A newcomer has just started in my class in my class and as usual he’s totally out of control in his mainstream school and at home. He’s been this way for nearly 6 years – and he’s only 9 years old!! Astounding… and very concerning!

What’s happened (or not happened!) for the situation to become this bad?

As usual, he’s been diagnosed as having ADHD and various other behaviour syndromes – and of course it’s all his fault!

Well what else do you expect? That’s the way the world of children’s behaviour works these days. A great deal of ‘multi agency’ people sitting around tables at endless meetings contemplating and procrastinating and doing precisely nothing – well, nothing positive anyway.

Endless talking has gone on but in the meantime the child’s behaviour has got worse and worse. The adults persuade themselves that they’re doing all they can, and of course everything is being done correctly. So the conclusion has to be that there must be something drastically wrong with the child. There can’t be any other answer, can there?

What had this boy’s behaviour been like?

From the his start in school he’d been violent, aggressive and disruptive. The first day saw him running out of the classroom and along the top of the coat stands in the cloakrooms…

Hm, were warning bells ringing about a potential behaviour nightmare if action wasn’t taken? Well no, not really… They thought he’d settle down… That he’d be ok given time… That he’d grow out of it…

Oh dear, big mistake…

So, fast forward 6 years and they’re in a real mess. Plus they’ve given up… They’d done all they could and nothing worked…

Why had things not worked out?

Well, they told him what they want him to do but he took no notice. No surprise there! It’s adult action that’s needed – forget the words!   He really isn’t at all interested in what they want or what they have to say to him. It’s what the adults do that’s important… And I’m afraid they haven’t done anything that’s had any positive impact on his behaviour.

One and then two adults together tried to deal with his behaviour away from the main classroom – that failed because limits and boundaries weren’t set on his behaviour.

The adults actually think they’ve set proper limits and boundaries but unless these are seen to work by the child’s behaviour changing then the strategies simply haven’t worked. So, again, he hasn’t taken a blind bit of notice and carried on his own path of disruption and destruction.

This boy was taken to see a doctor who duly diagnosed behaviour syndromes and prescribed powerful drugs which made absolutely no difference to his behaviour.

Adults had taken action but to no avail because their actions have been wrong and they’re left with the chaos we have now…

What’s meant when I say that teachers ‘think they’ve put limits and boundaries in place to manage behaviour’? That’s true. Teachers are taking action but unless it’s done properly – and if you’re not getting the intended result then it’s not being done properly – you’ll just make the problems worse. Boundaries and limits have to be set at the right time and in the right way.

Let’s give you an example…

This particular boy, when he was in infant classes had proved himself in desperate need of adults to take control of his behaviour and put boundaries in place. On one occasion he picked up a pointed piece of maths equipment (one of those big set squares used for board demos) and rushed towards an adult, aiming it at her middle like a jouster on a horse!

And what did the teacher do? She didn’t move and let him shudder to a halt, the plastic very close to her, a pointed ‘weapon’ close to impaling her…

She said that she was sure he would stop rather than injure her!

I think she should consider herself lucky that he stopped in time and could judge the stopping distance…

There we have an example of setting limits and boundaries on behaviour – and the catastrophic outcome when it’s done incorrectly! And there were plenty of other examples. It was all on his terms – he was allowed to start behaving badly and just stop when he felt like it. No chance of his behaviour improving in this scenario…

Sorry, they’d got it all wrong.

To set limits and boundaries on children’s behaviour you set them at the point where the behaviour should stop and change. Don’t wait until too late otherwise you’re managing a crisis instead of preventing one and the child hasn’t a clue where the boundary should be… It’s all common sense really as are all the other aspects of managing children’s behaviour. Learn the strategies, use them consistently and they’re soon second nature – you’re doing it automatically before too long…

The secret is to act at the right time… Lots of problems are prevented that way…   If you’re not sure what to do then follow the link to access the advice in Behaviour Bible – I use my own advice every working day and get great results…

Cheers for now, Liz @ Behaviourbible.com


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