Guidance Through Intervention

1. Guidance Through Intervention Chapter 11

2. Conditions that make intervention necessary • Children cannot resolve a situation themselves and it is deteriorating • One of more children cause serious disruption to the education process • Danger of harm exists

3. Crisis Management Strategies • Being direct • Commanding a choice( including redirection) • Calming all involved (including separation) • Using physical restraint

4. Being direct • Describe without labeling • Express displeasure without insult • Correct by direction • Using the ideas together

5. Commanding a Choice • “Bottom line it” • Teacher allows the child to choose a personal choice of action teaching them that they have power in the situation . The child may not like the options but will at least be able to make the choice reserving some dignity and power in the result

6. Calming and Teaching • Important to give words to the children to help express and define what they are feeling. Strong emotions often scare children. • Cooling down, allowing the reasoning part of the brain to engage is essential! • Often we need to separate the children from the group

7. Calming and Teaching • We need to ask our selves are we removing a child from the group to help them calm down or to exert power over them or to “punish” them??????? Or do I need to calm down as well?? • Will the child be safe? Do I need to remain really close or within ear shot? Does the child need to be quiet/ screaming/?????

8. Important factor is to regain control over their emotions • We must not forget the entire re entry process and plan for how the child will rejoin the group!!!

9. Physical Restraint • this is the crisis management technique of last resort • should be used only in violent situations

10. Physical Restraint:continue • physical restraint should take the form of the passive bear hug—holding the child, including his or her arms, legs, and perhaps even the head to prevent the child from hurting you, others, or him- or herself

11. Physical Restraint:continue • when physical restraint is necessary, commitment should be total • when the child realizes that the teacher is providing needed behavioral and emotional controls, the child calms down

12. Physical Restraint:continue • actions such as paddling, spanking, knuckle whacking, mouth taping, etc. are NOT considered acceptable forms of physical restraint • gradually, the child finds the closeness comforting, with the passive bear hug sometimes ending as a genuine hug

13. Physical Restraint:continue • after physical restraint, helping the child into a quiet activity promotes reconciliation • a follow-up self-check by the teacher later in the day is needed

14. Causes of Strong Needs Mistaken Behavior • often lie outside the classroom • untreated physical and health conditions that bother a child may be a source • Family stress and dysfunction

15. Causes of Strong Needs Mistaken Behavior:continue • less-traditional conditions such as attention-deficit hyperactive disorder, fetal alcohol syndrome, chronic allergies, abuse-related injuries, and environmental illness may also be sources

16. Causes of Strong Needs Mistaken Behavior:continue • there may be emotional sources, such as a fear of abandonment • post-traumatic stress syndrome, due to violence perpetrated on children themselves or others in their presence can be a factor

17. Labeling vs. Diagnosis • a label is a judgmental shortcut that others use to put a child in a behavioral category, such as hyper, rowdy, or withdrawn • We should NEVER< EVER, use these labels…. Remember self fulfilling prophecy

18. Labeling vs. Diagnosis: continue • a diagnosis is a process used by helping professionals to determine systematically the nature of a child’s difficulty in order to guide the child to overcome it • diagnosis only becomes detrimental when adults use it as a label

19. Special Education and Guidance • children showing serious mistaken behavior need comprehensive assistance, not the stigma of a one-dimensional discipline approach • many children showing strong needs mistaken behavior in schools today do not meet the criteria for a diagnosis of “emotionally/behaviorally disturbed”

20. The Individual Guidance Plan • a comprehensive intervention strategy may be needed for a child with strong unmet needs

21. The Individual Guidance Plan:continue • may include some or all of the following seven steps: • build relations with the child and family prior to crises • use guidance management techniques • obtain additional information

22. The Individual Guidance Plan:continue • use additional information • hold the Individual Guidance Plan Meeting • implement the Guidance Plan • monitor the Guidance Plan

23. When Teachers Feel Anger Monitor Feelings and Make Adjustments • teachers need to self-monitor moods and predispositions • Use Safeguards when Expressing Anger anger cannot always be controlled, but it can be managed

24. When Teachers Feel Anger:continue • describe, express, and direct” to steer yourself toward the problem rather than the child’s personality • I messages express strong feelings relatively non-punitively and focus children on the teacher’s concerns • talking to the situation and not to the personality of the child is a most important safeguard

25. Practice Reconciliation • under normal circumstances, children are resilient and they bounce back, forgiving more easily than adults • reassure children that they are accepted for who they are and as members of the group • reconciliation is a matter of timing and inviting • by the teacher’s inviting reconciliation, children are more apt to oblige • a first step is to recognize your feelings and forgive yourself