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.

A Must Read for Teachers

I am going to copy an entire letter that was sent to Tom Daly who writes Tips for Teachers and has some terrific ideas for managing classrooms. His website is: adhdsolution@gmail.com If any teacher(or actually anyone who works with kids on a regular basis) is looking at this blog during vacation, it is a great inspiration for the new year when you return to your classroom.

Dear Tom,

I have been a teacher since 1968 (with a break for four years to
have my children). I have kept every single "Thank You" or
Christmas card that has been given to me by my students.

Yesterday I was looking for old cards for a Christmas Activity for
the day's lessons and I stopped to take the time to read the
comments that my students had written to me. Overwhelmingly, the
common message in these cards was a student thanking me for taking
the time to "care" about them as an individual.

Many said that they would remember me always because I touched
their heart and gave them hope for the future. There was never a
day that went by when I did not plan how I was going to achieve
this goal. It was time-consuming (in terms of preparation) and I
planned my day right down to how I was going to implement
strategies so that I could engage each child.

My reputation went ahead of me at this private girls school,l and I
can honestly say that I have never raised my voice or had to send a
child to the principal. I believed that if a child reacted
negatively in my class, then I had done something wrong and I took
time to "self-evaluate" my role in each situation. And each time I
believed that I could have handled the situation in a very
different way.

I was never afraid of taking the child aside and calmly
"deconstructing" the incident and negotiating a plan of action (
with the child's input) for the future.

I retired in June but soon realized there was something missing in
my life. And so now I am a relief teacher in the primary schools in
my local area - a very demanding role and very different.

I find it difficult to be able to evaluate the individual needs of
each child in a day's teaching. Then again, you have to remember
that these children have never seen ME before either!

I just completed a month's contract with a class at one of my local
primary schools. This class had a reputation and sending supply
teachers home in tears by lunch time. I never gave up on them and
set my standards very early. I came up with the idea of giving them
a month's challenge to turn the classroom into a Fantasy Land (the
theme of their novel). The students planned how they could achieve
this, they formed committee to construct the displays for each
section of the room, and then they met to bring it all together.
They were really engaged in all this.

On the last day of my contract, the class decorated their room in
bright colors and held a "Fantasy Day" inviting the prep year
students. I had tears in my eyes watching these "tough" children
relate to the younger students and explain their displays in
detail. On the last day of my contract, the principal said that I
had "turned the class around."

I enjoyed the experience so much, I was sad to hand them back to a
teacher who was clearly in need of help. The students showered me
with gifts and cards that totally overwhelmed me.

How did I do it? To be honest, I had never taken time to analyze
my methods when I taught full time, but now, as a relief teacher, I
needed to know.

But here's what it came down to: I simply never gave up on them.
Their normal teacher (who was away because she was experiencing a
"breakdown") called me to say that some of the students (the
naughty ones) improved their marks significantly in that short
time.

To be sure, there were some very testing days (and tears at night),
but I kept saying to myself "Susan, they are just children crying
out for help". I was preparing lessons at night (some nights as
late as 2 a.m.) that catered to the individual needs of the
students (as I saw them).

I think the day that I turned them around was the day I decided to
take a "relaxation session" with them after a lunch break to settle
them down. I was very nervous as these kids thought that they were
"tough." However, I got them to imagine or create a place where
they felt safe. I encouraged them to remember to visit that
place (no matter where they were) whenever they felt unsafe.

This session lasted 5 minutes - some of the tough kids said that it
was "stupid." Within days, they were begging me to do "relaxation
sessions" with them each day.

