By Dr. Sarah Taylor-Whiteway
Adam’s Challenge
At the start of 2020, before the words ‘social distancing’, ‘lock-down’ and ‘anti-maskers’ were part of everyday vocabulary, I was working with Adam, a six-year-old boy who was struggling in school. As the school’s Educational Psychologist, Adam’s teachers brought concerns to me about Adam becoming very physical in the playground. He was pushing and hitting his peers, easily triggered to anger, but never remained angry for long. Due to this behaviour Adam was struggling to make long lasting friendships. Teacher’s techniques, such as asking Adam to take time to reflect on his behaviour, reiterating the school rules and using stories to give examples of good behaviour, were having little impact.
When I met Adam, it was obvious that he knew the school rules and that he wanted to make friends. Despite difficulties with his peers and frequent reflection time with teachers he told me he was “having fun” at playtime. In fact, it was his favourite time of the day. Adam perceived that he connected well with others on the playground. He knew that pushing and hitting was bad and against school rules, but he didn’t believe fighting hurt his peer friendships. In his eyes, nothing needed to change.
Up until this point I had only considered using the Virtue Mural as a whole class activity, I liked the idea of it being a collaborative, community experience. But Adam presented an opportunity to adapt the virtue mural for use with one child.
Talking with Adam About Practicing Kindness
It would not work to simply impose additional consequences on Adam for aggressive behavior. We needed to build up his inherent character strengths by focusing on his good qualities. In discussion with his teacher we agreed to focus on ‘kindness’. Adam and I spent a session talking about what acts of kindness he had shown to others and kindness that others had shown to him. Some of the ideas he came up with were:
- When I helped my friend who was stuck
- When I let someone go first in the queue for lunch
- When my friend picked me to play with him
- When the teacher let us play Lego after lunch
We also spoke about why it was important to be kind. Adam was very confident that kindness led to making friends and being liked.
Introducing the “Virtues Sun” to Adam
I brought some shiny star stickers to the session with Adam and introduced the idea of the Virtues Sun, explaining that I wanted us to create a sun. This would be Adam’s sun and we wanted to make it shine brightly with kindness. Adam drew a freehand circle on an A4 sized piece of paper, and then we stuck the stickers along this outline and added some shining rays because Adam wanted everyone to see it was a sun even before he had started adding stickers. This outline of the sun was stuck on the wall next to the teachers desk where Adam and the teacher could see it every lesson. Something about that prominent place in the classroom seemed to add to the value of the sun. Every time that Adam showed kindness to his friends, he could add a shiny sticker to the inside of the sun. He could also add a sticker every time that he saw a friend showing kindness to him or others.
Adam’s Growth
Adam and his teacher reviewed the Virtues Sun together each day after break and at lunch. Adam was great at noticing the kind behaviours of his peers (such as when a peer praised another peers’ work and when a peer let someone join their lunchtime game) but he struggled to notice his own kind behaviour. The teacher engaged the help of the lunchtime supervisor to notice some of Adam’s kind behaviour. The lunchtime supervisor was asked, in front of Adam, at the end of lunch what kind things she had seen Adam do. After a week of hearing the lunchtime supervisor describe his kind acts, Adam began to point out some of the things he was doing throughout the day, for example:
- “I gave the ball to someone to throw first”
- “I talked to someone on the friendship bench”
- “I gave Jasmine a hug when she was upset”
Teachers noticed that Adam’s behaviour on the playground began to change, he was getting in fewer and fewer physical altercations with peers and was spending more and more time playing with others on the friendship bench. On the friendship bench (a bench where children sit when they want a friend to play with them) Adam was able to ask the friend what game he or she wanted to play and collaborate rather than insisting on his own game. Teachers said that they saw Adam more frequently talking to his friends about his feelings, telling them he was upset rather than hitting out. Adam was also able to play more fairly (sharing with others) in team games.
Adam had almost filled in his whole sun when schools closed in March. Adam had engaged well with the activity. He enjoyed adding stickers (whether from recognizing his own kindness or that of his peers) and he would often prompt his teacher to add a sticker.
Alongside the Virtues Sun Adam was also being supported with his sensory needs, this allowed him to have a means to expend some of his energy which may have contributed to some of his violent behaviours. The teachers were also working to share positive things about his day when he was picked up by his mum at the end of the day.
Why the Virtue Sun Activity Works
Before implementing the Virtue Sun activity, Adam was not motivated to change his behaviour during breaktime. He was having fun and not seeing the impact of his fighting on his friendships. Spending time talking about the importance of kindness was vital to invest Adam in the change. He needed to understand why kindness is important rather than seeing it as just an adult expectation to obey. Drawing out Adam’s own ideas about kindness helped him build an understanding of this virtue that matched his interpretation of the world.
Gradually creating a “brighter sun” redirected Adam’s attention towards kind friendship behaviours. Focusing on kindness traits helped him notice other ways he could build friendships. He also received positive attention from his teacher as they built the sun together.
Encouraging Adam to add a sticker when he saw peers being kind also helped him to look for kind behaviour around him. When he noticed the kind behaviour of a peer and added a sticker, this drew attention to that behaviour creating a model that he could follow.
The Virtues Sun creates an expectation in the mind of the child and the teacher to look for kindness and to practice it, putting the attention on positive behaviours with a simple reinforcer. The activity began with extrinsic rewards (adding stickers and creating a brighter sun) but over the course of 6 weeks Adam began to understand and value kind behaviour intrinsically by seeing the impact of kindness on friendships.
Q & A
What if the child can’t name any acts of kindness?
You can help by suggesting one or two behaviours that they may have done and ask them if they have ever done these. Once they have a few examples they may find it easier to think of their own. If you think the child may have difficulty remembering these you could write a short list of examples on a paper for the child to look at when filling in the sun.
What if creating a sun does not interest the child?
Be creative! Consider putting leaves on a tree, flowers on a bush, or planets / stars in space. Select a theme the child will enjoy. Perhaps present two or three options and have the child select the scene they most want to create.
What if the child isn’t showing ANY kindness acts?
Keep looking! Try to involve other staff in looking too, it may be just a small act to start with but the Virtue Sun activity will help to shift attention to the goodness in the child and over time increase the frequency of these small acts. Keep encouraging the child to notice the kind behaviour of others, too.
What if the child loses interest in creating a sun?
Consider trying a different scene, as mentioned in the first question above. Also, you may need to spend more time talking about why this virtue is important. Adam was invested in the intervention because he believed kindness led to friendships, the underlying motivator was friendships, not creating a sun with stickers. Go back to this stage of the intervention and spend more time discussing and investing the child in the outcome of the virtue.
Virtues Sun Lesson Plan
Materials:
- A4 sheet of paper or bigger
- Coloured pens, to draw the sun outline
- Stickers, to fill the sun
Steps:
- Discuss the virtue of kindness with the child.
- Define the virtue together.
- Discuss what acts of kindness look like in real life. Think of as many examples as possible.
- Talk about the results of kindness, such as friendships and happiness.
- Together create an outline of the sun on a piece of paper using bright, engaging, or colourful materials (A4 or bigger).
- Explain to the child how the Virtues Sun can be used.
- Adam could put a sticker on his sun for 2 reasons: seeing kindness in his peers; seeing kindness in himself.
- Ask the child where to display the virtues sun in the classroom. They may or may not want this to be public.
- Provide opportunities throughout the day for the child to stick new stickers into the sun.
Adam’s Virtue Sun
