Lost at School (3 page)

If we’re going to start helping Joey and Mrs. Woods and Ms. Lowell, we need to start paying much closer attention to what we now know about how kids come to be challenging. Then we need to consider some important questions. Does the way we’re disciplining kids in our schools address the actual factors that set the stage for kids’ social, emotional, and behavioral challenges? If not, then what should we be doing instead?

What we’ve been thinking about challenging kids—that they’re manipulative, attention-seeking, coercive, unmotivated, limit-testing, and that these traits have been caused by passive, permissive, inconsistent, noncontingent parenting—is way off base most of the time. As a result, the interventions that flow from these ways of thinking have been way off base as well. You see, if you believe that passive, permissive, inconsistent, noncontingent parenting has caused a kid to behave maladaptively, then you’re going to put a great deal of effort into being rigid, firm, consistent, and contingent, typically through use of consequences (rewards and punishments). We live in a culture where many adults think of only one word, only one intervention, to deal with kids who don’t meet adult expectations:
consequences.
Consequences can mean rewards (in schools, this might include special privileges or stickers, happy faces, and tickets or points that can be exchanged for tangible
prizes) for appropriate behavior, or punishments (being deprived of privileges, being given extra assignments, time-outs, suspension, detention, expulsion) for undesirable behavior. Consequences are wonderful when they work. They are less wonderful when they don’t work. And they often don’t work for the kids to whom they are most frequently applied.
¹

That’s because there are really only two goals imposed consequences help us achieve: (1) teaching kids basic lessons about right and wrong ways to behave, and (2) giving kids the incentive to behave the right way. But—and this is important—the vast majority of challenging kids
already know how we want them to behave.
They know they’re supposed to do what they’re told. They know they’re not supposed to disrupt the learning of their classmates or run out of the school when they’re upset or embarrassed. And they know they’re not supposed to hit people, swear, or call out in class. So they don’t need us to put lots of effort into teaching them how we want them to behave. And while this may be hard to believe, most challenging kids
already want to behave the right way.
They don’t need us to continue giving them stickers, depriving them of recess, or suspending them from school;
they’re already motivated.
They need something else from us.

The premise of this book is that kids with behavioral challenges
lack important thinking skills,
an idea supported by research in the neurosciences over the past thirty years on kids who are aggressive and have difficulty getting along with people and those diagnosed with ADHD, mood and anxiety disorders, oppositional defiant disorder, conduct disorder, and language-processing disorders. The thinking skills involved aren’t in the traditional academic domains—reading, writing, and arithmetic—but rather in domains such as regulating one’s emotions, considering the outcomes of one’s actions before one acts, understanding how one’s behavior is affecting other people, having the words to let people know something’s bothering you, and responding to changes in plan in a flexible manner. In other words, these kids have a
developmental delay,
a learning disability of sorts. In the same way that kids who are delayed in reading are having difficulty mastering the skills required for becoming proficient in reading, challenging kids are having difficulty mastering the skills required for
becoming proficient in handling life’s social, emotional, and behavioral challenges.

How do we help kids who have traditional developmental delays? First, we assess the factors that are interfering with skill acquisition and then provide specialized instruction to teach them the skills they’re lacking in increments they can handle. When you treat challenging kids as if they have a developmental delay and apply the same compassion and approach you would use with any other learning disability, they do a lot better. Continue treating them as if they’re unmotivated, manipulative, attention-seeking, limit-testing … continue relying heavily on consequences to address their difficulties, well, they often don’t do better. That’s because consequences don’t teach kids the thinking skills they lack or solve the problems that set the stage for their challenging behavior. Why have we been so zealously overapplying consequences to kids with behavioral challenges? Because we didn’t realize they had a developmental delay.

If conventional school discipline isn’t working for kids with social, emotional, and behavioral challenges, the only reason to keep using it would be because it
is
working for the kids who do not have these challenges. The reality is that well-behaved students aren’t behaving themselves because of the school discipline program. They’re behaving themselves because they have the skills to handle life’s challenges in an adaptive fashion. Thus, rethinking how to go about addressing the needs of challenging kids can be approached without great trepidation: The school discipline program
isn’t working for the kids who aren’t doing well
and
isn’t needed by the kids who are.

Now back to our original questions: What are we going to do about Joey? And how are we going to help Mrs. Woods and Ms. Lowell?

Just as we would with any other developmental delay, we’re going to help Mrs. Woods and Ms. Lowell better
understand
Joey’s difficulties (in other words, help them identify the skills he’s lacking) and pinpoint the
situations
in which he is most likely to have these difficulties (these are called
unsolved problems
). And we’re going to help them learn how to work
with
Joey so the problems can be solved, the skills can be taught, and he won’t be as challenging anymore.

No, it’s not going to be easy, and it’s definitely going to take time.
Helping kids with behavioral challenges is never easy and is always time-consuming. But intervening in ways that aren’t working is always harder and more time-consuming than intervening in ways that are working. Of course, a lot hinges on your definition of “working.” All too often, “working” refers only to the successful minimization of the impact of a challenging kid on his classmates. While this is a noble goal, it is often accomplished by sacrificing the challenging kid. What if it were possible to help him solve the problems that are setting the stage for his challenging behavior, simultaneously teach him the skills he’s lacking, minimize the negative impact he has on his classmates, and prevent his inexorable slide toward alienation?

We’re losing a lot of kids and a lot of teachers because we still view challenging kids the wrong way and handle them in ways that don’t address their true difficulties. It’s an exercise in frustration for everyone involved, and it’s time to get off the treadmill.

