Hi there.
Most of you who’ve ‘met’ me on these pages will know that I manage and change the behaviour of kids who have been allowed to become so out of control that they’ve been kicked out of their mainstream school. From this dire scenario my job is to turn the situation around and send them back where they came from!! In short, to get them back into their schools – reintegration is the name of the game.
Many of these ‘out of control kids’ have had control of the adults in their lives for years – and most of them are 11 years old or younger – in some cases, much younger!
So, how do I get control back from these kids? And how willing are they to allow this to happen?
The second question first..
In some cases they’re very unwilling. You have to remember that they’ve been in control for years and they’re pretty convinced that their behaviour is getting them exactly what they want (or out of something they really don’t want to do!) so they’re going to be pretty determined that this present situation should continue without interruption… Hm, tricky you may think.
I always emphasise at this point that these awful situations are entirely preventable by using effective behaviour management strategies from the start. Teachers and parents shouldn’t have to deal with the extreme examples such as those that I often deal with when a child first starts with me. It’s not difficult to establish adult control from the start and that’s vital for the well being of adults and children – Behaviour Bible tells you how!
While I’m re-establishing control, it’s vital to recognise when progress is being made. I’m going to give you an example of a child who’s just started with me who’s only 9 years old and has been totally out of control for nearly 6 years!! Unbelievable, eh?? So why has he just landed on my doorstep?? You tell me… There have been so many meetings, interventions and misguided efforts to alleviate the problems – all to no avail… just a situation getting worse and worse!
He’s been with me just over a week. It’s been difficult but we’re making some good progress.
This child has never had any demands made of him. Up to now he’s made all the demands and the adults have capitulated. So, he comes to me and I start to make demands of him and his behaviour - naturally he doesn’t like this. Why should he?
So what’s happened?
Day one – fine.
Day two – fine.
Day three – not fine. I don’t lower my expectations and he’s sick of them… He starts to disrupt - no doubt to see what I’ll do. Well, he’s got to try, hasn’t he? He’d be stupid not to try because it’s worked so well before - and he’s certainly not stupid.
After about an hour in class, he’s decided he’s had enough. He’s been fine to this point but now has decided to try some of his tactics. What he doesn’t know, of course, is that I’ve got the measure of him and I’ve met many little guys like him! So although he thinks I’m not reacting, I’m very quickly weighing up the situation. I’m on my own in the class, so before the situation has chance to escalate I quietly tell a trusted child to go for another adult.
As the other adult arrives, our little guy is up out of his seat to make a run for it – he just wants to escalate the situation and in his immature way, take control. Experience tells me there are only a small number of things they’ll do so I’m ready for him. Blocking his path, he throws himself down, lashing out and kicking.
I hate restraining kids. I really hate it and will only restrain in exceptional circumstances. In my classes, even though I deal with ultra extreme kids restraint is a rarity. But on this occasion there wasn’t an alternative. This poor kid couldn’t be allowed to continue in this way – it was causing him too much damage. But I can guarantee it won’t happen more than a couple of times. In his mainstream school it was a daily occurrence – and getting nobody anywhere! So if you’re using restraint regularly then you’re doing something very badly wrong!!
So what happened? It took a fairly long while for him to accept that we were in control. But he left that day calm and pretty happy. Good. But I knew we hadn’t cracked it. He was bound to try it all again… hopefully to a lesser degree.
Day four - fine.
Day five – off we go again. But this time I had another very experienced and trusted adult with me in class. I sent a child to get a third adult.
I know what you’re thinking! Who has the luxury of all these adults? Well, we have to be equipped to deal with major incidents but that’s why not allowing kids to get this bad is so important. It’s why in mainstream schools when they don’t manage behaviour properly and things get so bad they haven’t a snowball’s chance in hell of sorting it out!! They haven’t the skills or the man power (should be woman power in my case!)
I didn’t want to restrain this little guy again. It’s totally unpleasant and I’d much rather use other strategies that achieve better results. So, person 3 arrived and they watched my group while we told our little guy to follow us. He did as he was told because the situation hadn’t escalated. What if he hadn’t? Then we’d have taken him. Pure and simple – this child has to accept our authority – the adults must take control away from him. He can no longer have the choice of not following adult instructions.
We have a small room where such situations are dealt with. I very rarely use it but this wasn’t a regular situation. Once there I left my colleague to deal with him. That sounds as though she was going to torture him or something! No, not at all, but we work so closely that I knew all would be fine. I went to take over my group who were working quite happily as if nothing had happened. They trust meso implicitly that they had no need to be anxious or worried. They’re wonderful kids.
So our little guy? Well, he had a rampage and a swear. Very interestingly, when he was told that if he destroyed anything his parents would be billed for the damage he stopped and thought about it. The ‘rampage’ then became very controlled. The thought of his pocket money dwindling to pay for damage had an impact. He accidentally ripped a piece of paper and quickly tried to put it in a file to hide his ‘crime’… We’d weighed up right from the start that his behaviour was very controlled – but largely habitual - and now he was proving this assertion was correct.
He still didn’t want to ‘give in’, but he was told quite bluntly what he had to do before he was going to get what he wanted. And he wanted to be allowed to go to school that afternoon. The previous ‘tantrum’ two days previously had led to him not being allowed to go and he hadn’t liked that so he didn’t want to repeat the situation.
Did he go to school? Yes he did. Did he clear up the ‘rampage’ mess? Yes he did. Do I expect him to behave this way again? Yes I do – but on a much lesser scale. But he’s learning. This time there wasn’t the violence that there was the first time. There wasn’t a restraint. The time scale of the ‘incident’ was far shorter.
Gradually, it’s dawning on him that we really mean what we say and he won’t be allowed to tantrum and get his own way.
What’s the secret?
Firstly it shouldn’t have been allowed to get to this crisis point – all this could have been avoided. His appalling behaviour should have been addressed when he was a toddler and very early in his school career. Prevention is so much better than cure. In Behaviour Bible I’ll show you how not to allow things to get to this extreme.
Secondly, you have to have the skills and knowledge of the right behaviour management strategies to use and then implement them with total consistency.
Thirdly, I never lower my standards or change my expectations. They are set in stone. Non-negotiable. No discussion.
Fourthly, even when dealing with this sort of behaviour never forget you’re dealing with a child who isn’t at fault for being allowed to behave in this way. Plus, he must be given acknowledgement and reassurance when he’s doing what’s required so that the expectations are reinforced. He has to know when he’s doing well.
I’ll keep you posted on how he’s getting on!!
Cheers for now. Liz Marsden @ Behaviour Bible.