Nadia Distel

Behaviour Management in the Elementary Classroom, without tears!

Have a difficult student who is driving you to distraction?  The New Teachers Kit can help!

Nadia Distel, author of the New Teachers Kit, says of dealing with difficult students in your classroom:

"Some students can make you miserable for a variety of reasons.  Some are plain argumentative, oppositional and defiant without a formal diagnosis.  Others are actually diagnosed with Oppositional Defiant Disorder, and so come with a range of issues you will need to deal with on a daily basis. 

Some may seem to lack the basic moral and ethical grounding to be able to live harmoniously amongst peers. Sometimes students can be just plain angry all the time without an obvious reason (although, there usually is a reason that is unknown to you).  There are lots of resources on the web to help deal with each of these issues, which I have linked to above, so check them out if you want more information.

I remember in my second year of teaching, I had a student in my class who was an absolute nightmare.  He would disrupt every lesson, spit at other students, use language that would make a sailor blush… all at the age of 6! 

I later discovered that he had been diagnosed early in life with an Autistic Spectrum Disorder, something I would bet you will come across in your teaching career at least once.  ASD forms a group of disorders, including Autism, Aspergers, and Pervasive Developmental Disorder – Not Otherwise Specified (often referred to as PDD-NOS).  I would suggest you read up on these disorders, either through your university texts or through the hyperlinks I’ve included.

Thankfully, the parents were supportive, and so with the help of an Educational Psychologist, we designed a home-school behavior management communication system that really worked well at getting him under control. 

If you have a student in your class and you want to try an individualized home-school behavior management system, you can do it in the following way:

1.    Set up a meeting with the parents, your supervisor (Principal or Stage Coordinator or Similar) and an Educational Psychologist or Guidance Counselor (if available)

2.    Be objective in the meeting about your behavioral observations (preferably written, with times and dates) and your concerns with the parents.  In my case, I told the parents he was spitting, swearing and disrupting the learning of the other students, and showed them my written observations to substantiate my claims.

3.    State your goals for the child’s behavior, gain agreement with the parents to support these goals.  In my case, the goals were for the spitting and swearing to cease, and for his concentration to improve.

4.    Devise a workable communication system – for me, each day I filled in a form indicating on what level of the traffic light he got to, and his positive and negative behaviors.

5.    Devise a system of rewards and consequences for positive and negative behavior, and on what contingencies these would be administered.  In my case, we decided that if this little boy got to ‘red’ on the traffic light, he would be temporarily suspended for the day from school, and that when he got home, his toy box would be closed for the rest of the day.  If he received positive comments, he was able to play with his Play station at home.

Review the program regularly to gauge its success or otherwise.  Gain feedback regularly from parents via phone calls or a ‘home diary’ (a book that travels to and from school each day with the student for parent and teacher comment).  Ask the student how they are feeling about the system, as sometimes they can give you insight into why it is or is not working."

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