School issues....after doing so well

[Mandy]

Little Bear had a meltdown....

Last Wed. the Asst Principal walks Little Bear out to my car. He says he didnt want to pack up to go but made good choices and eventually got with the program. Then on Thurs. I am asked to come inside where I find Little Bear in a TOTAL meltdown. We get him down to the office and we have to hold him for abt. 20 min because he was kicking, hitting, trying to bite etc. Finally he calms and of course snaps into a total cordial, happy state.

Needless to say, he got suspended for 1 day. The Asst. principal called around and put in the request for the Functional Behavioral Assessment but tom morning I have to go in for a behavior intervention plan before he starts class.

I know that his issues are always happening at the end of the day and his blow-up occured over his stamp on his behavior calander. The Asst. principal says he was heading downhill at that point but the behavioral calander probably put him over the edge.

I am hoping somebody has some advice on what to do. I was doing positive reinforcement with him such as ~ If he had a good day and got a stamp, we did something fun. Well he was melting down because he wanted the reward so much that when they said he didn't get his stamp he freaked out.

I am thinking of not making the behavioral calander as much as a focus but then what can I do to keep his behavior in check??

They are in the middle of his multi. evaluation. and are trying to speed up the process. Technically they have until Oct. 9th but it seems so far away!!

 

[smallworld]

The behavior calendar may be putting too much pressure on your difficult child. I'm thinking it's too much for a 5-year-old to hold it together all day to get one stamp. Even high schoolers on a behavior plan get checkmarks for good behavior every period of the day. Is there any way of breaking his day down so he has many opportunities to earn stamps throughout the school day. That way if he has one bad time period he still has a chance to make it up later in the day.

 

[totoro]

My daughter has never responded well to reward charts stickers etc.
It is too hard for her to see the future benefits of it and be able to see the- if I hold it together for this long then I get this...
Also for kids who have issues like ours, especially if they are unstable or young or just unable to understand concepts like this fully, they will not do well at all.

We don't really believe in punishment at this point in time. But we believe in positive reinforcement and taking time to think about things.
She must understand why she did things and be able to communicate this.
Instead of charts etc, we will have a calendar that we keep track of something just to let her know how she is doing.
Then, for example if she had a good day we let her know how proud we are of her for trying so hard and that we realize how hard it is for her. So we may get her a book she wants or a treat etc.
We also will show her on the chart randomly how well she has been doing and then tell her we can go to the store and she can pick something out. We do this for her Kumon studies.

For us random works much better. We also just dole out the positive comments all of the time even if she isn't having a great day, even if it is for a tiny thing.
Out kids really need this, they tend to have low self esteem.
I am surprised they would suspend a 5yo? The School should be able to handle a kid like this.

 

[Mandy]

Thanks so much for your responses!!

Our meeting went well and the Asst Principal we did end up going to a Behavior Chart in 10min increments (thanks Smallworld)!! If he gets 15 smily's a day then he gets a reward, but we explained that someday's he might not get a reward but it's ok. We will just work at it harder the next day. We also implemented a "safe place" for him to go to in class if he is getting overwhelmed.

They had a meeting Friday w the Sp Ed teacher also and came up with some more good idea's to implement furthur down the road. Which is great so he doesnt get overwhelmed with too many changes at once.

The best thing was the School psychiatric was already in there to start his evaluation. even though normally she is only there on Tuesday's!! It's really good that the Asst. Principal is being so helpful to get it done. This was the first time I have felt like someone was willing to help us!!

I also try to give Little Bear A LOT of praise because he craves it and is much more cooperative.

I really think they suspended him to give themselves time to plan ahead. Which I hope is the last time that ever happens