What Is A Behavior Clip Chart?
By now if your kids go to school means you have already come across a behavior clip chart or some version of it.
Well, it basically refers to a category chart that is displayed in the kid’s classrooms and each kid has a clip with their name on it. As the day goes by, the names are dragged across the behavior clip chart based on the child’s overall behavior!
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How Behavior Clip Charts Work
Kids in a particular classroom start on a neutral platform and get their clip moved across the clip chart across levels such as role models for good behavior, contact parents for bad behavior, and more.
Once you visit your kid’s classroom you are bound to see their classes’ behavior chart, secondly, the most annoying thing about the chart is that it is displayed for all to see.
Downside Of These Behavior Charts
- Visible to anyone who visits the kid’s classrooms, for instance, all teachers, all peers, and literary anyone who goes to the classrooms.
- Children suffer from their behaviors being judged day in and out and they complain to their moms about it.
- They are not only inappropriate but they are also detrimental.
- Cause humiliation and subject kids with special needs to public display.
How many agree with the above said that it is the perfect time to see these behavior charts gone asap?
Bottom-line we need to find a new way
Behavior clip charts have got to go because I think we all deserve better and they create more deep problems as I have highlighted in this article. There are numerous reasons to support this claim such as;
Reasons Why Behavior Clip Charts Have To Go Asap
1. They Don’t Allow Kids To Be Themselves
Have no room for allowing kids to be just kids at their age. No human being who doesn’t have that particularly bad day, no matter their age. Don’t you find it ridiculous to display such days on a chart for all to see in a class? There is a need for the school system to teach our kids to own up and work through their feelings instead of shaming them for being normal at their age.
2. Humiliate The Kids
Clip arts are the dunce cap of our time in school, for instance, you loathed the idea of your name being written on the board. And then it also subjected you to those feared marks next to the dunce cap. Earn three checkmarks and you were sent to see the principal!
These didn’t work either if you recall, they simply just humiliated the kids who cared and had zero impact on the kids who didn’t. Discovering the behavior of the kid’s behaviors by strangers once they step into the class is humiliating enough.
3. Encourage Peer Judgment And Competition
On the other hand, it teaches our children to be kind to everyone no matter the circumstances. While on the other hand, the public display of their behaviors encourages them to compete and judge one another based on their subsequent behaviors.
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Labeling the kids as good or bad by the teachers will flow further into peer relationships and interactions. Healthy competition is good but these charts don’t encourage that.
4. Lead To Intimidation And Are Counter-Productive
The initial purpose was to encourage the kids in their various behaviors, well okay, but is a source of intimidation for many kids. Especially the ones that struggle with ADHD and autism, essentially when they are stuck up the wall for all to see. Success for them is paralyzed whenever they don’t do so well on the chart.
5. Loss Of Effectiveness By The Charts
The effectiveness of these charts is lost once they are used for a long period; subsequently, the kids stop to be motivated by them. In turn, teachers have no use for them. Why say so? Rewards gained by the kids at the end of the day do nothing for intrinsic motivation and instead, they rely on extrinsic factors for motivation.
6. Time Consuming Charts
A lot of time is wasted moving the clips up and down which could be used to find a better rewarding formula. Or just for teaching the kids!
Get more ideas on the behavior clip chart here.
