. You have to sit and watch.’

That’s a logical consequence.  “In punishment, we try to make it logically related to their actions, which develops self-regulation.”

2. Hurts someone

Dr Chen says: “We want them to know that accidents happen, but accidents are not automatically OK, because someone did get hurt.
“If it’s an accident, let’s explain it. The important thing is what can we do to prevent it.”

Most adults will ask the child: “Did you say sorry?”, she says.

“It’s as if when I say sorry, that absolves me of the transgression. Sorry doesn’t make the hurt go away. Hurt has been done.

“I’m working with my teachers on not reminding children: ‘Did you say sorry?’ Because when you do that, they say: ‘I already said sorry.’

“Is that sorry? That’s not about feeling sorry. The message we give children by the way we respond is important because we teach them things we don’t intend. We want them to really understand what sorry means.”

3. Makes a mistake in school work

Five-year-olds try to construct words from the sounds they hear at this pre-school. Erasers are taken away so the children can just cancel and try again, says Dr Chen.

“Let them make mistakes and incorrect spelling, and then gradually we come in when they are ready to figure out what is conventional spelling.
“We don’t want them to feel now that ‘I got it wrong and I quit trying’.”

She recalls a boy who once spelt the word pinata wrongly.
Instead of telling him he was wrong, Dr Chen asked him to listen to the sounds of the word. He cancelled his word and wrote a new one, but it was still wrong.

Taking him to a computer, she “googled” the word he wrote and showed him: “This dictionary doesn’t recognise this word.”

She then gave him the right spelling, telling him it’s a Spanish word. But the boy wasn’t convinced: He said he heard more sounds.

Dr Chen says: “For now, that’s OK. It’s about confidence and hearing the sounds. Later, we will gradually tighten the screw to get him to think about conventional spelling.”

4. Won’t wait his or her turn

Some children cannot wait and end up crying. Instead of just telling them to wait, “we give them strategies”, says Dr Chen.

For instance, the children sign up on a waiting list so that they know when is their turn. Countdown timers of five minutes, two minutes and one minute are also used to regulate their turn.

Such practices have other benefits too. Dr Chen recalls once giving a boy a five-minute timer and a two-minute timer. But he wanted a one-minute timer. “Does he know his math?” says Dr Chen, smiling and nodding.