One of the biggest complaints from teachers and parents about children is challenging behaviors (Landers, Alter, & Servilio, 2008). Challenging behaviors have also been known to affect parent and teacher satisfaction with their roles.
Teachers and parents experience increased stress, frustration, anger, burnout when engaging with children with challenging behaviors. In fact teachers and parents will deal with noncompliance, disrespect, aggression, lack of effort, and general disruptions. The simple fact that parents and teachers are working with children assures them that they will encounter challenging behaviors. Challenging behaviors are a part of normal human development.
Think about a time when you tried to change your own behavior. Remember the diet? When you said you would excercise or break that bad habit? It wasn't easy was it? How many times did you fail? How many times did you have to adjust the plan to better meet your needs? Or did you give up all together? Well changing a child's behavior is no less complex.
What can teachers and parents can do to address challenging behaviors in a developmentally and culturally appropriate manner? How can collaboration be used to reduce some of the stress of challenging behaviors for adults who work with children?
Research (Sobel & Taylor, 2006; Powell, Fixsen, Dunlap, Smith, & Fox, 2007; Dettmer, Thurston, Knackendoffel, & Dyck, 2009) suggests that challenging behaviors can only be effectively addressed through collaborative consultation and teamwork. Most scholars agree prevention, direct instruction and consequences are effective in addressing challenging behaviors (Alter & Conroy, n.d).
Parents and teachers should choose a system (school or outside services), mode (direct or indirect), approach (formal or informal), and model (mental health, behavioral or other) to address challenging behaviors. Did you know that a part of school guidance counselor's roles and responsibilities is to collaborate with a multidisciplinary (people with varous expertise) team to address anger and anxiety, assertive and communication skills, and college and career development? They may also assist by conducting classroom and playground observations, and reinforcing appropriate behaviors. Guidance counselors can provide individual and group counseling as well as make referrals to outside agencies.
Four strategies that can be used to address challenging behavior are prevention, instruction, consequence-based, and Response to Intervention.
Prevention requires clear, rules, expectations and policies both school-wide, class-wide and at home. This would require planning to prevent challenging behaviors by predicting vulnerable times for children. In class, two vulnerable times are the first and last five minutes of class. Teachers should be ready teach and provide hands-on sponge activities so that students come to class and become engaged immediately. For more information on preventing challenging behaviors visit http://www.challengingbehavior.org/do/resources/documents/rph_preventing_challenging_behavior.pdf
Parents and teachers can support children during transitions by giving verbal warnings, cues (brain gymnastics, a song), and plenty of time. At home parents can have a system in place to reward good behavior. I keep a goodie bag full of inexpensive items the kids like. When they have a great day at school or home, they can choose one item.
Direct instruction of expectations can be a strategy to address challenging behaviors. It involves direct instruction of expectations such as respect. Just as one would create a lesson plan to teach math, a concept such as respect for another person's property can be taught in the same manner. It is important to remember that students remember 90% of what they teach to others and only 5% of what they hear in a lecture. Good ideas for direct teaching of expectations can be demonstrations, modeling, use of puppets, books, professional videos, or a video of students modeling class or home expectations.
Consequence based strategies are another effective way to address challenging behaviors. This strategy requires that the adults have preplanned the positive and negative consequences associated with specific behaviors. "If you do...then..will happen." These expectations must be clearly communicated, practiced and praised when met. Some consequences can be natural. For example: A boy continues to run and hurts his leg. This was a natural consequence. It allows the child to learn the connection between their choices and their outcomes.
Lastly, response to intervention or RTI can be used to address challenging behavior. Parents can initiate a Student Study Team meeting to request that RTI is used to support the student. In RTI interventions are closely monitored by a multidisciplinary team for effectiveness. When students do not show improvement, interventions are increased in frequency and duration or change all together until there is improvement. Improvements should be demonstrated with data (graphs, tables). RTI is an on-going process and it is recommended that the interventions are implemented for at least 8-10 weeks.
Schools and families should share information on practices that work. It is important that students and families have input into class expectations. It is important that teachers communicate expectations with families and families reinforce those expectations with direct instruction or consequence-based strategies. Open, two-way communication is the key. As the needs of the classroom change so shall the expectations.
Challenging behaviors can be stressful but can be effectively addressed through collaboration.
Parents and teachers are not likely to change a child's behavior on their own.
Stay informed!
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