Initial School Assessment

[blm]

Well, the school have finally done the initial assessment on my son and they called me in to see them today to confirm they have no concerns with him at all and the behaviour I mentioned does not happen at all in school. They are not sure why his behaviour is so different to that outside of school (and neither do I!) but I'm thinking they don't watch him/listen to him and it is easy for his behaviour to get 'lost' in the classroom since he isn't disruptive or angry with the other children. The teacher did say that he has 'meltdowns' where he will cry when he is set a task which he doesn't think he can do but he is a polite, bright pupil who mixes well with his friends and could take instructions on the task set (to use wow words within a story he had to make up - which he had been struggling with) and he looked his partner in the eye/asked her a question. They said that rocking whilst reading/working is common and so is chewing sleeves/twisting hands. Crying / meltdowns is also something which lots of children do apparently and most boys do not have any imagination (or it is considerably less than found in girls) and they haven't had the noise sensitivity in school either. I have been advised to change the way I parent him in that I should remove him from competitive sports which he likes doing (football/kickboxing) and send him to beavers or something where there are no boys he knows so he HAS to mix with children outside of his circle and not to let him give this activity up after a session or two and to keep taking him. She also said that I should reward the good behaviour and ignore the bad and that should see the end to my concerns.

 

I feel a little 'fobbed off' and like a paranoid mother now to be honest. I will try ignoring the bad and praising the good as I'm sure some of the behaviour probs during school hols are attention seeking due to having a very demanding younger sister and I am going to try the same with her too but I am really reluctant to remove him from an activity which he absolutely loves. He watches sky sports news ALL the time and lives/breathes football and cars and to stop this would feel like a punishment to him. This isn't the only place he cries, it's if ANYTHING doesn't go according to the plan in his head, even doing his laces or something similar! I will see what the doctor says as they have my CAST questionnaire now but I kind of know where this is going! Am I the only one who doesn't feel it right to send him to Beavers even if he doesn't want to go! I appreciate what they said in that he will have to go to work one day with people he doesn't know but that's a long way off yet and if he can't communicate with 'new' kids properly then how is he going to make friends. The other problem is that Beavers is on the evening I work so it will be difficult (if not impossible) to get him there because I have to use the car. I will speak with the doctor and see what she says/thinks but feeling a bit deflated tbh!

 

Sorry for the rant!!

[baddad]

Well, the school have finally done the initial assessment on my son and they called me in to see them today to confirm they have no concerns with him at all and the behaviour I mentioned does not happen at all in school. They are not sure why his behaviour is so different to that outside of school (and neither do I!) but I'm thinking they don't watch him/listen to him and it is easy for his behaviour to get 'lost' in the classroom since he isn't disruptive or angry with the other children. The teacher did say that he has 'meltdowns' where he will cry when he is set a task which he doesn't think he can do but he is a polite, bright pupil who mixes well with his friends and could take instructions on the task set (to use wow words within a story he had to make up - which he had been struggling with) and he looked his partner in the eye/asked her a question. They said that rocking whilst reading/working is common and so is chewing sleeves/twisting hands. Crying / meltdowns is also something which lots of children do apparently and most boys do not have any imagination (or it is considerably less than found in girls) and they haven't had the noise sensitivity in school either. I have been advised to change the way I parent him in that I should remove him from competitive sports which he likes doing (football/kickboxing) and send him to beavers or something where there are no boys he knows so he HAS to mix with children outside of his circle and not to let him give this activity up after a session or two and to keep taking him. She also said that I should reward the good behaviour and ignore the bad and that should see the end to my concerns.

 

I feel a little 'fobbed off' and like a paranoid mother now to be honest. I will try ignoring the bad and praising the good as I'm sure some of the behaviour probs during school hols are attention seeking due to having a very demanding younger sister and I am going to try the same with her too but I am really reluctant to remove him from an activity which he absolutely loves. He watches sky sports news ALL the time and lives/breathes football and cars and to stop this would feel like a punishment to him. This isn't the only place he cries, it's if ANYTHING doesn't go according to the plan in his head, even doing his laces or something similar! I will see what the doctor says as they have my CAST questionnaire now but I kind of know where this is going! Am I the only one who doesn't feel it right to send him to Beavers even if he doesn't want to go! I appreciate what they said in that he will have to go to work one day with people he doesn't know but that's a long way off yet and if he can't communicate with 'new' kids properly then how is he going to make friends. The other problem is that Beavers is on the evening I work so it will be difficult (if not impossible) to get him there because I have to use the car. I will speak with the doctor and see what she says/thinks but feeling a bit deflated tbh!

