Lost at School (25 page)

“’Cuz Mr. Moron didn’t know the plan.”

“Who’s Mr. Moron?”

“The sub.”

“Who was there when you hit the locker?”

“Mrs. Franco. She said I handled things better this time.”

“She said that, did she?” She looked at Joey’s swollen, bloody hand. “Your hand must really hurt.”

“Bad,” said Joey, his eyes welling up.

CHAPTER 6

Filling in the Gaps

In the last chapter I encouraged you to embark upon your first Plan B adventure. Your inaugural foray into Plan B may have gone quite well. Or maybe it didn’t go well but you were able to figure out why and are ready to try again. Or maybe you came away feeling it was an unmitigated disaster. You’re entitled to your feelings, of course, but attempts at Plan B that don’t go as well as hoped seldom qualify as disasters. It can take a while to get into a “Plan B rhythm.” It can also take a while to counterbalance the many years a kid has been misunderstood, misinterpreted, and mistreated. Rather than perpetually putting out brush fires, you’re trying to systematically chip away at the unsolved problems and teach the lagging skills that have been setting the stage for a kid’s challenging behavior for a long time. Hang in there. All change is incremental. At the very least, you want to make sure that nothing happened in your first attempt at Plan B to
decrease
the kid’s receptivity to your next attempt.

You’ve been given a lot to digest already. But now let’s go into greater detail about additional considerations that can come into play when using Plan B.

STARTING WITH UNSOLVED PROBLEMS

I recommended that, in your first attempt at Plan B, you focus on a specific
unsolved problem
rather than a specific lagging
skill.
You may have wondered, “If the kid is lacking skills, why start Plan B with a problem?” Good question. Here’s the answer, or at least part of it.
When you’re using Plan B to work on problems, you’re simultaneously teaching skills.
In other words, by focusing on the
who, what, where,
and
when
of challenging behavior, you’re simultaneously addressing the
why,
albeit in a somewhat indirect fashion.

There are a variety of skills that kids learn and practice by participating in Plan B, including (but by no means limited to) identifying, articulating, and clarifying their concerns; taking into account situational factors they may not have fully appreciated; understanding and taking into account the perspectives of other people; generating and considering alternative solutions; and working toward solutions that are realistic and mutually satisfactory. In fact, Plan B can be an effective way to teach and practice most of the skills on the ALSUP. To underscore this point, it might be a good idea to return to some of the skills that were highlighted and kids you were introduced to in
Chapter 2
for some additional examples.

Would Plan B, for instance, be an effective way to help a kid better handle transitions? Let’s see. Remember Kelvin, the fourth grader who has difficulty making transitions in general and has particular difficulty transitioning from choice time (playing a game with a friend) to the next activity (math)? Recall that he’s also a black-and-white thinker who has difficulty taking another’s perspective into account and moving off his original idea or plan. In the following dialogue, let’s see if focusing on a specific unsolved problem (transitioning from choice time to math) helps us teach some of the skills Kelvin is lacking.

      A
DULT
(using Proactive B): Kelvin, I’ve noticed that sometimes it’s hard for you to stop playing a game when it’s time to move on to math. Have you noticed that?

      K
ELVIN
:
Yup.

      
A
DULT
:
So, what’s up? Why is that hard for you?

      K
ELVIN
:
You always make us end the game before we know who won.

      A
DULT
(not quite understanding Kelvin’s concern): I always make you end the game before you know who won. That’s true, sometimes I do make you end the game before you know who won. But I don’t understand why that’s hard for you.

      K
ELVIN
:
How can the game be over if you don’t know who won?

      A
DULT
(still not quite comprehending): So you need to know who won for the game to be over?

      K
ELVIN
:
Yup. The White Sox don’t stop playing till they know who won. The Bears don’t stop playing till they know who won. The game isn’t over until you know who won.

      A
DULT
:
So you feel very strongly that the game can’t be over until you know who won. Is that the main reason it’s hard for you to end the game and move on to math?

