Lost at School (4 page)

      •
“He has a bad attitude.”
He probably didn’t start out with one. “Bad attitudes” tend to be the by-product of countless years of being misunderstood and overpunished by adults who didn’t recognize that a kid was lacking crucial thinking skills. But kids are resilient; they come around if we start doing the right thing.

      •
“He has a mental illness.”
While he may well meet diagnostic criteria for a psychiatric disorder and may even benefit from psychotropic medication, this description is a nonstarter. Fifty years ago, a psychiatrist named Thomas Szasz understood that “mentally ill” was a limiting (and potentially inaccurate and derisory) way to describe people with social, emotional, and behavioral challenges. He advocated for reconceptualizing these challenges as “problems in living,” a more fitting and productive way of viewing things.

      •
“His brother was the same way.”
Ah, so it’s the gene pool! Alas, we can’t do anything about the gene pool, and it’s likely that his brother was lacking some important thinking skills, too.

While many of these explanations enjoy tremendous popularity, most are simply clichés that lead caregivers down an intervention
dead-end. Once you become comfortable with the idea that challenging kids lack important thinking skills, these explanations no longer make much sense. In fact, such explanations have a tendency to cause adults to view kids with behavioral challenges as “the enemy” and push them away.

The following list is much more useful. It’s the list of many skills frequently found lagging in challenging kids:

      • Difficulty handling transitions, shifting from one mind-set or task to another

      • Difficulty doing things in a logical sequence or prescribed order

      • Difficulty persisting on challenging or tedious tasks

      • Poor sense of time

      • Difficulty reflecting on multiple thoughts or ideas simultaneously

      • Difficulty maintaining focus

      • Difficulty considering the likely outcomes or consequences of actions (impulsive)

      • Difficulty considering a range of solutions to a problem

      • Difficulty expressing concerns, needs, or thoughts in words

      • Difficulty understanding what is being said

      • Difficulty managing emotional response to frustration so as to think rationally

      • Chronic irritability and/or anxiety significantly impede capacity for problem-solving or heighten frustration

      • Difficulty seeing the “grays”/concrete, literal, black-and-white thinking

      • Difficulty deviating from rules, routine

      • Difficulty handling unpredictability, ambiguity, uncertainty, novelty

      • Difficulty shifting from original idea, plan, or solution

      • Difficulty taking into account situational factors that would suggest the need to adjust a plan of action

      • Inflexible, inaccurate interpretations/cognitive distortions or biases (e.g., “Everyone’s out to get me,” “Nobody likes me,” “You always blame me,” “It’s not fair,” “I’m stupid”)

      • Difficulty attending to and/or accurately interpreting social cues/ poor perception of social nuances

      
• Difficulty starting conversations, entering groups, connecting with people/lacks other basic social skills

      • Difficulty seeking attention in appropriate ways

      • Difficulty appreciating how one’s behavior is affecting other people

      • Difficulty empathizing with others, appreciating another person’s perspective or point of view

      • Difficulty appreciating how one is coming across or being perceived by others

You may have noticed that this list contains no diagnoses. That’s because diagnoses don’t give us any information about the cognitive skills a kid may be lacking. In other words, “bipolar disorder” provides no information about the specific skills a kid is lacking. Nor does “fetal alcohol syndrome” or “lead poisoned” or “brain injured” or “Asperger’s disorder” or “ADHD” or “oppositional defiant disorder” or “antisocial” or “sociopath.” All too often adults get caught up in the quest for the right diagnosis, assuming that a diagnosis will help them know what to do next. The reality is that diagnoses aren’t especially useful for understanding kids with behavioral challenges or for helping adults know what to do next. Plus, kids don’t generally exhibit challenging behavior in a vacuum. It usually takes two to tango: a kid who’s lacking skills
and
an environment (teachers, parents, peers) that demands those skills. Durable, effective intervention must focus both on the kid (who has skills to learn and problems to solve) and on people in the kid’s environment (who need to understand the true nature of the kid’s difficulties and provide opportunities for the problems to be solved and the skills to be learned and practiced). Diagnoses don’t reflect that reality, they simply pathologize the child.

While diagnoses do tend to make adults take a kid’s difficulties more seriously, a kid doesn’t need a diagnosis, or a special education designation, to have a problem. He just needs a
problem
to have a problem. Of course, if a school system requires a kid to have a diagnosis to access certain services, most mental health professionals are happy to oblige; it’s just that we shouldn’t operate on the assumption that a diagnosis provides a great deal of
useful
information. A kid shouldn’t need a diagnosis to access help.

Let’s focus on some of the lagging skills on the list for the purpose of making clear the connection between lagging skills and how they can contribute to challenging behavior.

IN FOCUS

Difficulty handling transitions, shifting from one mindset or task to another

This lagging skill is often referred to as a
shifting cognitive set,
which is required any time a person moves from one task to another (for example, from gathering supplies and books from one’s locker to getting down to work in class) or from one environment to another (from recess to quiet time). Each task or environment involves different norms and expectations and therefore a different mind-set: “In recess it’s OK to run around and make noise and socialize” versus “During quiet time we sit at our desks and read quietly and don’t talk to other kids.” If a kid has difficulty with this skill, there’s a good chance he’ll be thinking and acting as if he’s still in recess long after quiet time has started.

When you’re telling a kid what to do, that also requires a shift in cognitive set, especially if what you’re telling him to do isn’t what he was doing in the first place (as a general rule, that’s when kids usually get told what to do). Paradoxically, it’s the kids who have trouble shifting set who wind up getting told what to do most often.