Every student entered into the spirit and this relaxation time
became their reward for trying their best in all classroom
activities. I endorse your philosophies on behavior management and
reading your ideas has given me the opportunity to do some
self-evaluation. I have always gone beyond the call of duty and it
has been rewarding BUT I am still learning.
Susan

Challenge to Teachers

In early October, on my facebook page: Challenging Children, I posted a challenge to teachers to work for the following couple of months, until winter break, with the child or children in their classroom who provided the greatest challenges. Here is a summary of those tips:
1. Continuously be aware of where children are cognitively, chronologically, AND emotionally. You may have a 5th grader who is behaving like a 3 year old…that child is STRESSED. When we stress, we regress. To admonish a child who is in a stressed out state is foolhardy at best and truly unaware at the least.
‎2. Be a mentor: if you can’t be a mentor for the child, identify another staff person who can be. It will be someone that the child can communicate with. It shouldn’t be someone who will tell them how they should behave; it is someone who will listen.
3. Create structure and routine: predict that when
the routine is going to be disrupted the stressed student/s will regress. Immediate example is a substitute in the class whether it is the classroom teacher or the specials teacher. Consistency and predictability ...are important factors for at-risk/traumatized children.
4. Learn to RESPOND rather than REACT in the midst of behavior issues? Do 3 things: Reflect, Relate,Regulate
5. Be an investigative reporter when it comes to the difficult child/children in your classroom. Ask WHO? WHAT? WHERE? WHEN? AND HOW? WHO was around when the child had the problem? WHAT happened before, during and after the incident? WHERE do the incidents occur? When do things happen? And HOW does it escalate?
6. To be successful with students there is more at stake than a mastery of subject matter and teaching methods, it is all about RELATIONSHIP. If you don't have a relationship with your students, your will not be able to influence them. And if you can't influence them, there will be no learning. If there is no relationship nothing else can matter.
7. When kids are faced with a stressful situation, they move into freeze, fight, flight. Actually, everyone does. There is a momentary freeze to assess the perceived potential danger and then we stay frozen, or we fight, or we leave.
8. Connect in relationship with your students. Negative behavior arises from an emotional state of stress and fear. It is not rational nor logical, it is emotional. Behavior modification is logical and cognitive and will NOT "take" with the kid who is reacting from a state of stress and fear.
9. Be attuned to where each child is in terms of affect; note where you are emotionally when you approach that child who is seemingly off kilter. Be aware that they could be triggered by any sight, smell, touch, sound. Be attentive be that detective searching for the who, what, where and when dysregulation occurs and then be that wise teacher and reach out rather than pushing that child away to the principal and perhaps ultimately in-school or out of school suspension.
10. Let's talk negative feedback loop...you come into classroom from weekend of power shopping, cookie baking, bank account shrinking and you are on the edge. Kids come in, some of them dealing with home stresses: not enough money for the holidays, Grandma's sick and not coming ...for Christmas, auntie's husband's in jail for robbing someone...and progress reports were not good. When teacher's dysregulated state, meets students dysregulation...you are in a negative feedback loop. And it is manifested in the very cells of the body. It is up to you, the adult, the regulator of stress in the classroom to step back, consider where you are at emotionally, think about where in your body you are feeling the stress... and calm yourself so that you can be there for the student/s in your classroom who are at these moments at the emotional age of very young children.
11. The reason kids really enjoy a certain teacher over others is because the teacher LISTENS to students; he RESPECTS students; students are allowed to express THEIR opinions. The teacher LOOKS her students in the eye when she talk to them; the teacher SMILES at his students, and SPEAKS to students when... she sees them in the hall or in the cafeteria or even on the street.
12. Assess your classroom environment for too much stimulation; is there too much instruction time for the challenging student/s; do some assignments need to be simplified for the challenging student/s?

Those of you reading this blog who are parents, I urge you to give some of these suggestions to your child's teacher if he or she struggles with behavior issues in the classroom.

