Special Education Setting

I commented today, on my facebook page: Challenging Children, about the special educational settings for emotionally challenged children. It occurred to me that what one witnesses all too often in these settings is a lot of chaos, a lot of disruptive behavior. And what happens more often than not is that it sets off dysregulation in everyone including the teacher and the paraprofessionals in the classroom. These classes are always small because Article VII of the Special Education Law specifies the class size. However, it does not take more than one dyregulated student to set off other students. Students in these classes have very small windows of stress tolerance and once the window is exceeded, my experience has been, that little to no learning takes place and threats and consequences get multiplied. And make no mistake, these are not easy settings to work in...one has to have a very large window of tolerance herself and has to be ever watchful of the students to know when and how to intervene. If one watches closely they know the minute their students walk in the door of the classroom which child/children will be set off before very long. This is the time for intervention...this is the time when relationship overrides everything else in importance. If the teacher, or the para can connect with the student who seems dysregulated, everyone's day will be better. And connecting in relationship is not reminding the students that they have so many points or stars or whatever the particular incentive is that students are suppose to be working toward. It is talking with that child about him, about how he's doing...what he needs that day. Unfortunately, most programs will begin with a review of points, or other incentives or penalties and that will be viewed as a threat to those students and those "consequences" will be the trigger for reactivity instead of the carrot that the students will go after in order to be able to work themselves back to a regular school setting. Students respond best to positive connection, to genuine interest, to attunement (being in sync with)... they respond to respect.. They do know what they need to do to get to the preferred school setting, and they would do it if they could, but they can't. It is the job of the teacher and the teacher aide, and the other adults in the building to help them...they don't need more props, they don't need more incentives...they need to be heard, to be understood, to be validated. When this happens, learning will follow.

School Opens

"we cannot give up on our children because we do not know what the child's been through" (Freeman Hrabowski III; President of University of Maryland-Baltimore County in speech to Gary Indiana teachers). So many times teachers and administrators give up on children with severe behaviors. First they are evaluated for Special Education, and often even after placement they are suspended for acting up, eventually moved to a more restrictive setting in the school and then our of the school. So "what"...you may ask "do they need?" They need you, as teacher, to understand that at any given time they are doing the best that they can. They are reacting from a place of stress...stress at what they left at home that morning or stress of living with an alcoholic or abusive parent...perhaps the stress of a friend being murdered the night before or even the year before. Meet them in that place and you will get much less resistance than if you try to control their behavior. Step back from your fear that this chid, or these children, are going to cause you to lose control of your own classroom. Meet the child in a place of love...not fear!

Threat=Stress=Fear

What do threat, stress and fear have to do with parenting children with difficult behavior? Only EVERYTHING! When you are preparing to go on a summer outing or vacation trip and your often out of sorts 12 year old is whining about having to sit in the car for a long time on a hot day...you jump to how awful the whole day or week is going to be. Your stress gauge begins it's climb. You try to be light hearted and tell everyone what a fun time it is going to be and how the family is going to get to do this and that and see lots of new things. Your 9 year old hits his 6 year old sister with his backpack as he drags it to the car...she screams and he tears a whole in the pack scattering his belongings...you ask him what he did to his sister, he says nothing, you start yelling and giving consequences for his unkind AND lying behavior, he mumbles under his breath and you give him another consequence for his behavior. Everyone gets in the car, your son is relegated to the very back seat with the luggage and he turns up the volume on his CD player on which he has the latest of obscene music, you and your spouse both begin to yell at him...You are now sure that this trip is going to be awful and that you really should have had your mother have him for this trip. You see clearly how embarrassed he will make you feel, how people will be staring at this 12 year old who seems to be the devil incarnate. What were you thinking? And from this moment forward, your son will be displaying negative behavior in reaction to your negative reactions to his behavior triggering only more negative reaction (e.g. more consequences, threats). How much worse can this scenario get? Plenty worse!

SOLUTION:

Rewind the scene...your son begins to whine like a 3 or 4 year old...BREATHE...let him know that you understand that he might think that he is going to be cooped up in the car all day. Tell him what the day is going to look like...i.e. how long you will be in the car that you plan on stopping often to get out of the car, have bathroom breaks, get cold drinks and that it won't be a really long day in the car (and if at all possible, you have made sure that it won't because you have a kid or kids who don't transition well from home to the unknown, at least the unknown for that day). Ask him what music he would like to download for his player (if you haven't already done that)...go to the computer with him and get him his songs (15 minutes now will save you hours of grief later). My guess...he will have dial down the whining and will be more calmed. and you will be responding to his behavior instead of reacting and he in turn will respond rather than react to your parental dictates.

