Challenging Behaviors

Aggressive Behavior: Tend to involve physical conflicts more than verbal conflicts, cannot control their body when they are exciting or angry, hurting others

ADD or ADHD

Withdrawn Behavior: Shyness

References

Know-it-all Students

Resistance of learning or school life: Refuse to go inside the school/classroom, block communication with teachers, avoid challenges

Overly Affectionate

What might be the reason?

How can we help?

What might be the reason?

How can we help?

  • Lack of confidence
  • Fear of unknown
  • Cannot feel safety in the classroom
  • Lack of motivation/interests
  • Lack of connection with teachers/classmates
  • Inappropriate learning level
  • Seperation anxiety
  • Mirror Violent behaviors from parents/adults
  • a self-defense reaction
  • Lack of routine
  • Lack of supervision
  • Frequently be placed in a negative environment
  • Inadequate speech development
  • Inadequate social-emotional learning
  • Frequent impulsivity
  • Psychological reason: mood disorders, psychotic illness, conduct disorder and trauma.
  • Provide a clear visual schedule/timetable: A legible timetable or checklist will guide students go through the daily routine smoothly, they will understand and know beforehand the next step and clear about the expectations, so that they won't be anxiety about things they don't know and be more relax in the classroom.
  • Encourage more group work: To let students feel more comfortable in the classroom, we need to make sure we have created a positive environment for them. Group work allow students to develop their 21st century skills and increase social interaction among them. Group activity is helpful for creating community within the classroom, students bond tightly with each other and also with teachers, and decrease their resistance of school.
  • Frequent communication with family: Parents can help you to identify the issue more efficiently at home when their kid refuse to go to school. At the same time, teachers regularly give feedback and take observation notes at school so that when discuss with parents we have evidence and specific strategies can be provided. Keep the home-school alignment about routine and norms can be extremely helpful for students adapt the learning environment and pace.
  • More interaction with students: To bond more tightly with these students, we need to be more patient and focus on finding their strengths and interests so that we can engage them more in the classroom. Allow students make more decision and involve them more no matter in academic or daily routine, students should feel they are valued and welcome in the classroom.

Theory 1:Dispositions(Katz,1993)

Theory 2: Operant Conditioning (B.F. Skinner,1948)

Definition: “Disposition is a pattern of behavior exhibited frequently ... in the absence of coercion ... constituting a habit of mind under some conscious and voluntary control ... intentional and oriented to broad goals”(Katz,1993)
Children’s dispositions are environmentally sensitive,meaning they are acquired, supported, or weakened by interactive experiences in an environment with significant adults and peers.(Bertram & Pascal 2002)

Strategy: Teacher will provide him opportunity to learn social communication and peer cooperation by assigning physical tasks to this kind of kids(e.g. ask him to carry some teaching tools, ask him to pass the marker in class, ask him to open the door for the class) . By doing so, teacher appreciates the resilience of the kid by accepting the way he is also fosters desirable behaviors at the same time offering opportunities for him to develop acceptable social behaviors.

Definition: B.F. Skinner is well-known by the theory of operant conditioning, where a specific behavior is increased or decreased through positive or negative reinforcement. Ferster and Skinner (1957) also found different patterns/schedules of reinforcement will affect the learning(how hard we work and try) and extinction(how quick we quit) and they found variable-ratio reinforcement will foster long-term acquisition(fastest in response and slowest in extinction) . A good application of variable-ratio reinforcement is to give positive reinforcement frequently in the first place, then only reward it when exceptional outcomes are reinforced.

Strategy: the teacher will reward each attempt of desirable behaviors (e.g. reducing the amount of time walking around the classroom, raising hand for request or asking a question) in the first place, while she will gradually narrow the definition of desirable behavior(but only one target behavior at a time) only reward the behavior that achieves her expectations.

