Georgia PBS Interventions - Florida's Positive Behavior Support ...

The Real Magic of Changing BehaviorSome researchers went into classrooms across a region of the United Statesand studied student and teacher behavior. They discovered children complywith the rules 80% of the time. Sadly, when the researchers tabulated datafor compliments on appropriate behavior they discovered that children were “caughtbeing good” less than two percent of the time. Why is this? Sadly, adults expectchildren to know what they mean when they say words like: “behave”, “straighten up”, or“cut that out”. We need to look at this from the child’s point of view. Sometimes theyhave learned a misrule. To make this point I’d like to tell a story about my son, Brandon.When Brandon was three years old I took him shopping with me. Since we lived in a small town with noshopping mall, we had driven three hours to the nearest mall. I was so proud of the fact that he wasbehaving appropriately. We were looking for shoes for my father’s birthday with special soles thatreduce slipping on the deck of a boat. Unfortunately, my father wears the most popular size of men’sshoes. I went from store to store asking for 10 ¹ boat deck shoes and time after time the clerk cameback with the sad news that he had a size 10 or a size 11. As we approached the final store in the mall,I was still in awe at how well my three year old son was taking this shopping excursion. As the clerkcame back to tell me the news that he had a 10 and an 11; my darling, three year old looked up at himand said, “Well, damn.” I apologized and we left the store.I learned three years earlier not to overreact when a child said a word that I didn’t like. I had takenmy daughter to see the Fox and the Hound when she was two and half. Her verbal skills were stilldeveloping and the word Fox sounded very much like a very bad hound dog. She went around the housepointing to pictures and saying “f…ing hound”, “f….ing hound.” Since I was studying speech and languagepathology at the time, I would respond, “Yes, honey that’s the fox and the hound,” enunciating eachsyllable of fox and hound. My husband was not as calm and he had a freak fest every time he heardher say it. She quickly learned that daddy turned a lovely shade of red every time she said thosewords, so we heard them frequently. We didn’t go to church for a month or so, in fear that she wouldtalk about that bad hound.Back to the mall….I took my darling, three year old son who had just embarrassed me beyond words tothe food court where I purchased a sprite and cookie. I said, “Honey, you used a new word today.Damn is a new word. Can you tell mommy why you used that word?” He said, “Isn’t that what you saywhen you can’t find your shoes? That’s what the babysitter says when she can’t find her shoes?”My son had been waiting for the perfect opportunity to use his new skill. He had learned a misrule. Wehad a discussion about another choice of words and why that one wasn’t appropriate. Our new word was“holy cow”; which, were words we heard frequently for quite awhile. I never heard “well damn” come outof us mouth until he was a teenager…but that’s another story.Our students have learned many misrules and it’s our job to teach them the appropriate rules. We haveto teach behavior the same way we teach reading, math, and science. We introduce it, we model it, wegive them opportunities to practice and then we reward their good efforts. It’s the only way to effecta change in the adult to child relationship and childhood behavior.Positive Interventions and Effective Strategies Riffel -© 2005 - 14 -