How to Reach and Teach Children with Challenging Behavior (K-8)

Practical, Ready-to-Use Interventions That Work

Kaye Otten, Jodie Tuttle

• Publisher: Jossey-Bass
• Year: 2010
• ISBN:
  9780470872918
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education Teaching Methods

Interventions for students who exhibit challenging behavior

Written by behavior specialists Kaye Otten and Jodie Tuttle--who together have 40 years of experience working with students with challenging behavior in classroom settings--this book offers educators a practical approach to managing problem behavior in schools. It is filled with down-to-earth advice, ready-to-use forms, troubleshooting tips, recommended resources, and teacher-tested strategies. Using this book, teachers are better able to intervene proactively, efficiently, and effectively with students exhibiting behavior problems. The book includes research-backed support for educators and offers:

• Instructions for creating and implementing an effective class-wide behavior management program
• Guidelines for developing engaging lessons and activities that teach and support positive behavior
• Advice for assisting students with the self-regulation and management their behavior and emotions

Part One

A Positive, Proactive Approach to Behavior Management

Our Model of Intervention

1

A Case for Change

What's wrong with kids today? “What happened to the good old days when students behaved themselves in school?” “I didn't sign up for this when I decided to become a teacher!” “These kids with behavior problems should just be suspended!” “Punishment worked on me and works for me!”

As behavior specialists working in the public school system, we hear similar questions from and attitudes expressed by educators almost every day. Educators are facing immense difficulties as the number of students with social, emotional, and behavioral challenges increases dramatically while at the same time public education is more closely monitored and held accountable for high academic outcomes, especially since passage of No Child Left Behind in 2002. Our training to be educators did not adequately expose us or prepare us to deal with these difficulties, and our guess is that yours didn't either, or you would not be reading this book. In fact, teachers in both general and special education have repeatedly identified behavior management as a priority in-service need, and student behavior has been in the top five teacher concerns in Gallup polls for the past thirty years. Our sincere hope is that by reading this book and applying its concepts with the students you teach, you will find behavior management less overwhelming and your confidence and belief that you can meet these challenges will greatly increase. Let's start by addressing each of these common questions and attitudes set out in the first paragraph of the chapter.

What's Wrong with Kids Today?

There is no doubt that increasing numbers of students in public schools have behavior challenges. Between 1976 and 2004, the number of students between the ages of three and twenty-one served in the emotional disturbance category doubled from 283,000 to 489,000.1 The number of students served under the educational autism category, who also often experience behavioral challenges, has also increased dramatically—according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, from 22,664 to 211,610 between 1994 and 2006.2 In addition, many students receiving special education services under other eligibility categories such as other health impairments and learning disabilities, as well as students in general education, also exhibit challenging behaviors. It is no wonder that educators are overwhelmed. In fact, according to one survey, students with emotional and behavioral challenges are the primary reason that general educators leave the profession.3 If you are feeling frustrated in your efforts to reach and teach students with behavioral challenges, you are certainly not alone.

What Happened to the Good Old Days?

Our response to this question is always, “How good were those days really?” First, where were many children with significant behavioral challenges, especially those with multiple, severe, or misunderstood disabilities if they were not in public schools? The honest answer is that they were at home with minimal learning experiences or interaction with others, either because parents did not send them to school or schools kicked them out, or they were residing in underfunded and understaffed institutions too often receiving poor care and being subjected to abuse and/or neglect. The closing of many institutions in the late 1970s and early 1980s and passage of federal legislation such as the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act of 1980 and the Education for All Handicapped Children Act in 1975 ended these widespread practices. Now, every child, even those with the most severe limitations, has the right to a free and appropriate public education and dignity and respect for all individuals is now highly valued and modeled.

Second, adults no longer model submissiveness and obedience, and this is a good thing. One of the largest influences on our behavior management philosophy is the book Positive Discipline by Jane Nelson, which discusses how various historical events such as the women's and civil rights movements led people to question and challenge government and authority in general and not just submissively accept the direction of those in power.4 Children see these attitudes and behaviors modeled and also challenge authority, including teachers and administrators. They want a rationale for their curriculum, question the decisions of school personnel, and test boundaries, which drives those of us who grew up in the “because I said so” and “children should be seen and not heard” era crazy. But is challenging authority and holding leaders accountable a bad thing if we teach students to do so respectfully? Is this not a life skill we value in the current culture of transparency and accountability for those in authority? Whose behavior needs to change?

Nelson sets out three main approaches of adult-child interaction. The first is strictness, a punitive approach characterized by excessive adult control, no choices by the child, and the attitude of “You do it because I said so.” This often leads to rebellion on the part of the child, who avoids or attempts to manipulate adults to get what he or she wants. Children do not learn why it isn't in their best interest to do something or not do something, only that they may be punished if they do not comply with adult directions, so they often end up making poor choices when the punishing adult is not present. The second approach is permissiveness, the exact opposite of strictness. Adults who are permissive with children fail to set limits, giving them complete freedom to do anything they want, which often leads to an attitude of entitlement and lack of personal responsibility for choices. The third approach, positive discipline, results in the most productive outcomes of responsibility and life skill development, the ultimate goal of public education. In this approach, adults are kind but firm, providing choices within appropriate limits based on mutual respect.

I Didn't Sign Up for This!

