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- Pos. Peer Culture / Behavior Management
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Positive Peer Culture

& Behavior Management

Red Rock Canyon School has adopted a non-punitive parenting style called Positive Peer Culture. Positive Peer Culture is a conflict resolution approach. This treatment facilitates an atmosphere of kindness, firmness, dignity and respect in which adolescents can best learn responsibility. It also encourages students to be creative in solving their own problems. By teaching them the power of choices, they learn about positive and negative consequences and become accountable for their future.

Positive Peer Culture is solution-oriented. Looking for blame creates defensiveness. Looking for solutions invites cooperation. When students are involved in negotiation and decision making, they have ownership and motivation to follow their own decisions. We see mistakes as stepping stones, not stumbling blocks. This approach corrects the situation and enhances their relationships with others.

We use encouragement instead of praise. Encouragement teaches self-evaluation and speaks to the deed and not so much to the doer. Abiding self-esteem is derived from real achievement, rather than manipulative praise.

Although it varies with each person, at some point students begin to realize that they are happier when they are making positive changes in their own thoughts and actions. External reinforcers that are effective in the beginning stages of treatment are replaced by less tangible rewards. The students will have internal rewards such as improved feelings about themselves, opportunities to help others, making others happy, leadership opportunities, and seeing themselves achieve meaningful goals.