 

Sorry for the rant!!

 

Hi blm - I would try sanctioning the bad and praising the good rather than ignoring the bad. Ignoring the bad takes away at least 50% of your 'parents arsenal' for behaviour management. Plus you'll only get 'good' when he wants something (because there's not deterent from doing bad and no incentive for doing good when he doesn't want something). The most powerful things you have at your disposal for teaching your child right from wrong are the things he cares about. Not taking away the things he likes disempowers you completely. Of course stopping him from doing what he likes doing 'feels like a punishment' - it's meant to be

Catch 22 - if he can't communicate properly how can he make friends? If he isn't given the opportunity to make friends how can he develop the skills to maintain friendships? If you don't help him achieve those things, how can he, a small child, achieve them on his own? If you don't sanction or comment on the 'bad' behaviour how will he know there's an expectation for him not to enact it and a social consequence when he does enact it?

Think of it this way - if you had a puppy that kept crapping indoors would you ignore it? So why ignore a child whose crapping, metaphorically, on the rest of the family?

 

HTH

 

L&P

 

BD

[JsMum]

Hi blm

 

They said that rocking whilst reading/working is common and so is chewing sleeves/twisting hands.

This could also be a sign and symptoms of Anxiety, nerviousness and the rocking could be self stimulation and self reasurance.

 

Absaloutly recommend The Out of Syncs Child book.

 

The teacher did say that he has 'meltdowns' where he will cry when he is set a task which he doesn't think he can do

 

My son has similair difficulties, he has a lot of aviodant behaviours one of the main reason is fear he will fail, he does not like failing, when he was in yr 3 he made mistakes and his work was shown to the rest of the children by the teacher and the teacher scolded out these words to everyone, Everyones work better be better than this, then tossed Js efforts in the bin and told him to do it again, he has Severe Dyslexia and severe literacy impairments since then he is very reluctant to try for fear he will make mistakes.

 

Crying / meltdowns is also something which lots of children do apparently

 

Evidence then that your son is not the only one struggling and how many other parents are been told the same sentence.

 

Behaviour is a form of communication, bad or good, positive or negative, there is a reason.

 

I should remove him from competitive sports which he likes doing (football/kickboxing)

 

I would not stop these just because a TEACHER said so, if he is progressing and taking an active part in the actitivities then that is only positive there will be a lot of positives in his actitives, such as social skills, team building, confidence, self defence, safety about martial arts, disaplin, ect,,, my sons school a special school I add didnt agree my son attending Boxing and Judo, but after a discussion with the Trainers I decided to let my son attend also the added bonus is that your son is active and so not in his room on his consoles and pc. tv. ect... so it will be actually be a big benefit to him.

 

My son lasted one session in beavers as he refused to wear their logo Jumper, it was the rule, even though he had just ran around a hall and sweating his socks off, he did attend another unit for a few months but the unit itself dwindled in numbers probably all gone to kick boxing and football clubs!!!!

 

She also said that I should reward the good behaviour and ignore the bad and that should see the end to my concerns.

 

It is not always safe for the child or others to ignore bad behaviour, often more than not especially in my sons case he doesnt care if its negative or positive attention along as he is getting a reaction, hence he is on sanctions often at school/home and often when a child is rewarded for good behaviour it quickly can change into bad behaviour yet youve just rewarded them.

 

My son is impulsive and unpredictable, can be fine one moment, the next flip.

 

I feel a little 'fobbed off' and like a paranoid mother now to be honest

 

so is your sixth sence telling you something then!

 

I am really reluctant to remove him from an activity which he absolutely loves.

 

Then dont remove him then.

 

This isn't the only place he cries, it's if ANYTHING doesn't go according to the plan in his head, even doing his laces or something similar!

 

Frustration when he cant succeed, control and setting adgenda are to help reduce his anxieties and to have less chance of failing if things are on his terms.

 

Am I the only one who doesn't feel it right to send him to Beavers even if he doesn't want to go!

 

If he doesnt want to go then he shouldnt be made to go, this is in his time after school and an activity that will only be fun if he is motivated and wanting to go.

 

 

It doesnt sound like you got the support you needed with him, the school are dictating how to bring up yur son when your already got him in activities and have concerns about his learning.

 

I would defo see what the Doctor and the assessments come out with, back in the early days with my own son the school tried to imply it was my parenting when infact he has special needs.

