On seeing through behaviors

Malika

Well-Known Member
I do find this guy very good

On Seeing Through Behaviors


We had a birthday party and all of the kids from our Post Treatment Home came over, about seven total. We had gathered seven of Virginia's "most difficult, hard to place" children for a birthday party! Every one of those kids had either come from an out-of-state residential treatment placement or an in-state residential placement. And you should have seen the time they had: music blaring, laughter, jokes, dancing--it was great. There was not a single negative occurrence the entire evening. Could there have been? There could have been complete and utter hell, but there was not.
I have found that most of the social services agencies are terrified by them. All they typically know about these kids is what gets reported to them by referring agencies who are also terrified by them, so you can imagine what that reporting looks like. When the only thing you see about an individual is negative behaviors, then you make a judgment, that he is out of control, scary, and needs to learn how to act appropriately. The biggest mistake you can make is making a snap judgment. How can anyone who does not spend an inordinate amount of time with a child make an accurate assessment of his character? In a residential treatment center, a clinical director only knows the children through the accounts of senior staff, who only know the child from, at best, a solid two to three hours of involvement during the course of the week while in the midst of eight to twenty other children. Yet the clinical director signs off on all treatment plans. The therapist knows the child by, at best, two hours a week of sitting in an office. Yet the therapist makes the diagnosis and writes the treatment plan. The treatment plan and progress, or lack thereof, is sent to the caseworker who, at best, may interact with the child for one quality hour a month. From such snapshots, forlorn conclusions that define children's lives are created.
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A young man in our care recently had charges pressed against him by a staff person from his school because our young man struck him. Now hearing that, you just made a judgment that our kiddo must have been out of control, obviously has to be a big and imposing figure, and was most likely bullying the poor little staff person. The truth is that our kid was cornered by two grown men, had a rubber ruler jerked from his hands, and then tried to run. Because he was cornered and weighed 120lbs soaking wet and a very imposing 5'5" tall, he struck the grown man in the process. The two men commenced to taking him to the ground face down until our guy decided to give up. I can just imagine the conversation. "Oh, you should press charges. He is going to have to learn to respect authority." Phooey! In nearly a year of care this young man hasn't struck a single staff or fellow resident; when he was at the POST Academy he was the first one to school every morning, and the incidents so minor they are laughable. By comparison, he has yet to have a two consistently positive days at this school and rightly refuses to go. In fact, he is willing to suffer much greater consequences for not doing so. My opinion and stance will be if this jerk of an adult has my kid hauled into court, I will encourage counter charges against him, and the charge will be child abuse!

So why and how did our party go so well? There were no cops, no rigid staff, no rules to speak of other than be nice and have a good time, the ratio of child to adult was about one to three with a few others passing through to wish the birthday girl well. Because when a child comes into our care we work backwards. We see the child first as a human being, too young to be victimized as he has been. Looking first at his level of stress sensitivity and fear-full-ness, helping him feel safe at a core level, and then systematically, routinely, and consistently helping him work through his fear, mistrust, and negative behaviors to learn how to feel secure in relationship, loved, trusting, and expressive of his feelings without the need to act them out negatively. First and foremost we do this by modeling to children compassion, understanding, flexibility, forgiveness, acceptance, love, and responsibility. That's what we do, that's what works, and, boy, does it work on a deep level.

How long will it take for adults to realize that children cannot and do not learn by our being rigid, harsh, reactive, and consequential? I have a very, very, very simple and profound belief, "If something you are doing doesn't work, then doing it over and over won't be any better!"

Final word, it's not the behavior.





Always Choose Love,
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