TheApple

Great ideas! I am happy reading the articles and I learn more on how to deal with students' behavioral problems.
But I'm not sure these can be applied in our classroom setting with 65 maximum number of students . . I will try these ways for the next school year if it works in our classroom setting here in the Philippines.

I hear your frustration loud and clear bpierpont. And my thoughts are probably not unique, but I'll offer them anyway. I've spent most of the last 20 years working with people who exhibit exactly the kind of behavioral difficulty that you're describing. I wish there was a magic bullet that I could offer you to get this kid under control and minimize his impact on the other students in your class. Unfortunately, it doesn't exist. I can only give you some very base-level ideas to think about, and perhaps they'll trigger something for you. Tell us what your relationship with this student looks and feels like. Do you dread it when he comes into the classroom every day (and I wouldn't blame you if you did!)? How do you think this student feels about you? Now before anybody starts yelling "Oh, so it's back to being the teacher's fault," that's not what I'm suggesting at all. With kids like this, the first step is realizing and accepting that there is NOTHING you can do to change this kids behavior in the short term. You can only deal with the things that are actually within your control-and the tone of your relationship with the student is up to you to create, monitor and adjust as you move forward. Answer this question honestly: What is your relationship with the student like from his perspective? If it's not so positive, is there anything you can do to change it? It's a long-term approach that you have to focus on. Your administration likely isn't going to pull this kid out of your class any time soon, so you may have to focus on what you can do without outside support. My experience has been that the only way to successfully deal with these situations is to recognize that you CAN'T control the student, so you might as well do everything you can to minimize their negative impact on others-and you can do that by focusing on increasing the quality of your relationship with them. The theory-and God, I wished it worked in practice all the time, is that the stronger your relationship, the more likely the student is to engage in positive and pro-social means of gaining your attention and expressing their needs. Also, you might consider focusing on what the student is getting out of the behaviors in questions-but don't stop with "attention." Everybody gets attention for their behavior. Think carefully about what the student is avoiding when he engages in the behavior, and see if there is a skill deficit that's being covered up. Just a few thoughts.

I agree with all of the suggestions above. It looks like someone attended a workshop on Applied Behavior Analysis. As for lucyar29 saying none of these suggestions work for her kids, then you are not doing it right!!! That's why people who try and fail say it doesn't work, unless you can actually figure out why the behavior is occurring, and what the student is gaining from the behavior, you can't find a way to change the behavior. Now, I am not saying that this is a magic cure-all for every behavior problem, it does take some work and can get complicated when the behavior serves many purposes, but when it works you will know how to reach that child. You also have to be aware that there is a period called an "extinction burst" when the behavior you are trying to change may get worse before it gets better. Planned ignoring is a prime example, a student may just "kick it up a few notches" to see how much you can take and still continue to ignore it.....that is when alot of teachers may give up and say that it just isn't working. You have to give positive reinforcement for appropriate behavior while ignoring inappropriate behavior for it to work.

omg! None of these were good suggestions. I teach middle school science and spend some class periods redirecting behavior of kids who are biopolar, add, adhd, suffer from torretts, and SLH. These kids do not respond to much. I usually seperate them, call their parents, lower their conduct grade, and split up any cliques I see in the classroom. This is not a true fix but it does help temp until I have a better solution.

nice idea

Awesome! Great reminders for handling the problem children we may rather not deal with.

I agree with the part of this article that says the child may come to school with baggage,we are adopting a 10 year old out of foster care and most of his issues come out at school in the form of not doing his work and lying about having work. And that then causes problems at home.