To think that bullies shouldn't get rewards for not bullying?

[DrSeuss]

So, my son came home with a badly bruised knee with a smallish cut the other day. He said that this happened when he was pushed over the class bully. I immediately contacted the school who were really helpful, questioned the bully, then rang me back. I was told that the boy's mother had been called in after the boy had admitted pushing my son over and that the boy had been placed on report. I was happy with this as an outcome until today, when my son told me that the bully gets a sticker for each of the three daily breaks when he behaves and that on day five, if he has fifteen stickers, he will get to choose an item from the class goody basket.

I'm not suggesting that they impose a stringent punishment on a child of six but is that really the way to go? If I had set it up, I would have given a sticker on a chart for each break with no reward for a week's worth of stickers but a telling off and the mother called in again if any stickers were missed due to bad behaviour. It just seems to me that you ought not to reward a bully for not bullying. The majority of the children in the class don't bully and to me that's normal, not requiring special praise.
Thoughts?
Oh, btw, this is not the first time he has picked on my son and my son is not the only child this boy has bullied. That's not hearsay, two other mothers have told me they have made complaints last half term.

FWIW I have had 3 kids go through schools, and I have found the reality is that unless you ensure you are a squeakier wheel than the "troubled" bully, typically sweet FA gets done.

The "professionals" are often far more interested in getting their PhDs by applying the latest theories to the troubled kids than sorting out the victims.

Cue catsbumfaces from the "professionals" when you say that if your child continues to be bullied it will cause you to be "troubled" more than the troubled bully, and you will "trouble" whoever you have to to get it sorted, but it gets results.

Sympathy for the victim absolutely it is awful to have been hit. As I said before it has happened to my DD.

An apology from the child in person would be good, maybe a card saying sorry if the child cannot put it into words would be good. Talking to them together in a delicate way as they are 6yrs so both children can come to terms with the situation would be good it may well be that there is a childlike disagreement going on that may seem trivial to us but could be a major factor to a child. To see that his/her school has recognised the fact that the victim had been hit (which this school did and acted) And to see that the victim is trying his hardest to control his behaviour hopefully will help the child relax and feel confident to go out to play again. If it doesnt then the school must help this child build it own confidence.

Both children should be helped but the question was wether to give the other child rewards. Hence why most of the topic is about the child that hit.

Restorative justice techniques need to be used very carefully mummle. In some instances they actually hand more power/ control to the 'bully'.

We never ask children to say sorry at my place because it becomes a learned behaviour which means nothing and is a cop out. Obviously we accept it if they spontaneously choose to say sorry to one another or to adults but there is no hint of the message: 'If you say sorry it makes what you did ok'.

I didn't realise you actually worked in a school. You also need to be very careful about what you say in these 'chats' you have. Giving a child who gets a kick out of hurting/ intimidating other children feedback that his actions have had an impact on the 'victim' may actually reinforce the negative behaviour.

Yes, I have seen behavioural intervention plans and yes, you said it yourself "other children in the class are irrelevant to the ..plan." Yes, that is the problem...just because the document doesn't provide for that issue to be addressed doesn't mean that making amends to the "victim" shouldn't be an issue for discussion. Part of the successful social reintegration of a bully should be to make things truly "right" with those that have been victimised. The plan is very egocentric and maybe that is a problem - it only deals with the child in question...therefore, adults involved should make sure that a little decorum is applied when praising the "bully" - i.e., not to be praising heap too shortly after the incident.

Children in school see incentive schemes in place for various other children throughout the years and, for the most part, have no issue with it - it is not this that gets my goat up...it is when schemes like this are, I guess, incorrectly used and appear, albeit unintentionally, to congratulate the bully for for bullying antics.

But surely if the behaviour can be modified, that is in the best interests of the victim as well as the bully? If positive reinforcement works and the child is helped by it to desist from their behaviour that is in everyone's best interests - no more victims.

Calm down ladies.

