The method was developed by Becky Bailey more than 20 years ago and is based on research about child development. It is a complicated system where an adult analyzes how the child is reacting and uses that information to determine how to respond in a way that is healthy and safe for the child.
It can be used in preschool classrooms up through high school.
“The adult can look at where the child is and what brain state the child is in, and depending on where that child is in their brain, the teacher can come up with a way to respond,” said Anita Craighead, a “Conscious Discipline” and curriculum coaching specialist for Preschool Promise.
Mad River, Trotwood-Madison and Kettering incorporate the idea into professional development training, as do thousands of other schools.
Robyn Lightcap, Preschool Promise executive director, said there is data to back up that “Conscious Discipline” works and improves outcomes for educators and children.
“We have analyzed data year after year, and we see promising results from ‘Conscious Discipline’ or, of course, we would not have continued to use it,” Lightcap said.
But there is less gold standard research on the idea, with control groups and published in research journals. More information would help teachers implement the concept with better understanding of what is going on in the kids’ brains.
The project will involve a total of 100 classrooms at Preschool Promise partner sites, divided into treatment and control classrooms, to better understand how to train teachers and implement the idea with fidelity.
For this project, Preschool Promise will be advised by a Community Advisory Council made up of local and national researchers and a Parent Advisory Council composed of families with young children.
The project begins in January and will end in 2028.
Education Innovation and Research funding, which is where the grant money is coming from, is awarded to organizations to “create, implement, replicate, and expand entrepreneurial, evidence-based innovations to improve outcomes for historically underserved learners and to rigorously evaluate such innovations.”
It isn’t very common for first-time applicants to succeed, and Lightcap said they were hoping just to get some feedback about how to do better next year. Instead, they got the grant.
Preschool Promise
Preschool Promise serves preschools in the areas listed here. More details are available online at preschoolpromise.org/FindAPreschool.aspx.
Dayton
Huber Heights
Jefferson Twp.
Kettering
Mad River
Northridge
Trotwood-Madison
West Carrollton
More online
Read more on the “Conscious Discipline” method at https://consciousdiscipline.com/methodology.
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