Parents, Teachers, Caretakers, Mentors...

What emotion do you bring to an interaction with a child with severe behaviors? Are you able to park judgment at the door? Most importantly are you able to park fear at the door and approach that child/children from a place of love? This really is not an idle question as I have witnessed parents and professionals in the last week or so approach several different children from these various perspectives. I don't believe that we, as adults, all the time understand that when we bring judgment, punitive consequences, and criticism into our interactions with children, the basis is fear. As parents, we are afraid that others will judge us for our child's behaviors. As teachers, we fear that our peers, and those in authority over us will judge our teaching methods and our abilities. As CASA's, line staff in residential facilities, as therapists, we fear that we will lose control if we do not take a hard line with the children for whom we have responsibility. And each of these fear based perspectives translate into interactions that present ultimatums, interactions that put the burden of change on the child, interactions that breed fear in the child. If however, we could exit from that place where challenging/severe behavior begets hard nosed, controlling response and enter, instead, a place where we look at behavior as indicative of having meaning...a child communicating something that is happening internally, through their behavior. And most often they could not tell an adult in words what that behavior means. These children with severe behaviors are reacting from a state of stress and fear. They have been triggered in a place in their brain that cannot access reason...they are in a state of freeze, fight or flight. It has no rationale at least in terms of explanation. Their behavior has explained that they are completely dysregulated...meeting that child in a place of calm and understanding (you may not understand what has triggered that child, but you know he/she is not okay)means to respond to that child's needs and not choose those times as times to lay down the law, make the "or else" statements...just let it be a time to show compassion, empathy, understanding, flexibility...in other words, show love.

trauma=Trauma=TRAUMA

I was talking with an acquaintance a few days ago and she told me about a relative who has adopted or taken guardianship of 2 children ages 3 and 5. The 3 year old is a girl and the 5 year old is a boy and they had been adopted by another relative (single mother) who contracted terminal cancer and died last year. It was the wish of the dying mother that her cousin and husband should adopt the children and the children began visits with this cousin. By the time, the mother was on her "deathbed" the husband of the designated relative also was diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer. The dying mother of the children, was convinced by her brother and his wife to sign papers allowing them to become the guardians of the children over the cousin because the husband was terminally ill as well and the "poor, unfortunate" children would have to again lose a parent. The children had already become very attached to the cousin and her family and actually did live with them for several months until the death of their mother. When their mother died, these two very young children were removed from the cousins home and taken to the home of their aunt.

These two children suffered trauma when they were removed from their bio mother at birth (who by the way was addicted to cocaine and cannabis). Please read this as in utero trauma! They were placed in a home of a single mother as foster children, pre-adoption and were adopted by their foster mother. Please read this as Trauma at birth (separation from bio mother)! Their foster mother adopted them and I'm sure they were becoming attached to her and she of course was bonded to them...she was diagnosed with cancer and they began to form a relationship with their cousin and her family who would adopt them if their adopted mother died. They lived with the cousin for many months prior to the death of their adopted mother...and began to form a relationship...their adopted mother died and they were taken from the person that had provided regulation for them during the period of their adopted mother's illness...they were taken because the cousins husband (who they also had a relationship with) was diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer...TRAUMA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

These children, particularly the oldest child has been diagnosed as ADHD, Bi-Polar, and possibly Schizoid Affective...WOW!!!!! labels, labels, labels and it is all about trauma, Trauma, TRAUMA! They are of course on medication and the "new parents" are attempting all kind of behavior modification in order to deal with challenging behaviors.

Anger Management or Unhealed Trauma

I am posting from a column by Bryan Post. The scenario posed by parent and answered by Bryan so speaks to the unhealed effects of early trauma and the misconstruction of the reasons for anger/rage and yes oppositional defiant behavior...



Q: Dear Bryan, Our adopted daughter is 15-and-a-half years old and only been with us since age 7.5 years. She is from a family of 6 (we adopted her older brother too), all removed from birth parents due to severe abuse and chronic neglect.
She has a hatred of mother figures (so that's me!) and also a learning disability (unable to follow/understand written and verbal instructions) and is a very visual learner.

She's at an EBD (emotional and behavioural difficulties) school in the UK and runs away from lessons; has learnt to smoke at the school, has run away from home and we had to call the police; lies all the time.