CHAPTER 2

Kids Do Well If They Can

Kids with social, emotional, and behavioral challenges lack important thinking skills.
Now there’s an idea that can take some getting used to. Let’s begin by considering your philosophy of kids: what kids are about, why they do what they do, what they’re up to (if they’re really up to anything).

Many adults have never given much thought to their philosophy of kids. But if you’re trying to help kids with behavioral challenges, you’re going to need one, because it’s your philosophy of kids that’s going to guide your beliefs and your actions in your interactions with them, especially when the going gets tough. The philosophy that serves as the foundation of this book is the title of this chapter: “kids do well if they can.”

This philosophy may not sound earth-shattering, but when we consider the very popular alternative philosophy—“kids do well if they want to”—the significance becomes clear. These two disparate philosophies have dramatically different ramifications for our assumptions about kids and how to proceed when they do not meet our expectations.

When the “kids do well
if they want to
” philosophy is applied to a child who’s not doing well, then we believe that the reason he’s not
doing well is because he
doesn’t want to.
This very common assumption is usually wrong and causes adults to believe that their primary role in the life of a challenging kid (and the goal of intervention) is to
make the kid want to do well.
This is typically accomplished by motivating the kid, by giving him the incentive to do well, by rewarding him when he behaves in an adaptive fashion and punishing him when he behaves in a maladaptive fashion.

By contrast, the “kids do well if they can” philosophy carries the assumption that if a kid
could
do well he
would
do well. Doing well is always preferable to not doing well, but only if a kid has the skills to do well in the first place. If a kid isn’t doing well, he must be lacking the skills. What’s the most important role an adult can play in the life of such a kid? First, assume he’s already motivated, already knows right from wrong, and has already been punished enough. Then, figure out what skills he’s lacking so you have the clearest possible understanding of what’s getting in his way.
Understanding why a kid is challenging is the first and most important part of helping him.

This can be a radical philosophical shift for a lot of people. But don’t abandon ship yet. There’s much at stake, not only for kids with behavioral challenges but also for their classmates, teachers, and parents. This chapter is aimed at familiarizing you with the skills challenging kids lack and how to identify these lagging skills in the kids you’re trying to help.

LAGGING SKILLS

If you identify the skills a kid is lacking, you’ll understand
why
he’s challenging. You’ll also know which skills the kid needs to learn, and you’ll be better equipped to anticipate the situations in which his challenging behavior is most likely to occur. If you don’t know what skills a kid is lacking, you won’t possess a true understanding of his challenges, it will be much harder to anticipate his worst moments, the skills won’t get taught, his challenges will linger (or get worse), and he will become increasingly frustrated, hopeless, and alienated, just as most of us would if we had a problem no one seemed to be able to understand and were being treated in a way that made the problem worse.

When is challenging behavior most likely to occur?
When the demands being placed on a kid exceed his capacity to respond adaptively.
Of course, that’s when all of us exhibit maladaptive behavior. The problem for kids with behavioral challenges (and those around them) is that they’re responding much more maladaptively than the rest of us, and much more often. You see, there’s a spectrum of things kids do when life’s demands exceed their capacity to respond adaptively. Some cry, or sulk, or pout, or whine, or withdraw—that would be the milder end of the spectrum. As we move toward the more difficult end of the spectrum, we find screaming, swearing, spitting, hitting, kicking, destroying property, lying, and truancy. And as we move even further to the extreme end of the spectrum, we find behaviors that are injurious to oneself or others: self-induced vomiting, cutting, drinking or using drugs to excess, stabbing, and shooting. But all of these behaviors occur under the same conditions: when the demands being placed on a kid exceed that kid’s capacity to respond adaptively. Why do some kids respond at the milder end of the spectrum while others are at the more severe end? Some kids have the
skills
to “hold it together” when pushed to their limits and some don’t.

With this new perspective on challenging kids, much of what we say about them no longer makes sense. Take a look:

      •
“He just wants attention.”
We all want attention, so this explanation isn’t very useful for helping us understand why a kid is struggling to do well. And if a kid is seeking attention in a maladaptive way, doesn’t that suggest that he lacks the skills to seek attention in an adaptive way?

      •
“He just wants his own way.”
We all want our own way, so this explanation doesn’t help us achieve an understanding of a kid’s challenges. Adaptively getting one’s own way requires skills often found lacking in challenging kids.

      •
“He’s manipulating us.”
This is a very popular, and misguided, characterization of kids with behavioral challenges. Competent manipulation requires various skills—forethought, planning, impulse control, and organization, among others—typically found lacking in challenging kids. In other words, the kids who are most
often described as being manipulative are those least capable of pulling it off.

      •
“He’s not motivated.”
This is another very popular characterization that can be traced back to the “kids do well if they want to” mentality, and it can lead us straight to interventions aimed at giving a kid the incentive to do well. But why would any kid
not
want to do well? Why would he choose
not
to do well if he has the skills to do well? Isn’t doing well always preferable?

      •
“He’s making bad choices.”
Are you certain he has the skills and repertoire to consistently make good choices?

      •
“His parents are incompetent disciplinarians.”
My experience is that parents of well-behaved kids get too much credit for the fact that their children are well-behaved, and that parents of challenging kids get far too much blame for the fact that their children are not well-behaved. Blaming parents doesn’t help anyone at school deal effectively with the kid in the six hours a day, five days a week, nine months of the year that he’s there.