 

If it doesnt feel right, its because it isnt! Mothers intuition.

 

What about a private Educational Psychology Assessment?

 

 

I know the deflated, not listened, just blamed feeling, dont dispair, you will get throw this, so keep on logging down your concerns as this will become the past because by heck our kids grow up so fast, though at the time of struggle it doesnt feel like that.

 

If you feel deep down something is just not quite right and he is struggling in school just keep sharing your concerns with the Doctors.

 

JsMumx

Edited June 21, 2011 by JsMum

[coolblue]

Hi blm - I would try sanctioning the bad and praising the good rather than ignoring the bad. Ignoring the bad takes away at least 50% of your 'parents arsenal' for behaviour management. Plus you'll only get 'good' when he wants something (because there's not deterent from doing bad and no incentive for doing good when he doesn't want something). The most powerful things you have at your disposal for teaching your child right from wrong are the things he cares about. Not taking away the things he likes disempowers you completely. Of course stopping him from doing what he likes doing 'feels like a punishment' - it's meant to be

Catch 22 - if he can't communicate properly how can he make friends? If he isn't given the opportunity to make friends how can he develop the skills to maintain friendships? If you don't help him achieve those things, how can he, a small child, achieve them on his own? If you don't sanction or comment on the 'bad' behaviour how will he know there's an expectation for him not to enact it and a social consequence when he does enact it?

Think of it this way - if you had a puppy that kept crapping indoors would you ignore it? So why ignore a child whose crapping, metaphorically, on the rest of the family?

 

 

Just wanted to point out that sanctions are effective only if the person has control over what they are doing and you need to be sure that a child does have control over their behaviour before implementing sanctions. If they cannot control the behaviour, you simply build up resentment.

 

I wouldn't ignore unwanted behaviour, but would train in the behaviour I did want by working on more effective strategies.

 

Ideally, sanctions should take the form of the child living with the outcomes of their behaviour, not the removal of totally unconnected activities that they enjoy, because then the sanction won't make sense.

 

Having said all that, I can't see from the OP's description, that the child is doing anything 'wrong'. Children are neither lab rats nor puppies and even lab rats and puppies have limits to what they can be expected to do, as anyone who has worked with animals will tell you.

[coolblue]

The teacher did say that he has 'meltdowns' where he will cry when he is set a task which he doesn't think he can do but he is a polite, bright pupil who mixes well with his friends and could take instructions on the task set (to use wow words within a story he had to make up - which he had been struggling with) and he looked his partner in the eye/asked her a question. They said that rocking whilst reading/working is common and so is chewing sleeves/twisting hands. Crying / meltdowns is also something which lots of children do apparently and most boys do not have any imagination (or it is considerably less than found in girls) and they haven't had the noise sensitivity in school either.

 

So crying, rocking, chewing sleeves and having meltdowns is 'normal' at school? Hmmm. What does this tell us about the school environment?

 

I have been advised to change the way I parent him in that I should remove him from competitive sports which he likes doing (football/kickboxing) and send him to beavers or something where there are no boys he knows so he HAS to mix with children outside of his circle and not to let him give this activity up after a session or two and to keep taking him.

 

What an extraordinary thing to say! What's the difference between communicating with someone you know and communicating with someone you don't? Very little as far as I can see.

 

She also said that I should reward the good behaviour and ignore the bad and that should see the end to my concerns.

 

I can see why she said this, because she doesn't want to reward the behaviour you don't want by paying attention to it - if he's doing it to get attention, of course. If he's not doing it to get attention, but because he's frustrated by all the things he finds difficult, then a different approach might be required.

 

My son spent five years in school focussing on things he found extremely difficult, because all children are expected to 'keep up' with a standardised national curriculum, so what a child is not good at tends to take priority over what they are good at. By the time we found out he had visual, auditory and balance impairments, which explained why he might have found all those things difficult, his self-esteem was almost non-existent. I would be very cautious about taking away the only things he might be able to do.

 

 

 

Am I the only one who doesn't feel it right to send him to Beavers even if he doesn't want to go!

 

No, you're not. It would be worth encouraging him to try something new, but I would start by occasionally dipping into other activities, like other sports, and increasing it gradually.

 

 

I appreciate what they said in that he will have to go to work one day with people he doesn't know but that's a long way off yet and if he can't communicate with 'new' kids properly then how is he going to make friends.