Due to all this and her extreme anger, a psychiatrist wanted to analyse her for possible epilepsy, finally had all the test results in and she does not have epilepsy. The psychiatrist says she has no recognised mental health needs; but both my husband and I, and our old Post Adoption Social Worker all believe she is developmentally delayed and is still traumatised by her past. The psychiatrist is signing her off as there is nothing more she can do for our daughter and suggests she visits a youth charity that helps with the usual teenage angst issues. We feel it's far deeper than this and we don't know how to help our daughter. Please can you advise?
Thank you.

Bryan writes: Oh dear, I’ve heard some crazy things before but for a psychiatrist to tell parents that a child adopted at age 7, from a background of abuse and neglect, has no mental health needs, is among one of the craziest! Yes your daughter is developmentally/emotionally delayed and this is also intensified by her learning disability which is also most likely trauma based.

First of all, instead of seeing her as an adolescent that hates mother figures, do your best to begin seeing her as a five year old little girl, who’s been abused and neglected, and is terrified of mother figures because in her experience she’s never been good enough! Your daughter doesn’t hate you, she feels like you hate her and the challenge…it has nothing to do with anything you’ve done to her. She is challenged by some very old memories that get easily triggered when she is stressed, which sadly happens to be ALL of the time! Start trying to see her as stressed out and scared. Forget psychiatrists, find a counselor that is relationship based and is willing to help you all as a family sort through the challenges but first by seeing your daughter where she is emotionally not chronologically. This will at least get you on the right-track to being able to get behind her wall of shame and defensiveness. She’s seeking to be loved, she just doesn’t know how to let it in. She’s too afraid of being hurt!

Sensory Processing Disorder and the Classroom

I began to write about SPD or Sensory Processing Disorder on my facebook page: Challenging Children. Many children in the classroom have difficulty with processing information that comes through the senses. The sensory difficulties which are truly neurological disabilities. The processing problems may be difficulty reading verbal or nonverbal cues. An inability to understand an auditory message. Sensory processing difficulties are the result of a disorganized brain...a child may have difficulty modulating his/her responses and is overly responsive or under resposive. A child may have sensory discrimination problems and misreads touch. Such a child may lash out at anyone who brushes up against him. And so what is a teacher to do about such a child even if the child has been identified. And realize, please that many children with SPD have not been identified. These children need understanding and support and what follows is a list of strategies for the classroom to help such children. And the very good news about these strategies is that they also help every child in your classroom. Children need a safe, calm environment that is free from distraction. Every child needs frequent breaks in the work period to move and to stretch. Every child wishes to know that someone is paying attention. Paying attention to her needs, her strengths and weaknesses, ups and downs and likes and dislikes. Every child needs to feel valued in order to be successful. Children need to know this regardless of their abilities in relation to others. A child needs to know that his ideas are of value and he if valued. And as you can see, if this is how you run your classroom all children can thrive regardless of whether or not they have a sensory processing challenge.

P.E.A.C.E.F.U.L. Parenting

This week 2 of the families/children that I work with have been in some kind of crisis. One foster mother told me that she didn't know if she could continue to foster her daughter because she really didn't feel connected to her and the young girl is disrespectful and oppositional. Later that night the girl wrote a suicide note and said she had anger issues and either needed to die or go back to residential placement. Foster Mom sent child off to school in the morning and later that afternoon, told her that she was going to go to respite care. The girl locked herself in the bathroom and sliced at her wrists with a hair shears and said it was all her fault that the placement wasn't working she had anger issues. The second foster mother asked for her young foster son to be taken somewhere that he could get some help because she feared for the well-being of her family which included her other 3 foster children who are siblings to the boy. He had taken a steak knife to attack his foster sister (bio child of foster mom)because she was annoying him by tapping him in order to get him off the computer for her turn. She fortunately held a pillow up which he proceeded to slash...not poke, but slash. The foster mother wanted him to get help that she felt they were unable (i.e. unequipped) to give to him. She stated that she would have asked for this even if he had been her bio child and also if he had attacked his siblings. Her message was clear...this boy needs help; please get him some help. We are here for him, but right now he can't stay here.

I have been trying to sort out the meaning of these incidences because though both foster parents were asking for "removal" the message from each seemed quite different. The first foster mother is done because she doesn't feel that this young girl is attached to her and she is not connected to the girl. The second foster mother also asked for removal of the child who is clearly a danger to others and to himself. And while sorting all of this out, it became clear that the difference is a love based response as opposed to a fear based reaction. Bryan Post talks about P.E.A.C.E.F.U.L. Parenting and this is parenting that shows Patience, connects through Empathy by providing Acceptance, approaches with Compassion, offers Encouragement, showers with Forgiveness, and seeks to truly Understand; and the thread that runs through it all is Love.

