Emotional and Behavioral Disorders
This article specializes in helping parents and teachers manage children with emotional and behavioral disorders. The article calls for managing behaviors consistently, which will make for a positive outcome. In addition, prevention misbehaviors is another main point. This includes developing classroom procedures and set consequences before students enter the classroom. In addition, the article stresses the importance of involving parents, peers, and other teachers. Above all, it condemns calling students “bad,’ which makes students believe they are bad. Below are the basics of helping students with emotional and behavioral disorders (taken directly from the article):
• Promote self-esteem and confidence every chance you can. Catch your child doing something great and praise him/her.
• Provide opportunities for the child to become responsible. When they take responsibility well, let him/her know.
• Always be objective and understanding - do not lose your patience even though you are tempted to.
• Use your best judgment at all times, remain objective and seek to understand.
• Patience, patience, patience! Even though you may be very frustrated.
There is also a five-step plan for implementing the new strategy (taken directly from the article):
1. Pinpoint the behavior that you want to change. Be specific.
2. Gather your information. When does the unacceptable behavior occur? How often does it occur? Under which circumstances does it occur? What event precedes the behavior? What is the child's view of the behavior? Does the inappropriate behavior always happen when the child is alone? Supervised? With others? At a specific time?
3. Now it's time for you to interpret what the information may mean from the previous step. Give it your best shot when trying to analyze the information you've gathered.
4. Plan for Change! Now it's time to set your goals - with the child. What are the short term goals? What are the long term goals? Who's involved, what will happen. The plan for change should be collaborative between you and the child. Be specific, for instance: Johnny will not yell and scream when it's time to do homework - or time to go to bed. In your plan for change, some rewards and or a reward system should be in place. For instance, when 5 instances of appropriate behavior happens, Johnny will have ………….(opportunity to indulge in his favorite activity, a new sticker book etc.
5. Evaluate how your plan is working. If it isn't working, make the necessary changes collaboratively.
Teachers often label students as having behavioral disorders, but do not know how to manage the behaviors. In addition, often students are not diagnosed with a disorder thus making it difficult to control a classroom. By following the above steps, teachers can create a classroom environment conducive to learning.
Watson, Sue. Behavior Disorders in Children: Help for Children with Behavior Disorders or Disabilities. 2007 <http://specialed.about.com/cs/behaviordisorders/a/badbehavior.htm>
Submitted by Travis Bouldin