 

Well, exactly! If I hear another teacher telling me that because my son can't do anything now, he won't be able to do it in the future, I shall be very tempted to ask them about their work experience. Many teachers have never worked outside education and assume that the world of work is like the world of school. It isn't, and thank heaven it isn't. I've been told an 8 year old with complex learning difficulties (known by his school as 'poor motivation') will one day have to go out into the world (spoken in an awestruck tone of voice) and that because he had failed a picture completion test that would somehow scupper his chances of earning an honest crust. Four years later his interests are calculus and astrophysics, so I'm not sure what role the picture completion test had to play.

 

If ever you find yourself in a situation where another professional wants to give you the benefit of their advice, make sure you ask what evidence they have to support it, and if they can give you a couple of examples of other children for whom it's worked.

Edited June 21, 2011 by coolblue

[baddad]

Just wanted to point out that sanctions are effective only if the person has control over what they are doing and you need to be sure that a child does have control over their behaviour before implementing sanctions. If they cannot control the behaviour, you simply build up resentment.

 

Yes, it would be inappropriate to sanction an uncontrollable behaviour (like a tourettes 'tic' for example) but it would be equally inappropriate and more damaging to assume a behaviour was uncontrollable and interpret (i.e.) the fact that children lose their tempers when they get frustrated as something unusual or abnormal about the child and over which they have no control

 

I wouldn't ignore unwanted behaviour, but would train in the behaviour I did want by working on more effective strategies.

 

Quite right!

 

Ideally, sanctions should take the form of the child living with the outcomes of their behaviour, not the removal of totally unconnected activities that they enjoy, because then the sanction won't make sense.

 

Assuming the child has no ability to make sense, you remove the possibility of them developing the skills to do so by removing the imperative for them to do so? I think this is a fundamental comunication skill children can and do make very early on - in fact, any child who displays 'controlling' behaviour (terrible twos) has already grasped it, they just haven't yet grasped that it's a two-way trick, which is where the parent steps in to 'parent'...

Putting that into context:

• 
   
  
• Mum says I can't have a biscuit. I scream for twenty minutes. Mum gives me a biscuit. Screaming for twenty minutes and getting a biscuit are 'unconnected events' which the child has successfully connected to achieve a reward...
  
• Mum says 'stop hitting, or i'll turn off the TV'. I don't stop. Mum turns off the TV. hitting and turning off the TV are 'unconnected events', but if the child is capable of connecting screaming and biscuits he/she is equally capable of connecting hitting and no TV. Any psychologist who tells you differently hasn't read his coursebooks properly.
  

NB: the third scenario is 'I hit. Mum turns of TV. I scream for twenty minutes. Mum turns TV back on and says 'nothing works, supernanny, what can I doooooooooo'...

 

I'm not quite sure how a small child 'lives with the outcomes of their behaviour'(?) If the outcome, is I hit my little brother and he cries or somesuch and the first child enjoys watching his/her little brother cry then 'living with the outcome' is a huge reward and they'll do it all the more. On the other hand, if a child is likely to be socially disenfranchised by a behaviour are you saying it's better to let him/her be socially disenfranchised and work it out for themselves rather than to intervene and 'sanction' - the first taking years and causing all sorts of resentment and self-esteem issues while the latter helpos him/her quickly make sense of the situation?

 

Having said all that, I can't see from the OP's description, that the child is doing anything 'wrong'. Children are neither lab rats nor puppies and even lab rats and puppies have limits to what they can be expected to do, as anyone who has worked with animals will tell you.

 

Neither can I, to be honest, but I'm assuming there's something otherwise the OP wouldn't have posted about her behavioural concerns. No, children aren't lab rats or puppies, so it seems to me completely incomprehensible and completely reprehensible when parents seem unwilling to enable their children to achieve the basic understanding that lab rats and puppies are known to be able to achieve and chose instead to don white coats and conduct their own experiments on them that by and large prove much slower in helping them achieve life-enhancing advances or even completely ineffective in doing so.

 

L&P

 

BD

[baddad]

So crying, rocking, chewing sleeves and having meltdowns is 'normal' at school? Hmmm. What does this tell us about the school environment?

 

 

So crying, rocking, chewing sleeves and having meltodowns is 'normal' at home? Hmmmmm. What does this tell us about the home environment?

Children cry and have meltdowns when they get upset and frustrated and they are likely to get upset and frustrated somethimes at home and at school because children are children and they get upset and frustrated and cry and have meltdowns... they are more likely to have meltdowns and get frustrated at school because school places expectations on them that are not so prevalent at home. If home is very accommodating, with lots of cotton wool wrapping, very few expectations and where frustrations don't occur because every childish whim is indulged that apparant 'difference' between home and school environments will increase exponentially. (I'm not suggesting that's the case either here or in any other indiviual case - it's just a comment on the logic of possible home/school dynamics).

