Boundaries, Discipline and Behaviour Navigating the complex landscape of child discipline and behaviour management is a challenge faced by parents, educators, and caregivers alike. Ever since started teaching and then even more so when I had children this question has been asked in some form “Should we rely on punishments and sanctions to teach children … Read more
Understanding the Cycle of Challenging Behaviour: A Guide for Teachers As teachers, we often encounter a range of behaviours in our classrooms, some of which can be challenging and disruptive. Understanding the cycle of challenging behaviour is crucial in managing these behaviours effectively and providing supportive learning environments for all students. This understanding can help … Read more
Table of Contents Understanding Low Arousal Environments Before we dive into the specifics, it’s important to define what we mean by a “low arousal environment.” At its core, such an environment minimises sensory, cognitive, and emotional overstimulation. This can be achieved through a variety of methods, including controlling physical elements like light and sound, managing … Read more
Lessons on Relationships, Connection and Supporting Behaviour This post is based on the book The Art of Kid Whispering by Jamie Chambers. Most address outward behavior in conflicted youth. To help, grasp their inner thoughts, feelings. This book aids counselors, parents, teachers, and youth workers connecting with challenging young people. Authors explain “Kid Whispering” and … Read more
Attention-Seeking Behaviour or Connection Seeking? When it comes to understanding the social and emotional development of young children, attachment theory has long been a cornerstone of both research and practice. Developed by British psychologist John Bowlby in the mid-20th century, the theory posits that the quality of the early relationships between children and their primary … Read more
All children tend to display oppositional behaviour at times. After 13 years working with children with Autism, ADHD, ODD and other needs I have seen a range of reasons for opposition. With my own children I can identify factors that can lead to oppositional behaviour. This doesn’t make it easier to deal with, and often … Read more
Trauma-Informed Behaviour Management in Schools To give you context as to my potential bias in choosing and responding to these questions I am a special education teacher. This means I have a huge amount of flexibility and support when supporting children with a range of additional needs. I do not generally support reward or sanction … Read more
This post on sensory processing was inspired by a talk I attended by Olga Bogdishana. You can find the slides from her presentation on “Making sense of Sensory Needs and Challenging Behaviour” here. She has also written this book which gives a deeper insight into sensory perceptual issues. Sensory processing is a key part of … Read more
Over 30 suggested strategies for effective behaviour management. #Education #Teaching.
Recognising your own emotions and identifying effective strategies for managing these is a key skill for any child.
This is blog post is primarily school-based and SEND focused, but can any education or care setting that strives to be truly inclusive should be able to use this as an environmental and relational approach based checklist or simple inclusion audit tool. Before you start looking at strategies or labeling a child’s actions as challenging … Read more
These books are only those I have read and can recommend. They all follow an inclusive and positive support ethos. They all also focus on the only part of behaviour support we can control – ourselves. If your school has a zero tolerance behaviour policy read these and make it your mission to get that rewritten.I will get around to doing a second post but I need to get reading first!
This post will outline the role relationships play in behaviour support, I will also outline some of the research led practices I have used. Before I start I do want to say that I have read studies I do not agree with. I also know that a huge number of studies conducted ON Autistic children/adults focus on strategies intended to normalise social behaviours which is a huge ethical issue. Fortunately I have had the opportunity to listen to and discuss elements of my practice with actually Autistic academics and practitioners. This has greatly shaped my approach and ethos towards behaviour support, I will also admit this has slanted my view of a lot of studies that remove the human element from behaviour and reduce the children to purely objects to study. To this end I fully expect some of the approaches in the post and the presentation to be a bit controversial and I am 100% sure that at least some of them will contravene your school (or center’s) behaviour policy.
Internal Antecedents: Does Behaviour Really Come “Out of the Blue?” Often overlooked, internal antecedents are an important element in behaviour support. This article is based on my experiences working with Autistic children who also communicate in ways we find challenging. We do our best to find patterns, clues and reasons for episodes of challenging behaviour. … Read more
These are 10 simple ways to prevent challenging behaviour escalation by making small changes to your interactions. In our PBS training, these are called active interventions. In reality, there are thousands of these, the better you know the child the more adept you will become at identifying the most effective strategies in your teacher’s toolkit … Read more
Every day teachers, parents and carers are faced with potentially challenging situations. Many of these are defused through skillful behaviour support. These successful resolutions will have certain common characteristics. There are some essential conditions that must exist to deescalate an incident of challenging behaviour.
Social stories are a tried and tested way of teaching social skills but for some learners they are too much. I needed a way to remind a student of the rules but in a way that didn’t single them out as being the focus of the story. Some people will say this won’t work as autistic children can’t generalise…. but anyone who has worked with autism knows a lot of what people say is actually a myth or just does not apply to an individual.
Improved Communication Through Alternative Behaviours Many young people I have taught have found efficient and effective ways of communicating a need or a want at some point in the past. That then becomes their primary way of communicating. Unfortunately, as they grow and develop into young adults, this communicative behavior becomes a barrier to so … Read more
I was honoured to be asked to host #behaviourchat on the 23rd May 2016 discussing ways to manage our emotions at work with a particular focus on behaviour.
Tips for managing your emotions. Challenging Behaviour: Managing The Emotional Impact on Yourself Part of my current role involves training the new PBS instructors for the county special schools. This is a great opportunity to ensure a consistent approach and ethos towards challenging behaviour between schools. It is also a chance to collaborate and learn … Read more
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