      K
ELVIN
:
Yes.

      A
DULT
:
OK, I think I understand that. The thing is, you’re a very important member of our class, and if you’re still playing your game while the rest of the class is in math, you won’t be part of our class. Plus, I want to make sure you learn the math. Know what I mean?

      K
ELVIN
:
Yeah.

      A
DULT
:
So I’m wondering if there’s a way for us to know who won the game but still have you be part of our class and learn the math. Do you have any ideas?

      K
ELVIN
:
No.

      A
DULT
:
Well, let’s take our time. I might have some ideas, but I’d rather wait until we hear if you have any.

      K
ELVIN
(sticking with his original plan): I could keep playing and then come to math when the game is done.

      A
DULT
:
That’s one idea. The thing is, if you did that, you still wouldn’t be part of our class. And you wouldn’t learn the math, either.

      K
ELVIN
:
Yeah.

      A
DULT
:
Any other ideas?

      
K
ELVIN
:
We could save the game and I could come to math and then I could finish it later and see who won.

      A
DULT
:
You mean, we could save the game and you’d get back to it later to find out who the winner is?

      K
ELVIN
:
Yes, but you’d have to put it up high somewhere so people wouldn’t wreck it.

      A
DULT
:
Up high, like on a shelf somewhere?

      K
ELVIN
:
Yeah, or else the game would get wrecked.

      A
DULT
:
I could do that. Kelvin, I think this idea could work. I mean, you’d know who won the game and could still be part of our community and learn the math.

      K
ELVIN
:
Yep.

      A
DULT
:
Let’s give it a try, and if, for some reason, it doesn’t work as well as we think it will, we’ll talk again and figure out some other solution. OK?

      K
ELVIN
:
OK.

On the basis of this one Plan B, was Kelvin’s problem-transitioning from choice time to math durably solved? In this particular case, yes, the solution did end up solving the problem. In most cases, no, as the first solution seldom solves a problem durably. As you know, solving a problem durably usually requires a few visits to Plan B.

By focusing on this specific transition, was Kelvin “cured” of his difficulties making transitions in general? No. But Kelvin and his teacher worked toward solutions for other predictable problematic transitions in much the same way, and over time Kelvin’s difficulty with transitions improved dramatically.

Did the work done on
predictable
transitions help Kelvin when he was faced with
unpredictable
ones? Because Kelvin and his teacher made a conscious effort to consider the transitions that occurred throughout a typical day and week and used Proactive Plan B to come up with a game plan for those that were likely to cause him difficulty, there weren’t many unpredictable ones. Over time, they developed a general framework for thinking about and dealing with transitions (“Just because I need to move on to something else now doesn’t mean I can’t come back to it later, and if I start getting mad about needing to stop what I’m doing, I can talk to my teacher about it”).

Plan B plus a helping relationship is a pretty powerful one-two punch.

Back to the original question: In focusing on the problem of moving from choice time to math, did this Plan B dialogue simultaneously help Kelvin with any of the skills he lacks (besides making transitions in general)? He did practice taking another person’s perspective into account, moving off his original plan and considering other possible (mutually satisfactory) solutions, and considering situational factors that necessitated “grayer” rather than black-and-white thinking. So, yes, several skills were being addressed and practiced simultaneously. Of course, he needs more practice. Just like any other developmental delay.

Let’s think about a few of the other skills that were highlighted in
Chapter 2
. Would Plan B be an effective way to help a kid (or an adult)
stay calm enough in the midst of frustration to think rationally
(separation of affect)? Remember, the main task presented to the human brain when faced with a frustration is to solve the problem that prompted the frustration in the first place. Plan B is a systematic, calm(er), thoughtful, (preferably) proactive approach to solving problems, and engages the kid in a process that ensures that his concerns will both be taken seriously and addressed. My experience is that Plan B eventually helps kids learn the skills they need to respond to life’s frustrations with far more thought than emotion, and without as much help from adults.