Watch any group of perfectly HAPPY children watching, say, a puppet show or sitting on the floor for a circle time story and you will see plenty of 'rockers' and plenty of 'chewers', along with hair-twiddlers, fidgets, nose pickers, farters, hand putter-upperers, shouter-outers, glasses fiddlers, finger tappers etc etc etc... Hmmmmmm. What does this tell us about parents who interpret perfectly natural behaviours as signs of distress and go looking for distress, or who make different judgements about identical behaviours enacted in different locations purely on the basis of their prejudices regarding the locations?

 

What an extraordinary thing to say! What's the difference between communicating with someone you know and communicating with someone you don't? Very little as far as I can see.

 

Really? Really??

 

One thing on the kickboxing/football... I don't think you should stop him playing football but I do agree that widening the scope of his activities would be beneficial. You haven't mentioned whether your son is aggressive when he has 'meltdowns', but I have always been amazed at the number of parents who think things like competitive combat sports will provide a good 'stress release' for aggressive children. All you are doing is training them in being aggressive more effectively. Yes, there is that old cliche that they 'also learn discipline and self-control' but nine times out of ten it does turn out to be a cliche if the underlying psychology is an aggressive one.

 

L&P

 

BD

[coolblue]

Yes, it would be inappropriate to sanction an uncontrollable behaviour (like a tourettes 'tic' for example) but it would be equally inappropriate and more damaging to assume a behaviour was uncontrollable and interpret (i.e.) the fact that children lose their tempers when they get frustrated as something unusual or abnormal about the child and over which they have no control

 

The problem is that you can't assume a child has or doesn't have control over a behaviour unless you have seen them control it on a number of occasions. And even then the degree of control can vary depending on the circumstances. Even the law makes allowances for provocation.

 

 

Assuming the child has no ability to make sense, you remove the possibility of them developing the skills to do so by removing the imperative for them to do so? I think this is a fundamental comunication skill children can and do make very early on - in fact, any child who displays 'controlling' behaviour (terrible twos) has already grasped it, they just haven't yet grasped that it's a two-way trick, which is where the parent steps in to 'parent'...

Putting that into context:

• 
   
  
• Mum says I can't have a biscuit. I scream for twenty minutes. Mum gives me a biscuit. Screaming for twenty minutes and getting a biscuit are 'unconnected events' which the child has successfully connected to achieve a reward...
  
• Mum says 'stop hitting, or i'll turn off the TV'. I don't stop. Mum turns off the TV. hitting and turning off the TV are 'unconnected events', but if the child is capable of connecting screaming and biscuits he/she is equally capable of connecting hitting and no TV. Any psychologist who tells you differently hasn't read his coursebooks properly.
  

NB: the third scenario is 'I hit. Mum turns of TV. I scream for twenty minutes. Mum turns TV back on and says 'nothing works, supernanny, what can I doooooooooo'...

 

We're talking about two different issues here. One is the child's ability to control a behaviour. The other is the is the relationship between a stimulus and a response. Although very primitive organisms can learn stimulus-response patterns, they don't learn anything useful unless the stimulus-response pattern is pretty consistent. Also, although a toddler is able to learn more complex stimulus-response patterns than a lab rat or a puppy, the ability to make associations and to control behaviour develops over time and takes longer to develop in some children than others. We wouldn't expect a 6 month-old baby to be able to stop itself having a temper tantrum if mum said no to a biscuit, but we might expect a three year-old to be able to do so.

 

So... in the screaming and biscuit scenario, the screaming and the biscuit have a causal relationship for the baby or toddler. The baby or toddler wants a biscuit, mum says no, the child screams. But a child would only use screaming as a 'controlling behaviour' if s/he had learned that it got results. If screaming isn't rewarded by anything, the kid will soon learn that screaming is a waste of effort. In a young baby, screaming is simply a response to frustration. In a two year-old it could be a response to frustration that they can control. It would be pretty counterproductive to give the biscuit as a 'reward' for stopping screaming, because, as you point out, the child then associates screaming with a reward.

 

However, in the hitting and tv scenario, the hitting has no direct connection with the tv. The toddler isn't hitting anyone because of the tv, and turning off the tv isn't a direct consequence of hitting. What would make more sense (assuming we discount corporal punishment) would be to put the kid out of the room - ie away from the person they were hitting.