I don't think Mummie is actually against positive reinforcement totally. I think she is feeling frustrated that nobody will acknowledge the victims feelings either. Yes these programmes are necessary and are sometimes very effective but would it hurt to acknowledge that the victims are indeed victims and shouldn't be completely written off as inconsequential.

So many of these posts are missing the point.

What the majority of objectors are objecting to is not the child who is displaying bad behaviour being supported in whatever way works. If stickers work, then so be it.

The point is that this sort if system can so easily be used wrongly, and unless it is handled very carefully it dies send a negative message to the other children who are witnessing it. That's what I'm objecting to, and that's what I think some other posters are objecting too as well.

It makes no difference if the child has a statement,or SEN, or is on SA+ or is on the vulnerable children's register. A class full of 5/6 year olds don't know what thise things are. There coud be very good, valid, understandable reasons why a child is misbehaving, but that makes no difference to the child who has been bullied and then has to watch his bully be given stickers and a chance at the goody bag for not bullying.

I can see how maybe, if a very clued up teacher were to handle it correctly a negative message could be avoided. But behaviour support specialists don't have the time to ensure that teachers are able to handle it sensitively. They come into school, observe said bully, suggest positive praise and sticker charts and then they bugger off again without giving any guidance on how to handle it sensitively for the rest of the class. They may if a teacher is lucky, provide support in handling the child with the problem, but they don't give support in how to make it a positive thing for the rest of the class.

I'm speaking from experience with my own dc who was on SA+ and as someone who works in a school as a TA and as a 1-1 person for children with behaviour problems.

You raise a good point EBD - sometimes I wish we had the resources to staff professionals for just these types of matters. It is a shame that, in a place where child psychology is most needed, there is no place for one in schools. Thanks for the advice, I will keep it in mind.

Thank you Shewhowiness - I think you understand my frustration well.

Well said, Kitchen Roll!

No it's not the point. A behavioural intervention plan considers the child with challenging behavour. if there's a problem with a particular child acting as a trigger for example then that might make it into the plan - but in general no, why would it. The purpose of the plan is to tackle a particular challenging behaviour safely not consider classroom interaction.

Got to agree with ebd about reinforcement - so many behavioural problems arise from people not understanding reinforcement. When ds1 was in mainstream he discovered his class teacher made a very interesting noise when pinched. And no matter how many times I explained to her that he found being shouted at/screeching/yelping and shrieking incredibly rewarding she just could not get her head round that and stop. So she ended up bruised and (what bloody annoyed me) was that pinching (adults only luckily) escalated to a major behavioural problem. Which we had to try and deal with, but couldn't because his clueless teacher was constantly reinforcing it at school.

At special school it was dealt with appropriately (ie without reinforcing it) and it soon disappeared.

actually, I was referring to everyone banging on about limited resources and how money shouldn't be spent on stuff for the evil perpetrators..

That would be me.

I have this (clearly quaint, on MN) belief that the resources of an education system first and foremost should mainly be spent on education, and that the next priority is ALL the children in its care have a right not to hassled, disturbed, bullied and hurt.

'What I am an advocate of is a lot of talking to the child, not in scolding way, but in a sympathetic, enquiring way, so that the root of the problem could be discovered.'

What if what is discovered is the child's lack of motivation without tangable rewards?

It's really not that difficult to explain to other children. I say "x finds it difficult to behave" to ds2 and ds3. They understand that.

I think this is mummies problem.
Your post saintly comes across as stuff the rest of them.

You are right in that unfortunately intervention plans can't consider others but please at least acknowledge that it is unfortunately.

The purpose of the plan is to tackle a particular challenging behaviour safely not consider classroom interaction.

How can you plan anything like this without considering the knock on impact on c29 other kids in a classroom, interacting day by day?

It's the triumph of hopeful theory over practical reality IMO.

I think this explains exactly why the whole thing is fundamentally flawed, why the bullying doesn't stop, why the victims get so little redress, and why the parents of the victimes often eventually have to wade in with big boots.

