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Collaborative Problem Solving. Working with Students with Behavioral Challenges Staff In-Service with Lee Copenhagen, MSW. Challenging Students. Manipulative Attention-seeking Coercive Unmotivated Limit-testing Passive Permissive Inconsistent. What we say about them:.
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Collaborative Problem Solving Working with Students with Behavioral Challenges Staff In-Service with Lee Copenhagen, MSW
Challenging Students • Manipulative • Attention-seeking • Coercive • Unmotivated • Limit-testing • Passive • Permissive • Inconsistent
What we say about them: • “He just wants attention” • “He just wants his own way” • “He’s manipulating us” • “He’s not motivated” • “He’s making bad choices” • “His parents are incompetent disciplinarians” • “He has a bad attitude” • “He has a mental illness” • “His brother was the same way”
Challenging students already know how we want them to behave • They already want to behave the right way • They’re already motivated • They just lack important thinking skills • “Won’t do” or “Can’t do” • What factors are interfering with their skill acquisition?
Kids do well if they can. • Kids with social, emotional, and behavioral challenges lack important thinking skills • If a kid could do well he would do well • First, assume he’s already motivated, knows right from wrong, and has been punished enough, • Then, figure out what thinking skills he’s lacking so you know what skills to teach.
Their Maladaptive Responses • The spectrum of things kids do when life’s demands exceed their capacity to respond adaptively: • Cry, sulk, pout, whine, withdraw • Screaming, swearing, spitting, hitting, kicking, destroying property, lying, truancy • Self-injurious behavior, self-induced vomiting, drinking or using drugs to excess, stabbing, shooting Some kids when pushed to their limits don’t have the skills “to hold it together”
Consequences • Rewards • Extras, favored activity, free-time • Punishments • Being deprived of privileges, time-outs, detentions • Two Goals of Imposed Consequences • Teaching lessons about right and wrong ways to behave • Giving incentives to behave the right way
Situational Analysis • Behind every challenging behavior is an unsolved problem or a lagging skill (or both). • Lagging skills (behavior) are the WHY • Unsolved problems (triggers) are the WHO, WHAT, WHEN & WHERE • Natural, punishing, and illogical consequences; none teach cognitive lagging skills or help kids solve problems
Behavior 101 Antecedent Behavior Consequence trigger response result • Positive consequences reward and reinforce behavior. • School discipline programs: Behavior that ‘works’ for the student continues and maladaptive behavior is “gets” something desirable, or “escapes” or “avoids” something undesirable. • But, punishments are seldom effective, and lose effect with repetition, even if progressively more harsh. • What lagging skills are preventing the student from behaving adaptively?
Lagging Skills • Executive functioning Skills • Language processing skills • Cognitive flexibility skills • Social Skills see Thinking Skills Inventory (TSI)
Handling Unmet Expectations • Plan A • Adults impose their will on students • Greatly increases the probability of acting-out • Authoritarian, Strict Father model • Plan C • Dropping expectations, temporarily • Passive model • Plan B • Resolving the problem in a realistic and collaborative manner • Authoritative, nurturing parent model
Plan B (s) • Emergency Plan B • Timing • Empathy with “what’s up?” • Reflective Listening • Proactive Plan B • Empathy (plus reassurance) • Define the problem • Invitation “I wonder if there is a way…?”
Filling the Gaps • Plan B focus on unsolved problem (the why?) • Simultaneously teaching skills • Focus on: • Who? • What? • Where? • When? • Differentiated discipline • Fair does not mean equal
Collaborative Problem Solving Kids (and adults) do well if they can Behind every challenging behavior is an unsolved problem or a lagging skill
References • Behavioral Challenges Are Falling Through the Cracks and How Lost at School: Why Our Kids with We Can Help Find Them.(2008). Ross W. Greene, Ph.D • Treating Explosive Kids: The Collaborative Problem-Solving Approach.. (2006). Ross W. Greene & J. Stuart Ablon. • www.thinkkids.orgMassachusetts General Hospital • Aggression Replacement Training: A Comprehensive Intervention for Aggressive Youth, Rev Ed(1998). Arnold P. Goldstein, Barry Glick & John C. Gibbs. • Positive Discipline in the Classroom(1993). Jane Nelson, Lynn Lott, & H. Stephen Glenn.
References (cont.) • Aggression Replacement Training: A Comprehensive Intervention for Aggressive Youth, (Rev. Ed). (1998). Arnold P. Goldstein, Barry Glick, & John C. Gibbs. • Beyond Discipline: From Compliance to Community. (10th Anniversary Ed.). (2006). Alfie Kohn. • Don’t Shoot the Dog! The New Art of Teaching and Training, (Rev. Ed). (1999). Karen Pryor.