Any ideas teaching question?

Question

hi, I am going to be doing some training soon with a 9yr child on special needs reg-dyslexia &dyspraxia,from reports a challenging child, thing is childs dad been ill and things arent good at home, Lsa support in place in sch etc, but need to identify social and emotional challenges and how else can the sch as a whole support this child in education and development? having read reports I need to find new ways of looking at helping child due to emotional and financial strain currently effecting child!! want to apporach challenge postively as new face in childs life!! any ideas gratefully received and thanks x

Answer 1

I still am not clear what role you are intending to have with this child as you say he already has LSA support. If you are to be a pastoral support then I would say that you need to have some counselling training for yourself before trying to help him deal with his own challenges in life.  A child in a situation as you are describing is very vulnerable and it is so easy to cause more angst unintentionally.  Make sure YOU get lots of support and imput before you try to help him.

Answer 2

hey id suggest trying to find something that the child enjoys playing with or is into like spiderman etc then maybe find sheets or construct sheets for him/her to complete. it might help them concentrate a little more? try reading up on the current legislation for these circumstances. another thing is try to make his/her school life a rountine and enjoyable because it doesnt sound like much can be done at home with dad being ill.

Good Luck x

Answer 3

Here are some ways to identify what will help this child. You must do several observations in the target environment to find out the following:

Environment - What is happening in the environment that is triggering the misbehavior? Things to look at are work that is too hard, teacher giving all of her/his attention to misbehavior instead of positive behavior, lack of structure (ie. Do the kids know routines? Are the Rules posted, are their structured rewards and punishments) or lack of behavior management skills. Once you have done this, discuss this with the teacher and see what you can come up with collaboratively.

Purpose -There are two reasons why people do things: To get something, usually attention and to get out of something, usually work or embarrassment. Figure this out and make sure that he isn't getting what he wants from the misbehavior.

Social - Most misbehaving kids do not know how to socialize appropriately. Now look at the whole child and examine the following:

What can you do to improve his peer relationships? Consider doing some direct teaching of the kinds of appropriate interactions kids his age have. Have him practice by playing a game with another kid of his choice and then coach him. Move the number of kids up when he gets it right with one. Provide a reward for appropriate behavior for the whole group.

How can you improve his relationships with the adults in his school? Again, do direct instruction in private and then coach with a reward in all of his environments. Let him help the teacher or coach or run errands for rewards.

What most people don't realize is that we need to teach the behaviors we want to see. These are called replacement behaviors. A very simple way of deciding what to teach, is to identify each problem behavior and decide, "What do I want him to do instead?" Then teach these behaviors directly, with rewards. Successful behaviors tend to become self reinforcing, so eventually you can fade out the tangible kinds of rewards to just verbal praise.

This is a big subject, so consider going to Dr. Mac's Amazing Behavior Management Page. Numerous topics are discussed including how to observe and how to make change in the environment to make things better for kids.

Answer 4

Although the reports have been written - don't take them as law. Remember this child is nine. Look at how dyslexia/dyspraxia affects the child. Perhaps the "challenging" is due to an inability to express themself. Set achievable goals and develop from there

Answer 5

Wow, this scares me!  Are your seriously telling me that you are going to do training with (or rather on!) a child that appears to have a number of problems?

It isn't a modern idea but the best that I can offer is that the child needs to learn where his barriers are.  Children, in the same way as dogs, I am afraid, have a real need to know what is an what is not acceptable.  They also need to know their area and be confident that they are doing the right thing in that area.

Don't look for new ways of helping the child - look for the tried and tested old ones!

Schools are not allowed to help anymore.  Teachers, worried about bureacracy and reprimand are not longer allowed to do their job properly.  If you are likely to be able to change anything at all, it will be to re-educate the parents of the child.  What is the nature of the illness of the father, for example?  And how is the financial strain affecting the child?  As a single parent I brought up three children - I don't think that they realised there was much of a financial issue until they wanted to have Nike trainers rather than similar from Woolworths!

My current boss is dyslexic and a millionaire but typing up his letters can be a bit of a challenge!

Have a good re-think about what you really need to do - but probably your best option is to talk to the child and see what he thinks his needs are - they could very well be governed by how his parents think.  This will again lead to re-educating the parents rather than the child so that the parents can supor the child both emotionally and financially.

If it always comes back to money, then perhaps the parents are telling the child that if they had more money then things would be better!  The money side should not be an issue!

Take this child for a walk in the woods or the countryside.  Show this child the wonders of nature - even at this time of year there are wonderful things to be found!  Conkers off the Horse Chestnut Tree.  Sweet Chestnuts for roasting off the Sweet Chestnut Tree.  Blackberries!  These are things for free!

Make sure that money is not the issue!

I wish you all the luck in the world, but I am still worried that this is for real rather than just a training project for you.

Answer 6

That certainly sounds like a challenge!

I am guessing that the emotional strain is very closely tied in with the finacial strain. Perhaps that could be a place to start?

Sorry to be vague but never having met the guy it's gonna be hard to call.

Best wishes

I

Answer 7

I would brush up on my Nurture vs. Environment portion of my college learning, and go at it from that angle.

How can we improve the child's environment, add a tutor at home? How can we get the parent involved, and turn this situation into a positive.

What can we learn from this father's illness, and financial situation?  Sounds like a good word problem for math, a great outlet for journaling and writing about the child's story from his point of view. Thus getting him to express his feeings, in a non-threatening way, and learning writing skills, story telling, memory recall.

YOU can get SOCIAL SERVICES involved, have a SOCIAL WORKER come out and see how they can help.  How about State Disability?  Is the Dad able to work at all?  

Have the Child make a book about things I love/like about my dad. My DAD is special because.............?  This will give you a lot of insight into this child's feelings, even if you dictate the story, and read it back to him/her word for word.  

I did a lot of this with younger children.

IM me for anymore help.

i could go on forever!