 

I'm not quite sure how a small child 'lives with the outcomes of their behaviour'(?) If the outcome, is I hit my little brother and he cries or somesuch and the first child enjoys watching his/her little brother cry then 'living with the outcome' is a huge reward and they'll do it all the more. On the other hand, if a child is likely to be socially disenfranchised by a behaviour are you saying it's better to let him/her be socially disenfranchised and work it out for themselves rather than to intervene and 'sanction' - the first taking years and causing all sorts of resentment and self-esteem issues while the latter helpos him/her quickly make sense of the situation?

 

See hitting and tv scenario above. A sanction that is meaningfully connected with the behaviour is far more likely to be effective than one that isn't. Even a toddler would be able to see the logic of 'you must not hurt your little brother - if you do that I will put you outside the room' and they would be deprived of the pleasure of watching the younger sibling wail. If, however, the consequence was the tv going off or not going to the park, there's no direct connection and the risk is that the kid will see punishment as fickle and arbitrary unpleasant behaviour on the part of an adult. Not a good behaviour to model.

 

 

 

Neither can I, to be honest, but I'm assuming there's something otherwise the OP wouldn't have posted about her behavioural concerns. No, children aren't lab rats or puppies, so it seems to me completely incomprehensible and completely reprehensible when parents seem unwilling to enable their children to achieve the basic understanding that lab rats and puppies are known to be able to achieve and chose instead to don white coats and conduct their own experiments on them that by and large prove much slower in helping them achieve life-enhancing advances or even completely ineffective in doing so.

 

L&P

 

BD

 

I quite agree, but it's often difficult to untangle why a child is behaving in a certain way and what to do about it. As a child I would have been pretty miffed (and mystified) if my parents had arbitrarily decided to stop me going swimming and send me to Brownies instead because I cried a lot about things I couldn't do. More support with the things I couldn't do might be more appropriate.

Edited June 21, 2011 by coolblue

[baddad]

The problem is that you can't assume a child has or doesn't have control over a behaviour unless you have seen them control it on a number of occasions. And even then the degree of control can vary depending on the circumstances. Even the law makes allowances for provocation.

 

No. You should assume they have the ability to learn to control it and work to them achieving that control. A toddler doesn't need to understand 'No, don't climb up there you might fall and hurt yourself' he /she only needs to understand 'no' - the wider understanding comes later. In your example you're saying the appropriate response would be to let the child climb and fall until he/she was able to develop the wider understanding by himself, or, to put it another way, that if a toddler enacts a 'bad' behaviour you don't bother trying to teach it not to because it's incapable of not doing it. Simple chicken and egg...

 

 

 

We're talking about two different issues here. One is the child's ability to control a behaviour. The other is the is the relationship between a stimulus and a response. Although very primitive organisms can learn stimulus-response patterns, they don't learn anything useful unless the stimulus-response pattern is pretty consistent. Also, although a toddler is able to learn more complex stimulus-response patterns than a lab rat or a puppy, the ability to make associations and to control behaviour develops over time and takes longer to develop in some children than others. We wouldn't expect a 6 month-old baby to be able to stop itself having a temper tantrum if mum said no to a biscuit, but we might expect a three year-old to be able to do so.

 

No, you are talking about a different mechanism... I'm assuming the child does have 'theory of mind'... you seem to equate HFA with the level of functioning of a six month old baby rather than a toddler. I have never seen any medical evidence to suggest such a wide level of dysfunction in HFA AS children or even those with mild learning disabilities. The standard 'dolly' test suggests all but the most severely compromised of children will have achieved this level of TOM by the age of six.

 

So... in the screaming and biscuit scenario, the screaming and the biscuit have a causal relationship for the baby or toddler. The baby or toddler wants a biscuit, mum says no, the child screams. But a child would only use screaming as a 'controlling behaviour' if s/he had learned that it got results. If screaming isn't rewarded by anything, the kid will soon learn that screaming is a waste of effort. In a young baby, screaming is simply a response to frustration. In a two year-old it could be a response to frustration that they can control. It would be pretty counterproductive to give the biscuit as a 'reward' for stopping screaming, because, as you point out, the child then associates screaming with a reward.

 

Yes, in a young baby screaming is a response to frustration. It becomes a 'controlling' behaviour when they have theory of mind - as absolutely demonstrated by the child in the OP who has enough theory of mind to work out that behaving one way in one environment and another way in another enviroment for it to achieve different results for him.