What Do Elephants and Humans Have in Common

On the news last evening there was a segment about the Elephant Orphan Project: http://www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org/asp/orphans.asp It was all about this amazing project in Africa that has been going on for year to save elephants who are orphaned because of severe drought or poaching. What struck me most were the stories of the relationships between the elephants and their human caregivers. We know that humans are hard wired through the brain to be in relationship, it turns out that the elephant shares that wiring with humans. The caregivers in this compound take care of these young elephants until they are developmentally ready to be on their own. At that point they take them out of the compound to join elephant herds. And contrary to what you might think, the elephants are ready to return to "wild life". I can't help but think that the nurturing that is provided by humans has the same physiological components that elephant parents provide to their calves. The Sheldrick Wild Life Project was started when a young elephant had to be left by his mother because he would not move on with the herd as she was asking him to do...had he not been found by Mr. Sheldrick and nurtured and I mean that in the human sense of taking care of young children he would have died. He needed to be in relationship. Part of the story that was told, was of a young calf who Mrs. Sheldrick had cared for by herself. She left the compound to go on vacation and the young calf died from grief. It was at that point that a change was made in that no single person provides the care of a calf, but there are shifts of caretakers round the clock and they all provide the same schedule and routines, but it is not just one person, so when someone has to leave, another steps in and the calf is already use to several caregivers. And yet, the elephant calves remain in the same environment with the same routines and the same caregivers to assure continuity of caregiving and continuity of relationship.

What Do Elephants and Humans Share?

My Passion

I had an epiphany this evening about how grateful I am to have learned all that I have in the past 5 years about the effect of trauma on the developing brain. How it has so impacted the work that I do with children and families. How certain I am that if we switch the paradigm from using behavioral modification with difficult children to listening to the children, trying to understand what their behavior is conveying, we could actually help them. If we would stop trying to mold behavior, stop trying to change children through punishment and/or reward systems we would be so much further along in our ability to help. How much more fruitful it would be to listen and try to understand at the front end, rather than after we have meted out consequences...how much more loving it would be. And how we would teach children a love-based way of being with one another...Funny, John Lennon said it, and it has been oft repeated..."all we need is love, love; love is all we need".

"You Look Like A Lion Scratched You"

This comment was made by the 10 year old brother of a little 6 year old who has many labels including Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, Pervasive Developmental Disorder, and Reactive Attachment Disorder. The child had scratched up her face after having gotten in trouble at school for scratching at the classroom aide. And her face did indeed look like she had been attacked by a very large animal. After the incident at school she had been admonished by her teacher, and a call had been made to her foster mother. When she got home she immediately told her mother what had she had done and then after being talked to about how she shouldn't behave in that way, she was taking a bath and going to bed early and the mom left the bathroom for a minute and when she returned the child had mutilated herself with her fingernails. The horrified parent asked why she had done that and the child stated that she was bad. The foster mother gathered the child up from the bath, dried her off and helped her dress and tended to the scratches on the child's face all the while telling her that she was not bad, that she was a beautiful little girl and that sometimes she got upset and did things she didn't mean to do. The foster mother then set about trying to find out what had happened at school to trigger her child. You see this mom knows that something set her child off; something that her child cannot yet identify and may never be able to identify. This mother tries to be a "sensory detective" to help the teachers, as well as the family be able to see what might begin such an incident...the incident that led to her "attack" on the aide.

Why Consequences Don't Work...

Consequences and behavior modification often do not work. In the past, we have just tried harder to come up with some "logical" consequence to bad behavior. And when we finally run out of our own ideas, we run to the latest article on changing a child's behavior or to the book store for the newest book. And then, we fall back on what comes easiest, yelling and punitive consequences. Then, the words fly in both directions and in the end, no changes really occur. And there is a reason: negative behavior is neither logical nor rational. It is emotional. Using our rational left brain left-brain [rules, consequences] to move a child out of his right-brain [emotions, fear response] is not effective and is met with resistance that isn't pretty. So what is a parent to do: parents need to see acting out behavior as an emotional response to an internal feeling. Tell your child that you can see he/she is stressed, have them come and sit by you, ask if he's like to take a walk with you. See if perhaps you can learn where the stress is coming from; or if you know tell him that when he acts out like this you know something is really bothering him. Use these moments to connect with your child, not send him away...listen to him even if he is saying things you don't want to hear.

Continued thought...

yesterday's posting is a "Continued Thought" from my facebook page:
Elaine Spicer
This should help you follow the thread...

Thought for the day...cont'd

...I realize that these families provide food, shelter and some nurturing and maybe for some that will be enough. We know, however, that this is more than just big family love-ins…many of these children have hard core emotional issues that translate into behavior issues. Are we doing kids any favors by putting them in families with lots of children? Is it better than having them in small group homes? Is it better to be in a family for a short period of time, until the family is burned out or until the child “burns out” (perhaps literally), the family? Is it better to blend into the woodwork in a large family, never having your issues dealt with really…but, having a family to call your own? The child who can make himself invisible probably is the hypo-aroused child who may self-injure physically or retreat into himself, emotionally.

