Malika, you said,
also backfire with J often saying the same kind of thing to me "If you don'r give me that cake, I'm not going to school!", which kind of shows the childish baseness of the technique really.
It's not so much that there is a childish nature of that method, but that J is learning by modelling his behaviour on those around him. You are having more difficulty, because school is still very punitive. But persist as best you can because these kids also learn to dish back to different people, what those people dish out to them. So if you use the collaborative methods more, he will learn that WITH YOU, this is what works. It is how HE gets what he wants from YOU. Of course this is immature and egocentric, but that is how kids start out. Over time, we try to help them learn empathy and cooperation But think about it - think about the adults around you, think about yourself. We are all, even as adults, motivated to some extent by "what does this situation give me?"
The ability to learn empathy is supposed to be built in to each of us, but for kids with social skills issues, they need extra help. It does not always come automatically, plus all of us individually have to constantly be vigilant against personal selfishness. How much more do our difficult children need this help?
We help them by demonstrating in our behaviour, what we want from their behaviour. So if you want to teach your child to show respect, you first have to show respect to your child, even if he doesn't deserve it. I first began to learn this through observing difficult child 3's teachers at his current school - they often have to deal with problem kids, and I saw them NOT lash back at verbally abusive kids but instead, respond to them as if these kids had just said something constructive. difficult child 3's is a correspondence placement but they do have occasional optional face to face lessons. One day I made particular note - about half the class was made of of kids from a behaviour placement school; these were reform school kids (or similar). At this sort of placement, te kids often develop worse behaviours because sheer bravado carries them through often challenging and complex social interactions with other kids there. So a teacher was demonstrating some basic principles of heat conduction in Physics. He asked the class, "Why does this happen?"
One of the boys interjected rudely with some smart-alec comment which in most other schools would have had the kid sent to the principal's office. But this teacher was able to extract from the smart remark, the grain of truth he needed to say, "Yes! Roughly put, but you are close to the mark. Could you take this a little further, perhaps?"
It took the wind out of the sails of the boy trying to be rude, to not only be met with politeness in return, but praise for actually having said something that was correct, at least in part. Another example - a teacher demonstrating a reduction in air pressure, and a rude kid saying, "It sucks!" and the teacher saying, "It seems like that, but suction actually is a reduction in air pressure. But succinctly put!"
These teachers ignore the rudeness and deal with the relevant content. What this teaches - it teaches the kids that the bravado of rudeness is not needed, and is pointless. it also teaches them that their contribution IS of value after all, and they learn to stop and think before they speak (if only, initially, to prevent a teacher using what they say to the class advantage!)
I generally sit in on these classes as a support for difficult child 3, and it has taught me a lot about how to handle him myself. I don't know if these teachers are specially, deliberately trained in CPS, but they certainly know how to handle a wide range of problem kids, including the Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) ones who are simply socially reticent. This is an interesting school in terms of the range of needs of the students. There are still a lot of PCs here too - this is the school they use, for example, if they are actors or sporting stars. There is one performing arts school that is connected to difficult child 3's school for academic content. These performing kids turn up literally turning cartwheels through the playground sometimes, and the classes can be lively indeed. The teachers have to referee the interactions between these kids and the behaviour kids, it can get heated because sometimes the behaviour kids see the performing arts kids as privileged and "up themselves". Again - very careful management ensures no conflict. Even to the point of excluding kids from study days who choose to cause trouble with other kids.
I learn a lot by watching how others do it. And I'm pretty much a easy child. So how much more are our children going to learn from watching and following our examples?
Marg