Theory1: Operant Conditioning (B.F. Skinner,1948)

Theory2:Cognitive development/Staircase Model
(Jean Piaget,1964)

Definition: In the theory of operant condition by B.F.Skinner (1948), the positive reinforcement strengthens a wanted behavior with rewards while the negative reinforcement stops an unwanted behavior by removing the rewarding.

Strategy: teacher will choose to ignore some of the speech or effort of domaining a discussion by this type of students as a negative reinforcement which will extinguish unwanted behaviors rather than being reinforced by having attention drawn to them. Moreover, the teacher can shape the behavior of this type of students by rewarding wanted speech only as a positive reinforcement.

Definition: at the second stage of Piaget's cognitive development stage, the preoperational stage, kids are featured with characters like egocentrism, the lack of conservation etc.. According to Piaget, children of stage two experience the difficulty to take on another person's perspective namely the egocentrism. Some children will be guided to learn about other persons' perspectives while some are reinforced (always unconsciously) to continue to do so by the environment and they will probably develop into cognitive bias when they grow older thus affects their ability to cooperate with others.

Strategy: the know-it-all student will be assigned a duty as the discussion note-taking and he/she will take notes of other students' contribution then make a conclusion by the end of the discussion. You can also have him/her comment on several students' discussion only in a constructive way.

John Watson and Behaviorism: All behavior is learned from, and shaped by, the environment.

Family environment:

  • Keep regular contact with the student's family and align rules or behavior system in school and home.
  • Check if parents or other adults in the family show inappropriate behaviors or abuse kid at home, contact relevant counselor or department if needed.
  • Sending positive feedback and encourage parents praise child more at home with specify the kid's strengths, reinforce student's good behavior at home.

Classroom environment:

  • Provide adequate supplies to make sure every student can equally use and share them and decrease conflicts cause by inadequate materials/toys/equipments
  • Acknowledge student's feeling and emotions, read SEL related storybooks and guide students how to recognize emotions, teach strategies to handle negative emotions.
  • Reduce stimulation and make sure there is a calm down corner or personal space for students to stay without interruption.
  • set up classroom agreement with all the students about be kind, be safe and respect others.

What might be the reason?

Language barrier
Low self-esteem
Lack of social interaction
Preference for solitude
Fear of rejection
Poor quality parent-child relationship
Anxiety
Overprotective parents

How can we help?

They can be taught social skills.
Teach relaxation and coping techniques.
Avoid over-comforting children.
Praise "brave" behavior like responding to others, using eye contact, trying something new.

Behavior Responses: Pavlov's Classical Conditioning

The classical conditioning is an involuntary behavior, when that happens; the student is forced to learn how to be shy.

The student has learned to be anxious via classical conditioning.

Because of the past experiences that happened through classical conditioning, future experiences may elicit a shy response.

A learning process that occurs through associations between an environmental stimulus and a naturally occurring stimulus.

If a student is exposed to an object or situation they fear over and over without the negative outcome, classical conditioning can help unlearn shyness.

What might be the reason?

Mimicking adult behavior
Super attachment
Lack of family boundaries
Neglect by caregivers
Possible abuse
Received little attention
Disinhibited social engagement

How can we help?

Teach good social cues.
Make good personal boundaries as well as physical boundaries with friends and family members.
Remind children to ask before hugging.
Be vigilant in teaching stranger danger and helping kids understand where and how they can be touched, as well as who to talk to if they are touched inappropriately.
Get help. The child may need to consult a therapist or counselor.

Behavior Responses: John Bowlby''s
Attachment Theory

Attachment as a "lasting psychological connectedness between human beings."

Overly affectionate attachment is a learned behavior. The theory proposed that attachment was merely the result of the feeding relationship between the child and the caregiver.

When children are frightened, they will seek proximity from their primary caregiver in order to get both comfort and care.

Nurturance and responsiveness from the caregivers at the beginning of a child's life causes attachment.

When a child learns how another would like to express or receive affection, they will be more likely to respond or initiate affection mindfully.