Recently, I attended a course hosted by Compass Seminars entitled Distressed or Deliberately Defiant? Dr Judith Howard presented her information from a research, neurobiological and personal perspective which was powerful and at times profound.
The focus was on children who have suffered significant, chronic trauma that has caused neurological pathway differences due to an interruption in normal attachment development.
The course started with an introduction to the basics of neurobiology and attachment theory to ensure we had a starting point for the discussion that would follow. This was also recommended as the approach to take if sharing the course information with colleagues, for if we don’t know what we are dealing with, then we will struggle with implementation.
The basics of this fit well with the Magic Brain by Glenn Capelli and the glitter jar concept that I have been working on lately with my class (with the exception that breathing is often not a good first strategy for these particular young people because they can’t quite control that in the heat of the moment).
Neurologically, the big message was: when these kids react, we are not dealing with someone choosing to behave badly; we are dealing with a brain stem and some dysfunctional pathways. In that beginning moment, there isn’t reasoning, the cerebral cortex is offline because the brain stem is running the show!
Behaviour management at this time is about helping these kids find a safe place to calm down and supporting them to regulate first. When we are stressed, we have two neurotransmitters functioning – explosive adrenalin which spikes and abates, and then the slower to rise and slower to drop cortisol. Often we go in to talk with the child about the ‘poor behaviour’ when the adrenalin has dropped off but the cortisol is still rising, and so the child then reacts again as they have not regulated properly yet.
Long term we are actually performing external brain surgery… we are aiming to rewire the brain, building strong positive pathways where there are only weak ones, if any at all. The strategy discussed at the seminar is quite similar to the one outlined in this blog post http://www.thedistractedmom.com/why-punishments- dont-work/ which is in alignment with strategies shared by Judith.
In addition to the strategy already discussed, some other management aspects are:
• Ensure that the child has a mentor (not the classroom teacher)
• Have a team that work together around the child
• Know that it is OK for you to have a bad day as a teacher; it is OK for you to ask for help
• School policy needs to reflect that common practice behaviour management strategies may work for the majority but that for some, the strategies we employ need to flexible so we can best meet the needs of the children concerned
• These kids will test your love and care, they don’t trust easily… they will push back… they will not make it easy, but if they are giving you a hard time it is possible that this is actually a complement in a strange way; they think you are worth it to test the relationship
• Reframing your own internal dialogue when working with these ‘tough’ kids is a really helpful, mentally healthy strategy.
The thing we need to come back to is that the science is there and as Judith stated emphatically, we cannot afford to ignore it… the science can and should be informing our practice. What works for 80% of our kids is great, but we need to ensure that we do what we can to support the other 20% in ways that work for them.
Part Two, which will appear in Issue 31 of Teachers Matter, will outline some practical ideas for the classroom.