Hi again – I’ve just had a thought and I had to put fingers to keys again.
I’m on a week’s holiday from school at the moment and have had a great time. We go back on Monday and I’ve got a new kid starting. He’s been for a visit, so he knows where everything is. He’ll be fine. What’s he like? Well, he’s a young kid who’s been causing mayhem at school, been excluded numerous times, and is now on the point of being permanently excluded. What a disastrous place for a little guy to be. I’m sure he hasn’t a clue what it all means. His appalling behaviour has become so much part of his normal he’s probably lost sight of what’s expected of him. My heart goes out to kids who have been allowed to degenerate into such a mess.
So, what was my thought? Well, before I finished for the week off, I got all this little guys files ready so he had work to do, a tray labelled so he knew where his stuff was and a place for him to sit. And then I pretty much forgot about him until I had my thought.
You see it wasn’t always like it is now. At one time, each child that was referred to me, I had the same thought – but a very different one to this one. Then, I would always think, ‘Is this the one I won’t be able to succeed with, the one where what I do won’t work?’ When a child visited, I didn’t see a child in front of me. I saw the child written about in the reports. That child would build up in my mind and become physically and psychologially larger than they actually were. Then when they turned in my class on the start day I’d see this little kid – unsure of themselves, looking to me for support and guidance. My previous negative thoughts served no purpose at all – but what an easy trap to fall into… it puts you in the wrong state of mind before you even start…
So, what’s different now? Experience, confidence, being so comfortable with how I manage children’s behaviour that it’s instinctive and second nature. This is how the strategies I use every day have evolved into a system of adult behaviour that is so successful that I have no fear that I won’t succeed. I know that the extreme behaviour shown in another environment just won’t happen.
That’s not to say I’m complacent. Far from it. I have all bases covered. I know what each child who starts with me is capable of. It’s there in black and white in the volumes of files and reports written about each of them. Each of the children is a horror story of their own. Usually schools have waited until the situation is so desperate before they make a referral to me – I’ve written on numerous occasions about all the rubbish advice schools try to follow, the numerous other professionals who’ve had their misguided input fail, etc. So I really am dealing with the extreme. But I know it won’t be extreme – I know this little guy will be fine.
So my thought – unlike those years ago isn’t of trepidation and doubt but of positivity, knowing that the behaviour management strategies I use are so embedded in my behaviour that they give children the reassurance and confidence they need to do well and make the changes so that, in time, they will reintegrate successfully into their mainstream school. As I’ve written before, it’s getting the adults to change their ways is the real problem.
I’ll let you know how the little guy does. Cheers for now, Liz Marsden @ Behaviour Bible.