Please allow me to share my experience as a mother. I thought I would never have an experience of having problem when my son was young. His teachers would tell me how behave and careful he was. I thought he would be behaving well until he was 3 years of age. We were in a mall shopping for some things for our new house. We were walking and checking some furniture’s in Ikea. Until my son started to cry, scream and roll over the floor for no reason at all. For the first time, I saw my son was having a meltdown. The reason for his breakdown was he saw this big remote control car. At that time, I could not understand what he was saying. He was dragging me to go to the toy and buy it. But I was ignoring what he was trying to tell me. I felt so ashamed as people where gazing at us. I was caught in between.
That experience with my son helped me to be cautious and be aware once I meet my students if this kind of situation will happen. Actually there are different causes for children’s meltdowns, we have to find the right way to prevent or at least restrain these hostile episodes and it is certainly advantageous to identify the cause.
According to Sara Bean, M.Ed.[1], several parents are still confused of their child’s behavior. Their children can be completely different when they are at home, something has had happen, or something that makes their child upset. There is this emotion that parent doesn’t know how to deal, feel at loss, or a feeling how to stop the outburst. And these feelings are the same observations teacher’s asks when it happens in the classroom.
In my class, I have observed a variety of behavior. I have a student who excels academically but have poor social skills. I just have to encourage him to play with his classmates during recess. I have another student who cried for four months. It was in his first school in a non-German environment. I think it was so stressful for the both of us. For those months, he just stayed close to me because he was scared he couldn’t understand English. Then there is another boy who exhibits overly active behavior. He keeps everyone annoyed. Either he teases them or bothers them during small group activity. To encourage him to improve his behavior, I have used different strategy like behavior rubric, positive reinforcement, and by just being patient with him because it was obvious he was seeking attention after a new baby came to the family.
As a teacher, it is imperative that we identify the causes of behavior of our students especially when they exhibit the inappropriate behavior. If we can identify these behaviors at an early stage, we can help and assist them to not just hurt themselves but also not to harm their friends and families. The earlier we identify the causes of the behavior, the better chance of giving them the appropriate short and long term solutions to solve the problem. We can teach them better self-management skills, if we distinguish what causes the spark why our students are acting inappropriate behavior. We need to find the best strategies and give them the best approach to solve the situation.
I always believe that we can do more to treat a behavior, not just with a short-term solution. Our student’s behaviors either good or bad are part of the social skills that every children need to learn to control. Treating or finding the best solutions to the behavior properly can help them tremendously. We can response to a situation with short-term solution however few cases need more attention. For example, fidgeting in class can’t be resolved with a short-term solution. Fidgeting needs a thorough planning to improve it. Although we can give immediate remedy for students talking back to teachers, it will be not sufficient for a short-term solution. These behaviors require a long-term solution in order to guide them and help them increase their behavior to something appropriate. Short-term solution can give an immediate response to a situation however this is not enough. We need to enhance our method and prolong the strategies in guiding the students especially if the child is disruptive, over active or is bullying.
I believe that it is important that teachers and parent’s work together and share the responsibility of empowering positive behavior, most especially if our students are experiencing problems at school. An open communication with the parents is vital to give effective solutions within the school year or, even if the child moves to the next year level for follow up. When we are discussing defiant behaviors, we have to find proper interventions and address the behavior problems to your colleagues and the school counselor. We need to identify what causes the problem and distinguish different strategies to help, improve the behavior. We also need to make a plan either two weeks or 8 weeks period. For example, if a child can’t follow four steps direction, reduce it to two and then increase the directions weekly.
[1] https://www.empoweringparents.com/article/how-to-find-the-behavioral-triggers-that-set-your-kid-off/
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