Educators we work with often express the belief that their job is solely to teach academic skills and that teaching behavioral skills is not their responsibility. However, research clearly shows a co-occurrence between academic and behavioral problems. Although the direction of this relationship is not clear, it appears complex and influenced by a variety of factors.5 What we do know is that as social and behavioral skills improve, academic achievement also increases.6 Preventive behavior management is one of best academic instructional support strategies and vice versa.7

In addition to teaching academic skills, the purpose of public schools is to help young people develop into productive, contributing members of society. Individuals with poor social and behavioral skills are at risk for a wide range of problems that have a negative impact on society: school dropout, depression, anxiety, substance abuse, gang membership, low self-esteem, social maladjustment, medical problems, employment difficulties, aggression, delinquency, incarceration, higher death and injury rates, and lifelong dependency on the welfare system.8 Social skills deficiency in childhood, in fact, is the single best predictor of significant problems in adulthood.9

Teachers have long identified behavioral management as an area where they need more training and support in order to increase their efficiency. National surveys of topics that are considered of great importance by general educators consistently identify discipline and safety as a high priority. Clearly behavior management is part of every teacher's job. (You actually did sign up for this; you just didn't know it.) Fortunately, good teachers have the skills they need to teach behavioral and social skills because social and academic behavior is governed by the same principles of learning and responds to the same types of intervention.10

Just as some students have reading difficulties, some students have difficulty selecting and using the appropriate social and behavioral skills. The difference is that traditionally academic instruction has been proactive, while behavioral instruction has been reactive.11 Teachers would never test a student on long division before teaching him or her how to do it, but many times they “test” students on behavioral skills before teaching them. For example, teachers often hold students accountable for knowing how to get attention or help appropriately in the classroom before ever directly teaching this skill. Because many students seemingly teach themselves social and behavioral skills through observing the behaviors of those around them, educators tend to expect all students to do this. The problem with this expectation is that some students may not be exposed to appropriate models prior to and outside public education, and some may have disabilities that interfere with this learning process.

Students with Behavior Problems Should Just Be Suspended!

For many students with chronic behavior problems, suspension is not the meaningful consequence it is intended to be and often does not result in the student's changing his or her behavior for the better upon return to school. Many students do not want to be in school, which for them is synonymous with rejection and failure; for them, suspension is actually reinforcing the problem behavior. The reality is that many times, students are not adequately supervised outside school and therefore spend their time engaging in their preferred activities such as watching television or playing video games. Time away from the educational environment certainly does not facilitate the progress of at-risk students who are already academically and socially disengaged from school. When they return, they've missed even more instruction and have fallen further behind academically. These kids, viewed as troublemakers, certainly are not the ones their peers typically want to hang out with—unless they are other at-risk students in search of a peer group.

Many administrators we work with say that parents of other students in their school complain and put pressure on them to suspend students with behavior problems so that their child's learning environment is not disrupted. “My child's education should not suffer and he shouldn't have to put up with that” is a common opinion we hear. The fact is that schools using only punishment strategies such as suspension have increased rates of vandalism, aggression, truancy, and school dropout, which actually promote antisocial behavior.12 These same parents complain when these type of problems increase in their neighborhood. In addition, part of preparing students for real life is exposing them to and teaching them to deal with all of the problems they will eventually face in society, including peers who exhibit challenging behavior.

Even if suspension is a meaningful and undesirable consequence for a student with behavior challenges, it still may not be an appropriate intervention. Although it may in some cases decrease an undesirable behavior, it does not teach a more appropriate behavioral response. The student may learn to fear or dislike the person giving the punishment (educators) and the place associated with it (school), certainly not the intended outcome. So in actuality, suspension does little more than provide educators with temporary relief from an uncomfortable and frustrating situation. This may be needed at times, but then it should be called what it is—a break for the school staff—and not be considered effective behavior management. In fact, “there is currently no evidence that suggests suspension or expulsion changes the behavior of difficult students. Rather, for troublesome or at-risk students, the most well-documented outcome of suspension appears to be further suspension and eventually school drop-out.”13

Clearly suspension is not supported by common sense or research, and in an era of mandated evidence-based practices, it should be used sparingly.

Punishment Works for Me!

We know what you are thinking: “But kids shouldn't be this way.” “I'm already overwhelmed, overworked, and underpaid.” “My punitive behavior management practices have worked well for me for [fill in the blank] years.” We hear you.

Kaye Says…

I come from a long line of educators who firmly believed in the traditional “don't smile until Christmas” philosophy and had a low tolerance for any inappropriate behavior, which they typically responded to with a punitive discipline approach. I started my career with that belief also, and in the small rural Nebraska town where I grew up and in my early teaching experiences in schools without many students with chronic behavior challenges, that approach did suppress problem behavior. Therefore,

I mistakenly believed it was effective—just as many of you do.

The truth is that punitive approaches will work for about 80 to 90 percent of the student population as far as controlling behavior. But they do not develop personal responsibility or teach life skills and simply do not work for students at risk for or those who already have chronic behavioral challenges.

What Can We Do?

So far we have pointed out that incr...

Table of contents

• Cover
• More Praise for How to Reach and Teach Children with Challenging Behavior
• Titles in the Jossey-Bass Teacher Reach and Teach Series
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Jossey-Bass Teacher
• About This Book
• About the Authors
• Dedication
• Acknowledgments
• Foreword
• Preface
• Part One: A Positive, Proactive Approach to Behavior Management
• Part Two: Social Skills Instruction
• Part Three: Preventing Challenging Behavior
• Part Four: Reinforcing Desired Behavior
• Part Five: Using Undesirable Consequences
• Part Six: Putting It All Together
• Part Seven: What About Dangerous Behavior? Managing Crises
• Part Eight: Reproducible Tools
• Glossary
• Notes
• References
• Index