But it's not unfortunately. They idea of a behavioural intervention plan is to tackle challenging behaviour. The school could write another policy about dealing with victims feelings but there's no reason for it to be in a BIP. I have said stickers great- providing they work. All that matters is that something works (then everyone benefits).

Ds2 has had some difficulties with a boy with CB's in his class - all I'm interested in whether the school does something that works. If they dished out stickers to him and I found he had no interest in stickers I would be very cross, if they dished out stickers and I knew he loved stickers I would be pleased.

The most important question is 'does it work?'. I would far rather my kids were not being bashed over the head by someone given stickers, than being bashed over the head by someone not given stickers.

I can empathise with both the victim and the bully. Why is that so hard for some others?

Whatme - because a BIP looks at a particular behaviour. As I said if the other kids actions are relevant then it will make it's way in - so if kid A shouting makes kid b hit the teacher and this happens frequently then there'll be a BIP for it with kid A mentioned.

But a BIP is not the place to consider 29 other children - other than their safety. And in our case it was the 'it's not fair on the other children' approach that led to teachers being bruised. Because they would not allow ds1 to use reinforcers that were meaningful to him. They wouldn't even let him use the disabled toilet because 'it wouldn't be fair on the other children' (never mind that he gets higher rate care and higher rate mobility)

Focussing on a challenging behaviour so you tackle it effectively IS putting the other kids first IMO. Allowing them to get hurt because you refuse to learn about reinforcement and dealing with challenging behaviours is doing the rest of the class a huge disservice.

SaintlyJimjams - It's really not that difficult to explain to other children

No, it's not that difficult to explain to other children. But that doesn't mean it will be easy for all other children to understand. Assuming the teacher knows that it should be explained properly to all the other children, of course.

And even if she does, it's not that simple. What is she supposed to do? Is she supposed to say to all the children that Sam finds it difficult not to hit you over the head and kick you and say nasty things to you, so when he doesn't do that he gets a sticker?

Do you honestly believe that all children will be ok with that and that none will be confused as to why it's so difficult for Sam not to hit and kick and say mean things? Do you think that there won't be one or two children that also find it hard to control their frustrations or their desire to say what they are thinking so will feel that they don't have to try so hard to keep it in because if they lash out a few times and then go back to what they are already doing they might get a prize out of it? Do you think that there is no way a child will think that if they do what Sam did a couple of times that they might also get a sticker chart?

And as Sams Mum, I'm not sure I would want all the rest of his class to be told by the teacher that Sam finds it hard not to hit other children and is getting special treatment because of it. It creates the potential for some children to be jealous of Sam, or for other children who had previously barely noticed what Sam was doing to all of a sudden see him as a problem and someone to avoid.

Ok so now I have a possible explanation as to why the mother of the child that was physically attacking my son would stand back and watch while it happened. She didn't want to reinforce her son's behaviour by telling him not to do it. Right.

No-one explained this to me or my son so it felt to us like she didn't give a shit whether my child was hurt or not.

If was the former not the latter, then I might genuinely have had a shot at explaining to my child what was going on. If someone had taken the time to communicate this to me. But I guess that wasn't in the BIP so I was just left thinking she was a lazy mother who didn't care about the impact of her son's behaviour.

If the child attacking littleschmee had cognitive empathy, so they knew what they were doing was wrong, but was enjoying/ feeling rewarded by having control over littleschmee it would be the wrong thing to do to take the child aside and say 'don't kick littleschmee because it makes littleschmee feel very frightened and sad'. That might mean they come back (after saying an insincere sorry) for some more of the same fun tomorrow.

If the child has affective empathy but a very limited ability to read other people's emotions, or limited cognitive empathy, and therefore didn't fully comprehend littleschmee's experience then it would be the right thing to do to explain to them how much it hurt littleschmee.

