What answer to give principal?

Question

I have a meeting with the school tomorrow about my son who has adhd and odd. He is in special education and we are meeting to make modifications to his behavioral intervention plan. he is currently on a demerit system which is not working because they put all of the attention on negative behavior instead of positive behavior. The school thinks the answer is sending him to in school suspension everytime he is disrespectful. The principal wnts to know what punishment I want him to get when he is disrespectful but I don't have an answer anymore. The psychiatrist says not to spank him and it doesn't help to ggive him ISS in school suspension. He can't get extra work because he has a problem finishing what he has to do. What do you suggest? Please help!

Answer 1

The behavioral intervention really needs to be focused on the positive behaviors and rewarding those. You did not say how old your child is, but I've used this approach with both young students and as old as middle school kids. The planning sheet is made to look more age-appropriate and use age-appropriate vocabulary.

Whenever there is a problem of any type, the time out/ISS/or whatever it is called should begin with a 5-10 min. 1:1 time with the school behaviorist or counselor to talk through a 5-step problem solving planning sheet. The 5 steps are:

1. What is the problem? Identify the real problem.

2. What are some plans? Brainstorm ideas for correcting this situation and preventing it from happening again.

3. Pick the best plan. Predict the outcome of each idea brainstormed and select the most appropriate idea to try.

4. Do the plan. Implement the strategy that was selected.

5. Did the plan work? Return before leaving at the end of the school day to review whether the correction was done, what the response was, and whether the student understands what to do next time.

Date the problem-solving sheets and keep them in a file so that if the same problem continues to come up, the behavior "coach" can look back with the student to see what plans had been tried, which ones worked, which ones didn't, and use cognitive-behavior training to help him overcome the patterned behaviors. I would guess they are impulsive talk-back to teachers.

Another really great resource for you and or the school is the Attention Deficit Intervention Manual published by Hawthorned Educational Services. It is a wonderful recipe-style manual for determining appropriate interventions to try for both behavior and academics.

Best wishes!! I would sure try hard to get rid of the demerit system--they are so negative!!

Answer 2

Could you actually just talk basics tomorrow, and possibly have the psychiatrist come in for another meeting *s/he may or may not do it and it may be costly* and give his recommendations. Or write up a report.

Maybe you can find a clinical psychologist that specializes in either child psychology or behavior analysis, have him review all of your childs reports, documents, etc. (psych evals, discipline forms, etc) and have them either write a report with his recommendations or come in.

You need to actually focus more on positive behavior reinforcement, than punishment.  Which shows to have more effect on behavior.

Chemical whatever, it sounds liek you are just spewing stuff from a personal opinion not research. Research has shown that corporal punishment does not help in the long term for correcting behavior. It actually has several negative effects.

Also, suspension isnt nor should be the only answer to deal with misbehavior. Too many schools still in this day, only use this method. When I worked in the behavior disorder unit at the middle school, suspension was more of a reward to them, rather than a punishment.

Answer 3

I suggest something like writing an apology for what he did. Or maybe something like a solitary lunch period.

Answer 4

First off you need a POSITIVE BEHAVIOR SUPPORT PLAN that is specific for your childs functioning.  Sounds like he doesn't have the correct modifications, what is on his IEP?  Once a year - the school HAS to give you some Notice of Procedural safeguards that lists phone numbers of advocacy groups.  You may need an advocate who better understands school speak.

Meanwhile check this site out:

http://www.wrightslaw.com/advoc/articles...

Answer 5

One question I would have is how old is your child?

I agree that a demerit system doesn't work all it does is causes more problems, more self-esteem issues and children with these kinds of disorders already have that problem.  Your child does however needs to be accountable for his actions.  Apparently the in school suspension isn't working so why continue with that?  I also agree with the no spanking that doesn't solve it either.  Keep him on a schedule, make him accountable, take things that mean something to him away.

Here is something my daughters counselor had us do when she was having a real hard time behaving.  We called it Lucy dollars:

Get a large blank poster board

Write down what your child is responsible for: Examples of what we used:  Behave in school, complete homework, clean bedroom, get ready for school, get ready for bed, etc.

Each of these items were valued at a $ amount such as $1 for something that was small and maybe $2 for something more important like behaving in school.

Then on the other side of the page list things they like to do: TV, video games, friends, sleepovers, etc. Put a $ value for each of these things.

Then get some play money to use, and each day they can earn an amount of $$ for their good behavior, because the only way they get to do the fun things is if they have enough to pay for it.  Say for a sleep over which is a big deal it costs $5.00, they will have to have saved and earned that from the other side in order to get it.  It makes them accountable for their actions and teaches them to earn things at the same time.

Answer 6

If your child is acting out to the point where suspension is in order, then he should be suspended. Ignore your psychiatrist, he is just spewing back to you the the modern prejudice that any kind of physical punishment is wrong.

Spank your child and spank them hard (don't injure them, but make it hurt). Fear is the best motivator for behavior modification.

Answer 7

I'm learning about how to deal with the school system myself.  My son does have odd, however.  I've found positive reinforcement works best.  With negative I feel he focuses on what was done TO him instead of thinking about what he had done wrong.  I found this article to be along the lines of what I try to do and plan on doing more research on this method for more ideas.http://www.naturalchild.org/guest/inbal_...

While I may not agree with everything, this type of method seems to work best and I feel you may be able to find at least a part of it useful.

MCC: thanks so much for adding the link, I've learned a lot more than I'd known before.