Tipping the Scales for Positive Behavior

-


https://i.pinimg.com/736x/41/4b/49/414b4920c4579c01d82a2b26ee176ed4.jpg We had a teeter totter on my playground when I grew up.  It was the most challenging and daunting piece of play equipment.  More challenging than the old homemade swing and the basketball court on the gravel parking lot.

Usually the older kids from our one room school took over the teeter totter right away to test their abilities to knock each other off.  I couldn't wait for my chance to try to stay on the top while the older kids worked to knock me off.  


 This is the visual I have in mind when I'm working with a child who struggles with challenging behavior.  It seems as if the child's challenging behavior sits at the top and people are trying to knock it off.  Instead of calming the behavior, it ups the ante and gives children like me an opportunity for a challenge!

 What I've learned is behavior is more like a scale.  If we tip the scales on the side of the protective factors, the challenging behavior will come down.  Building strong attachment is the only way to give children the opportunity to balance themselves and become bigger than their big feelings.  This attachment growing more secure allows children the opportunity to begin to learn new skills like initiative and self control.

 Last year, a Program Wide Positive Behavior Support gave its second round of DECA C assessment for children with persistent challenging behavior.  One teacher who scores extremely high in implementing the teaching pyramid gave all of her children a DECA C at the beginning and one at the end of the year.  Great teaching focused on building attachment changed the behavior of our children. 

Even those without top tier individualized behavior plans gained protective factors giving children an opportunity to practice new positive behavior skills.  Teachers focused on building strong and secure relationships gives children what they need to balance their lives! 

Give children time, touch, eye contact and put our focus on meeting their needs and my prayer is kids will stop getting bumped off the teeter totter of challenging behavior!


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Edge Effect

-
Image
My first real connections were with the land and its animals and plants.  Growing up on a ranch in a geographically isolated area of the High Plains, gave me this rare opportunity.   The opportunity to have the time and space to develop and build observation and reflective functioning skills. Skills stemming from the thousands of small interactions within daily routines.  Watching the clouds, the birds and the land was (and still is) a daily morning ritual.  It was more than seeing...it was also a feeling.  A sense of connection to the wind and the land and a fascination with the edges. The edges seemed to be where all the happening was!  The edge between the tree grove and the prairie breaks were where we would most likely run upon the animals.  The deer and the coyotes as well as the livestock.  If I wanted to go and catch a horse in the trees, I knew they were usually along one of the edges.  They would escape to the trees in weat...
Read more

Intentions versus Impact. Intent on Impact

-
Image
   Do we look at our intentions versus impact? This statement on a zoom last night shined a light on some pretty heavy thoughts I have been grappling with.  What does this mean? What is my impact?  Will I impact and leave hand prints in any way on my family, friends, community and world? In my one room school K-8th grade, if I asked what something meant, it was usually met with a pointer finger at the dictionary.  "Words matter," my teacher would say.  Look up the definition and think about its meaning.  We didn't just "do" spelling bees and memorize spelling in this classroom, we looked up each word and its meaning. Intention is something I think about daily.  My intention.  My hope for the day.  My hope for people I love and work with.  Intentions are my designs and plan? Intention. "purpose, resolve, resolution, determination, desire, dream, aspiration, hope, a person's design, the healing process of a wound" Would this statement...
Read more

Positive Behavior grows From the Relationship Roots!

-
Image
The roots of a relationship are just as important as the roots of a plant.   Changing behavior has to take place within the context of the relationship!  It has to grow out of the relationship! This takes much longer!  It requires us to move from fixing behavior, to building a relationship from which new behavior grows!  One of my biggest concerns is when we try to teach a new skill or stop a challenging behavior as separate entity.  As if the behavior is tied to the heart of a person.  We can't chop off a tree at its roots to correct the branches.  Neither can we separate the behavior from the need!   The skills are important and have to be explicitly taught.  For example, I can't calm down if I don't know how!  However, I can be given every calm down tool in the box and it will be meaningless and not internalized without a secure base of relationship. Positive behavior support is not a program or a curricu...
Read more