Best Gift of the Season

The best lasting gift that you can give to your child this holiday season is your time...if you want to strengthen your relationship with your child, if you want to double the fun, extend the love try the Post prescription of 10-20-10. You give your child 10 minutes of quality time every morning before he goes to school (perhaps when you wake him up, you rub his back sitting on his bed and just being there while he wakes up...being present with him); give him 20 minutes when he comes home from school or when you get home from work...20 minutes of just being together, talking about his day, your day, the dog, the snow, the call from Grandma; and then 10 minutes of your time in the evening before bed perhaps reading together, playing with the dog, listening to a song you both like or you know he likes. Did you know that the national average of time that most parents in the US spend with each of their children is only 10 minutes/day? Do this "affection prescription" and you will have given your child 4 times the national average.

Oxytocin Hits the Mainstream

Oxytocin, a hormone known for years to be released in a woman while breast feeding is now being touted in the popular press. Susan Kuchinskas wrote a book in 2009 called "The Chemistry of Connection" and in the book she talks about Oxytocin. Bryan Post(www.postinstitute.com) has been speaking of it for the past couple of years as perhaps the "single most important discovery" for those of us who work with families in the areas of attachment and trauma. In the most recent issue of More Magazine under the section called Best Health Advice of 2010,#9 is entitled: "Stressed? Call Mom". "Simply talking to someone who makes you feel loved releases the bonding hormone oxytocin, which in turn lowers the stress hormone cortisol, according to research conducted at the University of Wisconsin at Madison". Author of the study, and director of the Child Emotion Lab at the university goes on to say that his research indicates that a simple hug or phone call from their moms could soothe a group of jittery girls. The same lessons apply when we're under stress. Our primary caregivers are our source of comfort when we're young, but as we get older, we develop close attachments with partners and friends. After a hard day, the best thing to do is pick up the phone. Just making that contact with someone who makes you feel loved" (and I would add cared about and listened to)"may relax you, if you're very stressed."

Peaceful Schools...

an oxymoron or a real possibility? I feel driven to write about this after fighting broke out in one of our local high schools after a "drug free" schools presentation attempted by our Chief of Police. And it seems, from all reports that this is not a exception in our local school buildings in particular middle school/high schools. There have been all kinds of reasons (excuses) given from lack of parent involvement, to kids who have moved in from other districts and cities. However, there are true underlying reasons for violence: lack of resources both emotional and physical. Young people living in low income areas are, generally speaking, fairly fatalistic in regards to their future. When you talk to young people about where they see themselves after high school...many of them don't. They "don't" see themselves. So talk of how they will wind up in prison or themselves living in poverty unless...is a go nowhere conversation (or more likely a lecture). There is also an underlying fear amongst teachers in inner city schools and many come to school each day dreading the hallway chaos and the possible spill over to their classes. The schools are in a state of disrepair which translates to the student a sense of disregard for them and the rights that they have to clean, well-maintained buildings and grounds. I have some ideas:

1. Address the issues of school violence without blame.
When we blame, we tend to "throw out" the students who are involved in specific incidents sending them off to alternative schools where we can then isolate the culture of violence in one building.
2. When seeking solutions, long and short-term, involve the students. Students want to feel safe in their school, just as much as the adults. The students know more than the adults; they know more because they live the life in and out of school.
3. Really involve the students; give them a role that is real, not just on paper, not just to appease. Incorporate student input into the plans.
4. A culture of respect needs to permeate the schools. Respect goes both ways...but the adults set the pattern.
5. Respond quickly and CONSISTENTLY to disregard for rules. Rules which are not only posted, but talked about on a regular basis AND reviewed with students input.
6.Give up punitive reaction to infringement of rules. They don't work. To exclude and humiliate has not been effective. This form of discipline is reactionary and does not promote long term change in individual students, nor in the culture of the schools.