How effective is Plan B at helping kids
keep track of their thoughts and approach problems in a more organized fashion?
Identifying lagging skills and unsolved problems helps kids and adults target the specific problems that need to be focused on and resolved. And, over multiple repetitions, the structured, systematic nature of Plan B provides a framework for incorporating the key ingredients necessary for working toward realistic, mutually satisfactory solutions to those problems.

Finally, an important skill Plan B teaches is
appreciating how one’s behavior is affecting others.
Many kids who lack this skill receive continuous feedback on how their behavior is affecting others (e.g., “Rodney, the girls don’t think that’s very funny,” “Luis, your noises are bothering everyone around you,” “Akiko, if you call out without raising your hand, it’s not fair to the kids who are raising their hands”),
but somehow the feedback never quite seems to “sink in.” How does Plan B teach this skill? The Define the Problem step focuses on the concern of the other party participating in Plan B with a kid. Often, this concern is related to how the problem or behavior is affecting either that individual or others in the kid’s environment. For the problem to be solved, the way others are being affected must be taken into account and addressed. When you’re using Plan B, the kid isn’t merely on the receiving end of yet another dose of the same feedback. He’s actually
working
on the problem. He’s actually
thinking
about it.

By the way, there is another reason you’d want to kick off Plan B with an unsolved problem rather than a skill: It’s easier. That’s right, in general, it’s easier to initiate Plan B with a specific problem than with a lagging skill.
But whether you initiate Plan B with an unsolved problem or a skill, what you’re trying to resolve often shifts or is modified once you’ve achieved a clearer understanding of the concerns of the two parties.
Until these concerns are fully understood, the precise direction in which Plan B is heading is unknown. In the case of Kelvin, Plan B started by focusing on his difficulty transitioning from choice time to math, but it
ended up
focused on how he could be sure of knowing who won his game and still be a part of the class.

STARTING WITH SKILLS

As noted above, when Plan B is focused on resolving a specific problem or trigger, it is a rather indirect approach to teaching skills. There are some kids who will require a more direct approach to learning skills, especially (1) those skills related to participating in Plan B, and (2) those that are generally better taught in a more direct fashion. Let’s tackle number one now and turn to number two after that.

The examples of Plan B you’ve read so far may have led you to believe that kids needs some pretty well developed language skills to participate in Plan B. Some kids, especially those who are sometimes called “low functioning” or “nonverbal,” don’t have the communication skills to identify and articulate their concerns and participate in generating solutions to problems. But that doesn’t mean that Plan B isn’t a viable option for these kids, though they will most certainly need
extra help communicating their concerns and generating solutions to problems. Of course, there are some “high functioning” and “very verbal” people who have difficulty identifying and articulating their concerns and generating alternative solutions, so this section isn’t solely applicable to the “low functioning” and “nonverbal” ones. General cognitive functioning is not the most important variable, communication is. Either way, there are skills to be taught.

Identifying and Articulating One’s Concerns

Whether their communication skills are fairly intact or quite limited, kids who are having difficulty identifying and articulating their concerns need adults to help them develop a rudimentary vocabulary of concerns. For kids whose communication skills are fairly intact, the educated guessing/hypothesis testing strategy described in
Chapter 5
should help. You may want to augment that strategy by creating a written list of the predictable concerns that reliably cause the kid to become frustrated so as to have a ready mechanism for pinpointing problems that might come into play (for example, bulky or itchy clothing, food that doesn’t taste good, bothersome noises, being annoyed or bothered by a peer). The list of possibilities is endless but is usually confined to five or six reliable triggers for each kid. This should reduce the need for you to constantly guess quickly and accurately, and should eventually help the kid consider the possibilities and verbalize specific concerns more independently. I am reminded of the proud pronouncement a second grader made to his teacher: “I don’t need my ‘frustration list’ anymore, now I’m good at knowing what’s bothering me!” Of course, the ultimate goal is to help the kid resolve the concerns on his list through use of Proactive Plan B so they’re not causing “emergent” frustration anymore.