 

However, in the hitting and tv scenario, the hitting has no direct connection with the tv. The toddler isn't hitting anyone because of the tv, and turning off the tv isn't a direct consequence of hitting.

 

the association is one the child is capable of making assuming a BASIC level of TOM, which all evidence suggest he has.

 

What would make more sense (assuming we discount corporal punishment) would be to put the kid out of the room - ie away from the person they were hitting.

Totally agree - bad example on my part, and why should the other child suffer by having the TV switched off too! That said, however, neither of us are talking about 'ignoring' the behaviour as the OP suggests she would, and in general terms I'd suspect that a parent who was reluctant to sanction a child by turning off the TV or restricting access to favourite toys would be even more reluctant to consistently and appropriately sanctioning a child with nasty ol' super-nanny's 'naughty step'...

 

 

See hitting and tv scenario above. A sanction that is meaningfully connected with the behaviour is far more likely to be effective than one that isn't. Even a toddler would be able to see the logic of 'you must not hurt your little brother - if you do that I will put you outside the room' and they would be deprived of the pleasure of watching the younger sibling wail. If, however, the consequence was the tv going off or not going to the park, there's no direct connection and the risk is that the kid will see punishment as fickle and arbitrary unpleasant behaviour on the part of an adult. Not a good behaviour to model

.

 

We disagree again - I think you underestimate the capacity for children to understand cause and effect hugely - even 'toddlers'. In fact, that's exactly why the terrible twos are called the terrible twos - because it is precisely the stage of development where they do start to develop theory of mind and to exert that control over other people. I think you hugely over-estimate 'the risk', and there is a wider problem that people often misinterpret your over-estimation of the risk as 'ignore the bad and reward the good', and that's defintely not a good behaviour to model. You've also completely overlooked the fact that by hitting the other child the first child has acheived the undivided attention of the adult: you've just rewarded the hitting. A negative reinforcer fo' sure, but a reinforcer none the less. And the longer they fight agin the naughty step the more attention they get - not an issue if the naughty step is seen to it's conclusion, but if mum gives up halfway through a double reward for the hitter. If I was the disenfranchised, overlooked sibling being hit, why I guess I might decide to start doing a bit of hitting or something equally unacceptable myself, 'cos I've got nothing to lose and everything to gain...

 

L&P

 

BD

Edited June 21, 2011 by baddad

[coolblue]

No. You should assume they have the ability to learn to control it and work to them achieving that control. A toddler doesn't need to understand 'No, don't climb up there you might fall and hurt yourself' he /she only needs to understand 'no' - the wider understanding comes later. In your example you're saying the appropriate response would be to let the child climb and fall until he/she was able to develop the wider understanding by himself, or, to put it another way, that if a toddler enacts a 'bad' behaviour you don't bother trying to teach it not to because it's incapable of not doing it. Simple chicken and egg...

 

What? I haven't said any of those things. You didn't mention 'saying no', you talked about turning the tv off if the child hit a younger sibling. I was pointing out that the toddler might not see a connection.

 

 

 

No, you are talking about a different mechanism... I'm assuming the child does have 'theory of mind'... you seem to equate HFA with the level of functioning of a six month old baby rather than a toddler. I have never seen any medical evidence to suggest such a wide level of dysfunction in HFA AS children or even those with mild learning disabilities. The standard 'dolly' test suggests all but the most severely compromised of children will have achieved this level of TOM by the age of six.

 

Sorry to disagree, but what the evidence shows is that TOM develops at different rates in different children. Children with impaired hearing don't develop it until later. TOM is a highly complex construct that is quite difficult to define. And which version of the 'dolly' test you use to measure it is pretty important.

 

Yes, in a young baby screaming is a response to frustration. It becomes a 'controlling' behaviour when they have theory of mind - as absolutely demonstrated by the child in the OP who has enough theory of mind to work out that behaving one way in one environment and another way in another enviroment for it to achieve different results for him.

 

How on earth can you assume he is doing it 'to achieve results'? People respond in different ways to different environments. Both my children chewed their sleeves when they were younger, but interestingly, it was only the sleeves of one particular school uniform that got chewed. They didn't chew their cuffs 'to achieve results' as far as I could tell. I couldn't help concluding that the school environment might be a factor.

 

 

 

the association is one the child is capable of making assuming a BASIC level of TOM, which all evidence suggest he has.

