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.

The point is being missed again.

People are not objecting to rewards for sitting still or being quiet. They are objecting to rewards for not bullying.

You cannot compare the two things, they are completely different behaviours which have a very different impact on the happiness, confidence and self esteem of other children.

Saintly, I agree that all children should have lots of opportunity to be rewarded. But it's a fine balance because if you reward too much it becomes worthless, and then you lose what could have been a vital tool.

Actually I think my point has been missed.

A child that bullies because they are a spoilt brat will be punished.

If you see a bully ( I hate to use that word for a 6 YO) dealt with by a programme of positive reinforcement it WILL be because they have an additional need, either educational, mental or emotional.

Such a child is getting their needs met through whatever they feel they gain by picking on other kids. They need reprogramming for want of a better word, to learn that they have more to gain from being good than naughty. Sticker rewards are just the start of the process, but the long term aim is for a permanent improvement in their behaviour.

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.

Or more heretically perhaps, removing some pennies in the pound would force the system to go back to lower cost but still demonstrably effective older measures, and return to somethin like:

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.

The reason schools have to come up with these carrot-only tricks is because teachers have had so many tools taken away from them.

You mean 'tools' like the cane whatme?

Oh grr copied out a section from 'turning the tables on challenging behaviour' by peter imray and the bloody site crashed.

Anyway upshot was one reason schools give for not introducing a reward system for an individual child is 'other kids might get jealous'.
The author says in his experience the concept of 'fairness' is largely a staff one and that kids can be open to idea of individualised learning. He goes on to say if it does become a problem then institute a reward system for all - perhaps a communal reward at the end of the day. This works for the child with CB's as well as they get extra rewards.

He also takes on the issue of time - and says if dealing with disruptive behaviour is taking lots of staff time then putting time in to deal with it is worth it. And so on and so forth.

Bottom line when you are dealing with challenging behaviours is that the goal to to have them stop. This benefits everyone. For kids with proper full on disruptive challenging behaviours you HAVE to work with what works for them. You have no choice. If you want to stop it.

One authors opinion is only ever that. It doesn't always mean they are right just because they have written about it. It's only ever one theory, which can only be as good as the person that wrote it.

And again, you are assuming that reward systems are always going to be implemented appropriately. I don't think they are always implemented appropriately, and they give a lot of chance to be used wrongly.

You also have to remember that we are not just talking about bad behaviour that children have to understand, we are talking about behaviour that has created a victim.

You mean 'tools' like the cane whatme?

That's right - there are no methods and sanctions between giving bullies stickers for not hitting other kids, and whipping out the cane. Obviously.

I have to agree with mummie. I believe in positive reinforcement but you also need to identify the root cause of the issue.
My son has special needs, during year 1 we had horrible behaviour towards his helper and some kids, (he is a gorgeous boy so I know it's not in his nature to be aggressive), I was desperate tried everything, I tried rewards (even choc buttons), these worked to a degree for a couple of weeks then the interest would be lost so you'd have to find a different reward. In reality we had to look at the trigger for this behaviour, and it turned out to be frustration at not being in the right environment for his needs.

I never use tangible rewards anymore, not with my NT son either. I give them unexpected treats if I feel they have done something special to merit them, not for expected behaviour.

My son is not on the spectrum btw, not sure if things might work differently for a child with autism.

It's positive behaviour management and is usually the first step in a series of interventions. Schools can't win really can they?

Iuse - I have said repeatedly that mainstream schools often have limited understanding of reinforcement and often use rewards inappropriately (as do parents incidentally). They also often unintentionally reinforce bad behaviours in my opinion.

That's not a reason not to use them. If you have a pretty average kid then you can get away with making a pig's ear of dealing with difficult behaviours because it will probably be alright in the end, ultimately they have an understanding of social rules. If you have a child with challenging behaviours - then you cannot. If you repeatedly make a pig's ear of it then you will escalate behaviours making it far harder for everyone dealing with that child (adults and children).

The author is an expert int he field of working with challenging behaviour and has far more experience than most. It's not just an opinion he's plucked out of thin air. It's also written for the lay audience tbh - what he's written is standard thinking amongst those who work with CB's and who have collected data and have looked at what works. It's not controversial advice - it's something I've come across over and over again in the last 10 years of dealing day in day out with CB's.

