After a few days relaxing in the mountains just reading, swimming and enjoying the view, I am struck by the power of taking time to reflect.
Reflecting on relationships and how they have developed, reflecting on recent lifestyle changes that impact our well being and reflecting on how lovely it is just to do nothing, as the Italians say “la dolce far niente”.
This made me think about how all too often as educators we don't take time to think or reflect on the reactions we have to behaviour and how these reactions can have a negative impact on outcomes for the children in our care. There are lots of old sayings which illustrate this...'Fools rush in where angels fear to tread', 'Marry in haste, repent at leisure’, 'Look before you leap'...
So, how could we use the act of reflection to impact our decisions and reactions regarding children who exhibit challenging behaviour?
Traditionally the implementation of behaviour plans, 'one size fits all' techniques and behaviour reinforcement interventions were the 'go to' solutions for professionals confronted with challenging behaviour. But, I believe that before we reach the stages of implementation we must reflect on why the challenging behaviour is occurring and the circumstances under which it becomes a problem. Jumping in with an attempt at solutions too fast can exacerbate the situation and create a greater standoff between the child and the adult involved.
How can we help?
We need to dispel with the idea that the child is trying to manipulate the situation for their own gain. I believe that no child actually wants to behave in a challenging way. They are just communicating to us that they have no other solution at that time.
We need to reach an understanding of why the challenging behaviour is taking place in order to work with the child to develop skills and strategies to avoid these challenging behaviours in the future.
We need to avoid using 'one size fits all' approaches to challenging behaviour as we are all individuals and we all have individuals needs. Interventions and plans need to be built around the individual needs of the child and structured to address the triggers and possible causes of the challenging behaviour.
It is my belief that currently we are at a crossroads. We know that we should be interacting with children who exhibit challenging behaviours in a more dynamic, individualised way but we are not quite there yet. There seems to be some misunderstandings with respect to challenging behaviour exhibited by students and how we can approach solutions. We need to promote social, emotional and behavioural professional development opportunities to ensure that today's educators gain the skills and understanding to work together with all of their students to ensure positive outcomes.
Raising awareness is the goal. I think that the more we open the discussion the more we can help from the inside. I agree that professional development is needed in this area as there is a gap in understanding that can only be filled by reeducation. Research shows that we understand so much more today about behaviour but we need to get that understanding into the classroom.
I’m afraid that the horse is already long out of the gate if we are just considering these issues at this juncture. This self reflection and analysis should be part of any teacher training program before any teacher certification is awarded. This is not something that can be done in an after-school inservice program or a summer workshop. There are “certified” teachers standing in front of classrooms full of children who have no clue how to approach children who “learn differently”,and I chose these words carefully, This involves systemic change, and I don’t see this happening anywhere or anytime soon, given the present political climate world wide.