 

I would question the usefulness of the concept of TOM - it's too tied up with other frontal lobe functions, and as far as I know, no one has been able to isolate it from them. I remember one researcher studying inhibition in chimps saying that if he (the researcher) dropped something and couldn't reach it, the chimps would often pick it up and hand it to him, suggesting some element of TOM. But, as he said, 'if you dropped a banana, forget it!'

 

 

Totally agree - bad example on my part, and why should the other child suffer by having the TV switched off too! That said, however, neither of us are talking about 'ignoring' the behaviour as the OP suggests she would, and in general terms I'd suspect that a parent who was reluctant to sanction a child by turning off the TV or restricting access to favourite toys would be even more reluctant to consistently and appropriately sanctioning a child with nasty ol' super-nanny's 'naughty step'...

 

Which parent are we talking about? Ignoring the behaviour was what the OP was advised to do by the teacher.

 

 

.

 

We disagree again - I think you underestimate the capacity for children to understand cause and effect hugely - even 'toddlers'.

 

No I don't. What I am aware of is how much the development of children varies. The ones I've brought up and taught and the ones investigated by researchers. Very difficult to generalise.

 

In fact, that's exactly why the terrible twos are called the terrible twos - because it is precisely the stage of development where they do start to develop theory of mind and to exert that control over other people.

No they are called the 'terrible twos' because they do what you said and they are still struggling with behaviour inhibition.

 

 

I think you hugely over-estimate 'the risk', and there is a wider problem that people often misinterpret your over-estimation of the risk as 'ignore the bad and reward the good', and that's defintely not a good behaviour to model. You've also completely overlooked the fact that by hitting the other child the first child has acheived the undivided attention of the adult: you've just rewarded the hitting. A negative reinforcer fo' sure, but a reinforcer none the less. And the longer they fight agin the naughty step the more attention they get - not an issue if the naughty step is seen to it's conclusion, but if mum gives up halfway through a double reward for the hitter. If I was the disenfranchised, overlooked sibling being hit, why I guess I might decide to start doing a bit of hitting or something equally unacceptable myself, 'cos I've got nothing to lose and everything to gain...

 

So do you ignore the bad behaviour or not?

 

cb

[baddad]

Sigh... Yes, theory of mind develops in different children at different ages... Have I said anything different?

 

I really can't be bothered to chase this round and round anymore because you just keep coming back to the same points and ignoring anything that doesn't fit those points... You don't offer a constructive argument, you just jump back to the top of the page whenever you run out of corners to paint yourself into.

 

In the simplest terms, take any HFA autistic child and within twenty minutes you'd see controlling behaviours and theory of mind - just like those gorillas and dropped bananas (How the man in the white coat interpreted that behaviour as anything other than TOM is completely beyond me Must have been confusing TOM with something else entirely (selflessness, maybe - something that's debatable even in the higher apes like you and me?)) unless, of course, you were going out of your way to not see them.

 

L&P

 

BD

 

Oh - as for your last question - the only one that's not entirely part of the round robin game - No you don't ignore it. You sanction it in a meaningful way that isn't a reward or negative reinforcer.

Edited June 21, 2011 by baddad

[coolblue]

Sigh... Yes, theory of mind develops in different children at different ages... Have I said anything different?

 

Yes, it was: 'The standard 'dolly' test suggests all but the most severely compromised of children will have achieved this level of TOM by the age of six.'

 

I really can't be bothered to chase this round and round anymore because you just keep coming back to the same points and ignoring anything that doesn't fit those points... You don't offer a constructive argument, you just jump back to the top of the page whenever you run out of corners to paint yourself into.

 

Oh. I thought I was trying to explain how I think rewards and sanctions should be approached.

 

In the simplest terms, take any HFA autistic child and within twenty minutes you'd see controlling behaviours and theory of mind - just like those gorillas and dropped bananas (How the man in the white coat interpreted that behaviour as anything other than TOM is completely beyond me Must have been confusing TOM with something else entirely (selflessness, maybe - something that's debatable even in the higher apes like you and me?)) unless, of course, you were going out of your way to not see them.

 

He did interpret it as TOM baddad! He was pointing out that response inhibition went out of the window in the presence of bananas. Just as it can go out of the window in some circumstances with HFA children.

 

 

 

Oh - as for your last question - the only one that's not entirely part of the round robin game - No you don't ignore it. You sanction it in a meaningful way that isn't a reward or negative reinforcer.

 

I know you don't want to continue this discussion but I'm not clear how a sanction can not be a negative reinforcer