Heading off Destructive Behavior Why early intervention matters.
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Transcript of Heading off Destructive Behavior Why early intervention matters.
• In a poll of AFT teachers, 36% say they lost 2 or more hours of teaching time weekly due to student behavior. Urban schools are even worse.
• That adds up to a minimum of 432 hours of instruction annually.
• Intervention strategies that begin before age 8 can head off most of this behavior.
Stressors disrupt normal parenting practices.
Disrupted parenting practices cause interactions that are negative,
aggressive and coercive.
Do any of these family stressors sound familiar?
• Poverty• Divorce• Drug problems
• Alcohol problems• Physical abuse• Uncontrollable health
problems
Eliminating “coercive” behaviors is the key
• In a stressed environment, children learn to get what they want through coercive behaviors.
• Parents in the same environment model coercion by threatening, yelling, intimidating or hitting to force children to behave.
“Parental use of coercive strategies to suppress hostile
and aggressive behavior actually increased the likelihood of such behavior in the future by
50%.”(Patterson, 1982)
Recognizing coercive tactics in children
• Disobeying• Whining• Yelling• Throwing tantrums• Threatening parents• Hitting………..all to avoid doing what the parents
want.
Over time, coercive behavior becomes habitual and the child
develops an “antisocial” personality that he/she takes to
school.
Antisocial behavior in preschool
Usually takes the form of frequent whining and noncompliance.
Later on, this morphs into less frequent but higher intensity antisocial acts such as hitting, bullying, fighting and stealing.
By adolescence, it may escalate into robbery, assault, lying, stealing, fraud and burglary.
Keep this in mind.
Regardless of the manifestation of the behavior, is at the
heart of antisocial behavior.
The situation is not hopeless and you can be a part of the solution.
Why? Children who have not learned appropriate, non-coercive ways to interact socially by age 8 will likely
continue displaying such behaviors.
It starts with you.
• Pay attention to children’s behavior and learn to recognize antisocial behavior patterns “in the making.”
• Refer parents living with chronic stress to other organizations that might help.
• Be kind but honest with parents in pointing out manipulative behaviors.
• Refer back to Love and Logic parenting.
What advice can we give parents?
• Parents need to establish authority without using coercive behaviors to do so.
• So how does that happen?
• Clear communication of behavioral expectations.
• Setting firm and consistent limits.
• Monitoring and supervising children’s behavior carefully.
• Providing positive attention and rewards or privileges for confirming to expectations.
• Ignoring negative behaviors
• Redirecting when possible.
• Mildly reprimanding
• Removing privileges when children do not conform.
• Being consistent and firm about expectations.