Well, there are three major schools of thought you could draw on here.
1. Mischel's research seems to indicate that kids as young as 4 have a self-discipline "temperament" that predicts their ability to control themselves throughout their lives.
2. Piaget and other developmental researchers would argue that most kids are simply not capable of making certain kinds of decisions until they have reached a certain developmental stage.
3. The Montessori approach believes that kids can be self-regulating if you work with their natural instincts and rhythms. (Keirsey has some work on this too, around the notion that praise and punishment are BOTH bad for a kid unless they are deployed very intelligently.)
You could end up with a school that is highly behaviorist, focused on a system of rewards and punishments that control behavior. You could end up with a relatively permissive school that tries to use psychological methods and self-governance to control the kids. Or you could end up with a school that relies heavily on neurological methods - for example there's research that shows that helping kids reflect on their decision-making ability based on the stage they are at actually helps them make better decisions. Which of these sounds most appealing to you? I can point you at more names/references, or you can take it from here. :)
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yati
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Date: 2009-02-05 11:53 pm (UTC)1. Mischel's research seems to indicate that kids as young as 4 have a self-discipline "temperament" that predicts their ability to control themselves throughout their lives.
2. Piaget and other developmental researchers would argue that most kids are simply not capable of making certain kinds of decisions until they have reached a certain developmental stage.
3. The Montessori approach believes that kids can be self-regulating if you work with their natural instincts and rhythms. (Keirsey has some work on this too, around the notion that praise and punishment are BOTH bad for a kid unless they are deployed very intelligently.)
You could end up with a school that is highly behaviorist, focused on a system of rewards and punishments that control behavior. You could end up with a relatively permissive school that tries to use psychological methods and self-governance to control the kids. Or you could end up with a school that relies heavily on neurological methods - for example there's research that shows that helping kids reflect on their decision-making ability based on the stage they are at actually helps them make better decisions. Which of these sounds most appealing to you? I can point you at more names/references, or you can take it from here. :)