Difficulty shifting set contributes to many maladaptive behaviors in kids. When is the likelihood of maladaptive behavior greatly heightened in kids who lack this skill? When the environment demands that the kid shift cognitive set. It’s just like any other learning disability. Kids who have difficulty reading are more likely to struggle when life demands that they read. Kids who have difficulty shifting cognitive set are more likely to struggle when life demands that they shift cognitive set. One of the important tasks of development is to learn how to shift gears efficiently when the environment demands it. It’s a skill many challenging kids do not yet possess.

This doesn’t mean that adults should stop telling kids what to do or completely eliminate demands for shifting cognitive set. But it does mean that if we want to help a kid whose challenging behaviors are set in motion by difficulty shifting cognitive set, the first step is to recognize that he’s lacking that skill. Then we’d identify the specific situations (unsolved problems) in which that lagging skill is causing the most difficulty. Then we’d start working on solving those problems. How? That’s covered in
Chapters 4
and
5
. For now, the most important thing is to understand that the kid isn’t testing limits or being manipulative or controlling; rather, he’s lacking an important skill.

IN FOCUS

Difficulty reflecting on multiple thoughts or ideas simultaneously (disorganized)

Difficulty considering a range of solutions to a problem

Difficulty considering the likely outcomes or consequences of one’s actions (impulsive)

When you’re faced with a problem or frustration, your primary task is to solve the problem that caused your frustration. To accomplish this task, these three skills will be absolutely essential. That’s because problem-solving requires a great deal of organized, planful thinking.

Let’s ponder that for a moment. To solve a problem you must first identify the problem you’re trying to solve. Then you’ll need to think of solutions to the problem. And then you’ll need to anticipate the likely outcomes of those solutions so as to pick the best one. That’s how people make decisions.

Many kids are so disorganized in their thinking—they have so much difficulty sorting through their thoughts—that they’re unable to figure out what’s frustrating them, in which case the process of problem-solving comes to an abrupt halt, the problem doesn’t get solved, and their frustration heightens (often setting in motion one of the behaviors on the spectrum). Many are so disorganized that even if they can manage to figure out what problem they’re trying to solve, they can’t think of more than one solution to the problem. Many are so impulsive that even if they can think of more than one solution,
they’ve already done the first thing that popped into their heads. The bad news? Our first solution is often (not always, but often) our worst. Good solutions usually come to mind after we’ve inhibited our less optimal initial impulses and considered our better options in a more organized fashion. Many kids—often the disorganized, impulsive ones—are notorious for putting their “worst foot forward.” In other words, there are many kids who are responding to life’s challenges in a maladaptive fashion because they aren’t very skilled at organizing their thoughts, thinking of alternative solutions, or anticipating likely outcomes.

Approaching problems in an organized, planful manner, considering a variety of solutions, and reflecting on their likely outcomes are crucial developmental skills. Most two-year-olds don’t yet possess these skills. Neither do a lot of challenging kids who—chronologically, at least—are a lot older.

Clearly, these kids need our help! But if the school discipline program emphasizes consequences, they’re not going to get the help they need. Again, consequences only remind kids of what we don’t want them to do, and give them the incentive to do something more adaptive instead. But they already know what we don’t want them to do, and they’re already motivated to do something more adaptive instead. They need something else from us.

By the way, a lot of kids who are disorganized and impulsive are diagnosed with ADHD. But whether a kid meets criteria for ADHD isn’t the important part. Knowing that he is a disorganized, impulsive problem-solver gives you a much clearer understanding of his difficulties and provides more useful information about what kind of help he needs from you.

IN FOCUS

Difficulty expressing concerns, needs, or thoughts in words

Much of our daily lives involve language and communication skills, so it’s no accident that kids who are lacking such skills have trouble handling the social, emotional, and behavioral demands that are placed upon them. For example, many kids have trouble finding
the words to tell someone what’s the matter or what they need. If you don’t have the wherewithal to let people know that you “don’t feel like talking,” that “something’s the matter,” that you “need a minute to think,” that you “don’t know what to do,” that you “need a break,” or that you “don’t like that,” then you may express these things in ways that are far less ideal. The reminder “Use your words” won’t help at all if a kid doesn’t have the words. Some kids cry or become withdrawn when they don’t have the skills to communicate effectively. Other kids make their thoughts or feelings or needs known with “Screw you,” “I hate you,” “Shut up,” and other more colorful expressions (that’s right,
disrespect
is just a sign that a kid is lacking important skills…. if the kid could communicate in a more respectful way, he would). And still others express themselves physically (shoving, hitting, throwing things, destroying property, running out of the classroom).

Regrettably, language-processing and communication-skills difficulties are frequently overlooked. Adults often don’t think to assess these skills when they’re trying to figure out why a challenging kid is challenging. And sometimes the testing instrumentation used when these skills are being assessed doesn’t pick up on finer-grained lagging skills that may be involved; in such cases, the test results may not only fail to pinpoint the kid’s difficulties, but also erroneously conclude that the kid has no language-processing or communication difficulties at all.

Can kids be taught to articulate their concerns, needs, and thoughts more effectively? Absolutely. But not until adults understand that it’s the lack of these skills that is setting the stage for challenging behavior.

IN FOCUS

Difficulty managing emotional response to frustration so as to think rationally (separation of affect)

Chronic irritability and/or anxiety significantly impede capacity for problem-solving

Separation of affect refers to the ability to separate the
emotions
(affect) you’re feeling in response to a problem or frustration from the
thinking
you must do to resolve the problem. While emotions can be quite useful for mobilizing or energizing people to solve problems, thinking is how problems get solved. Kids skilled at separating affect tend to respond to problems or frustrations with more
thought
than emotion, and that’s good. But kids who lack skill in this domain tend to respond to problems or frustrations with more
emotion
and less (or no) thought, and that’s not good at all. Learning how to put your emotions “on the shelf” so as to be able to think rationally is an essential developmental skill, and one many challenging kids have failed to develop.