Obviously the attack should have been stopped instantly. However, if it's out of school hours you can't really blame the school for how it was dealt/ not dealt with? Why did you not stop the other child?

Well it's took some doing, but I Have read the the whole of this thread and I am stunned at the lack of compassion some people have towards other people's children.

Schools generally do deal with bullying by punishment and sanctions. If they resort to positive reinforcement then it shouldn't take a brain surgeon to work out that there are deeper issues that need a more appropriate tactic to resolve, such as SN or emotional difficulties. Problems which other parents are quite rightly not privy to.

My DS is entitled to an education. In order to enable him to access that education there are measures in place to help him get through the day, including reward stickers each time he manages to sit still on the carpet for 5 minutes with the aid of an egg timer, and if he's really good he gets to (shock horror) go on the pc to play on cbeebies whilst the rest of the class listen to a story. It works for him, he is actually learning to read and write now and if other people don't like it then tough.

As the mother of 2 older children, both of whom have SN classmates, I know that children are more than capable of understanding that some other children have problems which require extra support and reward, without feeling the need to copy to be envious. I have always encouraged my kids to show tolerance and consideration to such children.

I don't think for a minute that school kids are bothered by the treats 'difficult' kids get. Its the parents that have the problem.

Oh for goodness sake schmee - I have said nothing of the sort - don't be so ridiculous. You will note that when talking about my own son's behaviour I commented that it was directed at adults (thank god - on about two or three occasions ds1 has gone for siblings for a response but 99.9% of the time it's been adults and never non-sibling children). I do expect adults to be able to control their responses taking into account what is reinforcing. And if the don't? Well their own fault when everything goes pear shaped (I include myself in that, I have made plenty of bad decisions in my years of dealing with challenging behaviours).

Of course children can't be expected to do the same - if they're hurt they scream. We did use to tell ds2 to close his mouth when crying if ds1 went for him as ds1 loved a big wide open mouth to laugh at - my main interest wasn't in what ds1 was doing, it was in preventing ds2 from getting hurt again (and it worked, he was pinched about twice). If a child is having a go at kids then they need to be removed from the situation so the other child is safe before anything else. Of course. It's not rocket science.

Iusetoomuch - ime children understand if you explain it to them in simple terms. Ideally a school should be rewarding ALL children regularly enough that they're not jealous of anyone getting stickers. I have to say ds2 and ds3's school is very good at this and children are rewarded for all sorts of things from good academics, to sport, to being helpful, to being kind, to yes behaving themselves. If other kids feel left out - increase the opportunity for rewards for all, don't take away something that is supporting good behaviour in those that are likely to disrupt the calls without support.

There's a paper somewhere about using rewards in a class of kids with severe challenging behaviours. 'Rewards' (which were simple 'noticings' of good behaviour so 'nice sitting Tom', 'Lovely listening Billl') were given by the teachers at different intervals. The more frequently the teachers noticed good behaviour the better the class behaviour became - and this was with VERY challenging kids.

Rewarding good behaviour works and if your child is being affected by a disruptive child your main concern should be that whatever is being applied works with the disruptive child. If that causes your child problems, explain to them in terms they'll understand. I did with DS2 when he was having a nightmare with one particular child.

It is wrong to hurt others either emotionally or physically at any age. That is an important message. Sadly children who behave in that manner often have parents who, even if they have learnt how to behave in accordance with the norm in public, are slightly off beam themselves.

Historically others, such as teachers, doctors, clergy, policemen, were allowed and were there to reinforce acceptable boundaries when parents perhaps couldn't. Nowadays those outside family unit are no longer allowed to point out problems or dysfunctional behaviour and schools are not allowed either to acknowledge it or properly deal with it. So many of these children need specialist help in specialist units and very small groups that is simply not available in mainstream schooling.

An extra penny in the pound would fund the help so desperately needed by the dysfunctional and anti-social and would lead to the protection of so many who need to learn and to fulfil their potential in a safe and calm learning environment.