Supporting Children with Challenging Behavior at School: Universal and Selective Interventions

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Supporting Children with Challenging Behavior at
School Universal and Selective Interventions

• CSEFEL Vanderbilt University Consortium
• W.D. Tynan, Ph.D

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Supporting Young Children with Challenging
Behavior at School Universal and Selective
Interventions

• Objectives
• 1. Identify the most effective teachable moments
  for supporting young children with challenging
  behavior.
• Identify important social emotional skills
• Describe effective, evidence-based teaching
  strategies to support social emotional
  development of young children and to manage
  challenging behaviors

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• What are your behavior hot buttons?

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• How does it make you feel?

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Managing Personal Stress Thought Control
Upsetting Thoughts That child is a monster.
This is getting ridiculous. Hell never
change. Im sick of putting out fires! I
wonder if Walmart is hiring?
Calming Thoughts This child is testing to see
where the limits are. My job is to stay calm
and help him learn better ways to behave. I
can handle this. I am in control. They have
just learned some powerful ways to get control.
I will teach them more appropriate ways to
behave. I feel undervalued right now I need
to seek support from my peers and supervisor.
Adapted from Webster-Stratton, 1999
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Managing Personal Stress Thought Control
Upsetting Thoughts He ruins everything!
This is going to be the worst year of my
career
Calming Thoughts Having him in my class is
going to be a wonderful Professional
Development experience.
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Building Positive Relationships with Children
Happy Grams
Home visits
Share
Play
Time Attention
Notes home
Empathy


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Child Behavior Problems at Home
Age 2 Non- pervasive
Ripple Effects (adapted from C.
Webster-Stratton, 1997)
Parent Criticism Discipline Difficulties
Behavior Problems at School
Behavior Problems at Home
Age 3-6
Parent Discouragement Isolation from School
Ineffective Teaching Practices
Peer Rejection
Antisocial Behavior Academic Failure
Age 7-8 Pervasive
Negative Reputation at School
Negative Reputation Of Child within Community of
Parents
Child Depression
Parent Isolation Depression
School Expulsion
Poor Home- School Connections
Deviant Peer Group
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Program-wide Positive Behavior Support
Individualized Interventions
Social Emotional Curriculum/Instruction

Creating Supportive Environments
Positive Relationships with children, families
and colleagues
Fox, Dunlap, Hemmeter, Joseph, Strain, 2003
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Supportive Environments The Big Picture

• This is a place you can trust
• Safe
• Predictable
• Helpful
• This is a caring place
• Relationships
• Recognizing and responding to emotions
• You belong here, We belong here
• Uniqueness, diversity, individuality
• Community, caring working together
• Developing an ethos of friendship

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Designing Supportive Environments

• Classroom arrangement
• Schedule
• Transitions
• Activities and experiences

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Classroom Arrangement

• Classroom is designed with a variety of areas
  with easily viewed
• boundaries
• Avoid wide open spaces
• Materials are organized and in good working order
  before children arrive

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Schedule

• Consistent and predictable schedule is available
  in a developmentally appropriate way
• Alternate active and vigorous activities with
  less active experiences
• Addresses social emotional skills

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Transitions

• Eliminate unnecessary transitions and wait time
• Teach the expectations during transition time
• Use pictures and other consistent and salient
  cues
• Provide choices

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Interactions

• Adult-adult interactions
• Model positive social skills
• Adult-child interactions
• Catch em being good!

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Identifying the Teachable Moments
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Identifying Teachable Moments
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Identifying Teachable Moments
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Teach Me What to Do Instead

• Following rules, routines and directions
• Identifying feelings in self and others
• Controlling anger and impulse
• Problem solving
• Friendship skills

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Following rules, routines and directions

• Have a few simple rules for the classroom
• Involve the children in developing the rules
• Teach the rules systematically
• Reinforce the rules at high rates at the
  beginning and at lower rates throughout the year

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Sample Rules

• Share materials
• Use an inside voice
• Listen to the teacher
• Touch gently
• Use walking feet

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?
?
?
?
?
Show me five!
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Emotional Literacy

• Emotional Literacy is the ability to identify,
  understand, and express emotions in a healthy way.

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Children with a strong foundation in emotional
literacy

• tolerate frustration better,
• get into fewer fights,
• engage in less self-destructive behavior,
• are healthier,
• less lonely,
• less impulsive,
• more focused, and
• they have greater academic achievement.

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Identifying feelings in Self and others

• Increasing emotional vocabularies
• Learning how to recognize feelings in self and
  others
• Emotional regulation (i.e., calm down)
• Empathy training

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Increasing Feeling Vocabularies

• Direct teaching
• Incidental teaching
• Use childrens literature
• Use songs and games
• Play How would you feel if?
• Checking in
• Feeling dice and feeling wheels

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Feeling Wheel
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Identifying feelings inSelf and others

• Learning to recognize how someone else is feeling
• Facial cues
• Body language
• Tone of voice
• Situational cues

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Identifying feelings in Self and others

• Increasing emotional vocabularies
• Learning how to recognize feelings in self and
  others
• Emotional regulation (i.e., calm down)
• Empathy training

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Relaxation thermometer
Take 3 deep breaths1..2..3
Adapted from Incredible Years Dinosaur School
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Take a Deep Breath
Blow out the candle
Smell the flowers
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Relaxation thermometer
Source Incredible Years Photo by Carolyn
Webster-Stratton
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4. Generating of solutions
5. Making a decision
3. Clarifying of interpersonal goals
6. Acting on decision

• 2. Interpreting of Affective Cues
• cause
• intent

• 1. Reading of Affective Cues
• self
• others

Joseph Strain, 2003
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Controlling anger and handling disappointment

• Recognizing that anger can interfere with
  thinking
• Recognizing anger in oneself and others
• Managing anger and controlling impulse (the
  turtle technique)

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Feeling finger prints
Source Elias and Tobias Photo by Carolyn
Webster-Stratton
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Turtle Steps
Source Incredible Years Photo by Carolyn
Webster-Stratton
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Turtle Shells
Source Incredible Years Photo by Carolyn
Webster-Stratton
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Source Incredible Years Photo by Carolyn
Webster-Stratton
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Red Anger, STOP
Yellow Feeling Uncomfortable, Be cautious
Green Good, Go ahead
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Handling disappointment

• Teach (maybe next time)
• Prepare (I can only choose one person to be my
  helper)
• Prime (If I dont choose you and you feel
  disappointed, what can you do?)
• Reinforce (Wow, you really handled that well!
  Way to go!)

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Reinforce Social Emotional Skills in Informal and
Formal Ways

• Informal
• Hugs, high fives, praise, winks, smiles,
  thumbs-up
• Formal
• Certificates/ Notes home
• Blast off
• Friendship Loops
• Nobel Peace Prize
• Superfriend Cape

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Friendship Loops
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Strategies for Developing Friendship Skills

• Modeling principles
• Modeling with video /puppets
• Preparing peer partner
• Buddy system
• Priming
• Suggesting play ideas
• Direct modeling
• Reinforcement

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Friendship skills

• How to give suggestions (play organizers)
• Turn taking
• Understanding how and when to give an apology
• Sharing toys and other materials
• Being helpful

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Friendship skills

• Learning alternative responses to being teased,
  bullied or yelled at
• Saying nice things
• www.csefel.uiuc.edu
• www.challengingbehavior.org

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ELO for Alex
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It isnt either/ or Integrating Emotional and
Early Literacy

• Social stories
• Write about childrens emotions (dictation)
• Have word cards available with emotion words and
  pictures
• Read childrens books and discuss characters
  problems/solutions
• Read childrens books about emotions