While preschool students are not yet able to follow a list of complex rules, they do need practice in engaging in rule-following behavior. Allow your students this practice by composing several simple rules to abide by. Limit your list to five rules to ensure that your young students are not overwhelmed. Present these rules to the students and review them regularly to ensure that they don't forget them.
Time-out is a good punishment for preschool students because it not only forces them to stop the behavior but also allows them time to consider their actions. Make time-out your first step in dealing with student misbehavior. Set time-out periods for no more than five minutes each to ensure that your young students are not sitting in the time-out seat for too long.
Preschool students are still working on understanding their own actions. When a student engages in a misbehavior, discuss the misbehavior and ask him why he did it. By inquiring as to the reason behind the misbehavior, you provide the student with the opportunity to be introspective and think about why he actually did what he did and what he wanted when he did it. This practice helps your students consider what they might want to do differently in the future.
Help your students build relationships with each other by engaging them in dialogue. If two students get into an argument, don't just talk about the problem individually, but instead bring the students together and help them talk it through as a duo. By mediating this discussion you prepare the students to engage in problem-solving behavior in the future.
When you assign a punishment, explain your reasoning behind it. Students can better see the connection between their actions and the resulting punishment if you pause and explain why you are assigning a certain punishment. When students see the connection between the punishment and their actions, they are more likely to change their behavior to avoid the consequence in the future.