Lost at School (6 page)

Difficulties getting along with other kids on the school bus, behaving appropriately in the cafeteria or in the hallways, transitioning from one activity to another, interacting with a certain teacher or peer, getting started and maintaining effort on specific academic tasks, completing classwork or homework, working with other students cooperatively—these are all problems that commonly precipitate challenging behavior. What’s the next goal? Work with the students in a way that moves these problems from the “unsolved” category to the “solved” category.

NEW LENSES AND A NEW TOOL

There are many lenses through which challenging behavior in kids can be viewed. Some people view challenging behavior through the
prism of diagnoses. Now you know why that’s not my focus. Some people see passive, permissive, inconsistent, noncontingent parenting when they’re observing a child’s challenging behavior. Now you should be clear as to why that won’t be our emphasis, either. Here’s the mantra that encapsulates the view of this book:

Behind every challenging behavior is an unsolved problem and a lagging skill.

Whether a kid is sulking, pouting, whining, withdrawing, refusing to talk, crying, spitting, screaming, swearing, running out of the classroom, kicking, hitting, destroying property, or worse, you won’t know what to do about the challenging behavior until you understand why it’s occurring (lagging skills) and pinpoint the situations in which it occurs (unsolved problems). Lagging skills are the
why
of challenging behavior. Unsolved problems tell us
with whom, over what, where,
and
when
the behavior is occurring.

Of course, you’re going to need a mechanism for assessing and keeping track of the lagging skills and unsolved problems that are setting the stage for challenging behavior in a given kid, so this is a good time to introduce you to the Assessment of Lagging Skills and Unsolved Problems (ALSUP) shown on page 287. The ALSUP includes a list of the lagging skills you learned about earlier in this chapter, along with a section for identifying unsolved problems. You’ll want to bring copies of the ALSUP to meetings in which a child’s challenges are being discussed. Along with the child’s other adult caregivers (the team), achieve a consensus on the skills the kid seems to be lacking. Next, achieve a consensus on the unsolved problems (in the Unsolved Problems section) that seem to be precipitating the kid’s challenging behavior. This information leaves you at the doorstep of what to do next. (Though I don’t think “quantifying” and “understanding” are synonyms, many schools find “quantifying” necessary, therefore the ALSUP is also available in Likert-scale format at lostatschool.org.

Why is it important to take the time to achieve a consensus on lagging skills and unsolved problems? Because if caregivers have disparate notions about what’s getting in a kid’s way, and those differences
remain unresolved, then there will be no coherent treatment plan and, quite probably, little or no progress because all the adults will be working on something different and doing it in different ways. The time devoted to hashing out and coming to a consensus about a kid’s lagging skills and unsolved problems is usually very well spent (if a kid is still exhibiting challenging behavior, it’s a pretty surefire bet no one’s figured these things out yet).

NEW TIMING

Once you have a decent handle on a kid’s lagging skills and unsolved problems, you’ve taken a major step in the right direction because the kid’s challenging episodes are now highly predictable, which is good news if you’re a teacher and have a class full of twenty-five other students. It’s also good news if you’re a parent who wants to play an active role in making sure things go better for your child at school. See, the process of teaching skills and solving problems is a lot easier if it’s done
proactively.
If you’re a teacher, you don’t have to wait until the kid disrupts the class before you try to solve the problem that causes the disruption; you can do it in advance because the problem and the disruption are predictable. And if you’re a parent—let’s face it, you’re not there when your child is disrupting the class—you can collaborate with your child’s teachers and play a role in solving the problems and teaching the skills as well. A lot of adults find it hard to believe that a kid’s challenging behaviors are highly predictable, believing instead that such behaviors are unpredictable and occur out of the blue. But that’s not true, not if you know what skills the child is lacking and what his triggers are.

Most challenging kids will have many lagging skills and many unsolved problems, and this can feel overwhelming. But you can’t fix everything at once, so you shouldn’t try. Better to prioritize two or three unsolved problems to work on first. If you solve these and other problems
collaboratively,
you’ll simultaneously teach the kid many of the skills he’s lacking.

A FEW LIVE ONES

At this point, it might be helpful to meet a few kids and give you an opportunity to contemplate the lagging skills and unsolved problems that are contributing to their challenging behavior.

Cody

Cody is a six-year-old first grader whose biggest problem is physical aggression toward his classmates. His teacher observes that Cody often hits other kids when they disagree with him, when he feels left out, or when he perceives that kids are laughing at him. When Cody hits, he is deprived of recess or removed from an activity. These punishments cause him to scream, cry, and threaten, prompting visits to the principal’s office. His teacher has tried talking with Cody about the hitting, but these conversations aren’t terribly productive. “He won’t talk,” says Cody’s teacher. “When I try talking with him, he either denies that there’s a problem, or shrugs, or walks away.” Lately, she’s noticed that Cody has burst out crying in some situations in which he might previously have lashed out physically, but the hitting continues to be a major area of concern. Her most pressing concerns are “How do I talk to Cody about the hitting when he refuses to discuss it?” and “What do I do to keep the other kids safe?”

Academically, Cody is an average student with no apparent learning disabilities. He impresses with his excellent knowledge of the constellations and of reptiles. Socially, he can be quite friendly and engaging, but kids tend to stay away from him for fear of being hit.

