When Discipline Hasn't Worked: Finding Competence

I was at a team meeting about a eight year old boy in our school. This is a boy who has been referred for support or crisis services over 430 times in the past two years. His behavior ranges from excessive activity level to severe oppositional defiance and disruption. Specifically he yells endlessly, throws objects, runs from class, engages in name calling, and refuses to engage in school work. Even when all demands are removed these behaviors have emerged.

He is also a boy who has rather poor hygiene and is relatively uncoordinated. His intellegence is very low average. Language skill deficits exist as well as a language processing problems. Pscyho-social development is severely delayed and he could be seen as having a reactive-attachment disorder of infancy.

With all of the skill deficits socially, behaviorally, and language based it is hard to search for areas of competence. But talking about what he can't do surely isn't helpful.

In order to maintain such a student in a school environment it requires massive energy and coordination of services. Even with a 1:1 assistant, counseling, crisis support services, speech and language services, and grossly relaxed demands it is a major challenge. In fact, there are times when I question whether it is the best way.

But while we have students who are so involved we have to find areas of competence to work with. It's imperative. For our student described above we described "play" as his most significant area of competence. The good news is that a lot of learning can happen within play if done right. The bad news is that this student doesn't play so well with other children so most of this happends with a support adult.

By finding areas of competence for children we can engage and hopefully expand their skills and abilities, and maybe even their interests. I guess the point is when normal discipline or even behavior therapy seems inadequate, it can help to try re-examining strengths and areas of competence no matter how tiny they are.