Parental Reaction

And here is another thing that happens when, as parents, we cannot look at what is beneath a child's misbehavior. Yes, it leads us to fear and also to guilt, blame or sometimes, shame. The misbehavior ignites all the negative feelings that a parent is experiencing when their child acts out. And to soothe our own feelings we have to extinguish this misbehavior. And one can get to a place of responding rather than reacting to our children's behaviors if we are mindful or our own reactions. And from this place of mindfulness, we can become response-able rather than reactive. We can parent from a place of love and be with our child in the moment.

Parental Reaction to Negative Behavior

In observing parents' behavior in reaction to their children acting out,I have tried to determine what drives the parental reaction of yelling, threatening and demeaning their children. It does not appear to matter the age of the child. Parental expectation is that children, who are being raised by well-intentioned, loving parents will behave properly. Parents seem to believe that even if children are thwarted in achieving a desired outcome, they will accept the "no" response of their parent. It is as though, the adults do not realize that even grown ups do not just accept not being able to get what they want.

I believe that parental acting out comes from a place of fear. It is the fear that they will be judged as inadequate parents. Inadequate to properly supervise, inadequate to "make" their child behave, inadequate to "make" their child respectful, and inadequate to "make" their child tell the truth. And in this space of fear, parents rear, the not so pretty, head of adult power and control. And if we think about it, we can see that using power and control is too often like wielding a club.

For Teachers: Where is the Joy?

Remember the joy of teaching?

(this tip comes from Tom Daly of adhdsolutions.com)

It is impossible to instill a joy of learning in our kids when we
are not feeling joy in our work.

Joy flows downhill. When joy wells up inside us, it impacts our
students! It is contagious!

But, when we are beaten down, and staring at our shoes, our
students are left to emotionally fend for themselves. And, even for
our most resilient kids, being left to emotionally fend for
themselves is a horrible plan that will only make things worse.

Imagine that you are sitting in a big room. Just you. Then, one by
one, every student you have taught or counseled comes in with a
card in their hand. A card they made just for you, straight from
the heart, reminding you of how you changed their lives. Take a
moment to close your eyes and picture those names and faces.

So today, my encouragement is to do these three things:

Focus on those kids.

Focus on those kids.

Focus on those kids.

Forget all the public rhetoric and criticism, and the unfair focus
on test scores as the sole measurement of your worth.

If we focus on how we have impacted our students, it will shield us
from the criticism of what we do each day, and it will keep at bay
all those issues that cloud us from seeing clearly our true
mission: reaching out and saving students around us.

"I wish my sister would go away...forever"

Do you have sibling children who seem to always be in competition for your attention?
Sibling rivalry is very common and so are the many theories of how to handle it. Children who feel love, children who feel seen, children who feel nurtured will allow the same for their sibling. The child who tries to get his /her sibling in trouble, the child who fights to get your attention is the child who NEEDS attention, positive attention. The Beyond Consequences model of parenting has a formula: 10-20-10. Give each child 10 minutes of your undivided attention in the morning, 20 minutes in the afternoon, and 10 minutes in the evening. Do this every day; some days you may only be able to do 5-10-5. The concept is that each of our children need their own time with us. Heather Forbes says that sibling rivalry is an issue between parent and child not child and child.

What happened to the honeymoon...

How many foster and adoptive parents have asked this question when their child who seemed to be fitting in so well to the new family, the new school, the new holiday celebrations, the new home suddenly is defiant, aggressive and destructive? What happened to the child who was so excited about having a new family? Bruce Perry, a neurobiologist and child psychiatrist tells us that when a child is under stress short term memory is suppressed and thinking becomes confused and distorted. One of the things that happens to many children in these situations is that they know, because of their history that life will return to chaos and unpredictability. And you may find that your child becomes defiant, aggressive and perhaps a bit scarey in the things he says and does in order to "provoke" what has become to him predictable. It has been said by family therapists that we are more comfortable with the familiar even if that familiar is awful...the certainty of the awful is better than the uncertainty of the unknown. And this is a perfect example of why a child will increase their disruptive behaviors, when the adults shift from a punitive paradigm to one of love and understanding. And truthfully, it causes adults to decide that parenting or teaching from a love-based perspective, trying to understand that all negative behavior arises from a state of stress and that children do not consciously choose to behave badly doesn't work. If only adults will allow a child the discomfort of the unpredictable and understand that a child's acting out is not from a conscious place, a family can move forward.