In an effort to better understand the
why
of Cody’s hitting, his teacher completed the ALSUP and endorsed many items. She prioritized the following lagging skills:

• Difficulty considering a range of solutions to a problem

• Difficulty managing emotional response to frustration so as to think rationally (separation of affect)

• Difficulty shifting from original idea or solution and adapting to changes in plan or new rules

Cody’s teacher also identified the unsolved problems (
who, what, where,
and
when
) that were prompting his hitting:

• Disagreements with classmates

• Feeling left out

• Feeling that he is being laughed at

Kelvin

Kelvin is a ten-year-old fourth grader who was retained in the first grade because of “immaturity” and academic difficulties. Cognitive testing in his second year of first grade documented below-average verbal skills, well-below-average nonverbal skills, and well-below-average processing speed. Recent testing has shown that Kelvin is still well below grade level in all academic skill areas.

Because of his academic and behavioral challenges, Kelvin has, for the past three years, been placed in a self-contained special education classroom that includes one teacher, an aide, and six other students. The classroom operates on a point and level system, whereby each student receives privileges for adhering to behavioral expectations (such as staying on task, completing assignments, and using appropriate language) and loses privileges when these expectations are not met. Kelvin continues to have trouble maintaining a high level, and the loss of points or his level often precipitates major challenging episodes, including screaming, swearing, and destruction of property. On some occasions Kelvin has had to be physically restrained. Otherwise, Kelvin is usually in a pretty good mood.

Kelvin’s teachers report that most of his difficulties occur when they are trying to help him with difficult academic tasks (“He just won’t let us help him,” says his teacher) and in transitioning from one activity to another. “He always wants the current activity to continue,” she says. “If he’s playing a board game during choice time with one of his classmates, he wants it to go on forever. We can’t let him play board games the whole day.”

Kelvin also has difficulty handling uncertainty and ambiguity. For example, if he asks, “Can we play Uno today during choice time?” and his teacher responds, “We might be able to do that today,” the word “might” frustrates him and he will demand a more definitive answer. Phrases such as “in a while” and “we have to stop the game soon” are confusing for him as well.

Kelvin’s teachers are concerned about his screaming, swearing, destruction of property, difficulty ending one activity and moving on to another, difficulty staying on task, and difficulty using appropriate language. To achieve a better understanding of his difficulties and to target specific skills and unsolved problems for intervention, they completed the ALSUP. They found the ALSUP to be a useful discussion tool for helping them shift away from motivational explanations for Kelvin’s difficulties, and identified the following lagging skills:

• Difficulty handling transitions and shifting from one mind-set or task to another (shifting cognitive set)

• Difficulty considering the likely outcomes or consequences of actions (impulsive)

• Difficulty handling unpredictability, ambiguity, uncertainty, novelty; and difficulty seeing the “grays”/concrete, literal, black-and-white thinking

They also identified the following unsolved problems:

• Losing points or his level

• Moving from choice time to an academic activity

• Receiving help for his academic challenges

Elena

Elena is a thirteen-year-old seventh grader who is several years below grade level in almost all academic areas and is completing very little work, but it is her behavior that concerns her teachers the most. Elena has to be reminded numerous times to get started on academic assignments and, after several reminders, responds defiantly with comments like “Shut up,” “This is stupid,” and “I hate this … why do I need
to do this?” When she’s partnered with a classmate she especially dislikes, she’ll refuse to do any work. If she doesn’t understand an assignment, she won’t ask for help and won’t attempt the assignment. Several times a month, Elena comes into class, puts her head on her desk, and goes to sleep. She’s received numerous detentions for refusing to remove her iPod headphones and for skipping class.

Her teachers have a variety of hypotheses for why she’s having so much difficulty at school. “Her behaviors are an attempt to get us to give her the attention she doesn’t get at home,” says one of her teachers. Another teacher isn’t so sure. “I think she acts the way she does to push us away because she’s so certain we’re going to reject her.” Interestingly, some of Elena’s teachers never see her defiant side. “She’s fine for me,” says one. “You just can’t get into power struggles with her.” Yet another teacher feels strongly that Elena’s academic difficulties are the root cause of her behavior problems: “If we could just get her caught up academically—if she’d let us—then all this stuff that’s related to her poor self-esteem would improve.” Some of Elena’s teachers have become very discouraged about the prospects of helping her. Says one, “I’ve tried talking with her about her difficulties and about what she needs to do to turn things around. But you put all that time into helping her, and the next day she’s back behaving the same way she did the day before. I’m starting to think she’s a lost cause.”

The four teachers in Elena’s learning community met to discuss her ongoing difficulties and completed the ALSUP in an attempt to better understand the factors setting the stage for her challenging behavior. They homed in on several key lagging skills that they felt were coming into play:

• Difficulty adapting to changes in routine

• Difficulty shifting from an original idea or solution

• Difficulty considering the consequences of her actions and inhibiting her impulses

• Difficulty appreciating how her behavior is affecting other people

They identified the following high-priority unsolved problems:

• Being partnered with a classmate she doesn’t like

• Being reminded to get started on academic assignments

• Being pushed to complete academic assignments

• Being prompted to adhere to elements of the school discipline code

Rodney

When describing Rodney, a sixteen-year-old tenth grader, the first thing his teachers mention is his charisma and popularity. They also describe him as a capable, albeit somewhat distracted and inconsistent, student. Then they get to the challenging parts. With some teachers, Rodney can be hostile and disrespectful, especially when they set limits on his use of profane language. Rodney argues that profanity is commonplace among his friends and family, and that at school these words “just slip out,” but his teachers feel he derives some satisfaction from the reactions of his classmates. The many dozens of detentions and occasional suspension he has received over the years for using profanity have not had any effect.