The first thing a behavioural intervention plan does (so the first stage of dealing with a difficult CB) is identify WHY the behaviour is happening. That's the A in the ABCing of a behaviour which is the most basic way of responding to a difficult behaviour and should be the FIRST thing anyone working with a child does. That's why a functional analysis should be carried out on challenging behaviours. OF COURSE that should happen - and any reward should only be dished out as a result of that analysis. the advantage of ABCing a behaviour is that you are far less likely to unintentionally reinforce an unwanted behaviour.

As I said - with the disruptive kids in any of my kid's classes I want to know 'is it working'. If staff have done a proper functional analysis and have an appropriate strategy in place to improve the behaviour I'm happy. I just want my kids not to have to deal with difficult behaviours. If I found out that staff had backed out of an effective behavioural intervention to placate parents with limited understanding and zero experience of CB's I'd be livid (because I would know my kids would end up being on the receiving end of disruptive behaviours again).

Now of course - you don't ABC behaviours etc if you have a regular kid who has a bad few days, but if you are talking about persistently disruptive kids who are classed as having challenging behaviour then you have to if you have any hope of seeing an improvement (which is what we're all after surely?)

For instance ds1 was headbutted by another child without warning. The reason was because ds1 was humming and the other child didn't like it - it wasn't a classroom setting so there was no reason for ds1 not to hum. (I was told this - so I knew they'd carried out a functional analysis of the behaviour)

Now I know the place where this occurred and I know the staff well, I know they have skills in dealing with CB's, will have done an analysis of what happened and I also know that they then took steps to ensure that it was unlikely to happen again so I was quite happy for my son to continue going etc. They also had to deal with ds1 as he became very scared of this child (and randomly some others) and so they dealt with that as well (and communicated that to me). I would still have expected any focus to be on the child doing the headutting though - because in simple terms I didn't want ds1 headbutted again so the focus had to be on him.

Had this occurred in a place where I had limited confidence in the staff's ability to deal with challenging behaviours I would not have been happy for ds1 to continue attending.

I remember years ago when my son was in reception hearing a little boy say that he didn't ever get stars, because you had to be naughty first and then be good....

Saintly, I'm not trying to discredit research by professionals, but I think the main point is that these things are not implemented the way they are intended to be. In fact, I know they aren't. At least they aren't in the outstanding school I work at, which is in my opinion staffed with very competent teachers who genuinely care a lot about all the children in the school. That's not because they don't want to get the best out of the system and out of the child, it's simply because they don't have the time and the resources and the support.

It's great to say that we should identify why the behaviour is happening. But that isn't always that easy in reality, especially with a child whose parents don't speak very good English so can't give any insight from their point of view. Then there are the children who have had multiple observations done on them and every display of aggressive behaviour has been documented, including what happened just before the incident. Sometimes there are no triggers. Or the trigger is something as simple as a child not getting their own way, which in a classroom is something that cannot be avoided. Sometimes you can explain why the behaviour displayed is bad, but there is nothing that can be done about it anyway, especially with unsupportive parents. I mean things like having to deal with a sibling who has severe SEN, or a parent who has health problems. When we can explain why the behaviour is bad, we need to be able to deal with that, but we just don't have enough access to school counsellors or child psychologists or time to thoroughly talk through a child's worries. Other times we can see that the child is probably frustrated just because they can't keep up with the work, so of course they will get some extra help, but unless the parents are prepared to put in the time and effort we can't do as much as is needed because to do so would mean holding back other children.

It is so frustrating when things like that happen, because we want to help, we want to support the child, but there just isn't the time to do that when there are 29 other children who deserve their fair share of the attention and teaching time as well.

What you say about staff doing a functional analysis makes a lot of sense, but my worry is that all too often this doesn't happen. Or if it does it's not done properly. Then you end up with a child being put on report and being given stickers and prizes as described in the OP without effective strategies surrounding it, and that not only doesn't help the child in question get the most out of it, but it also sends a confusing and sometimes damaging message to other children.

I disagree with you that rewards being used inappropriately is not a reason not to use them. I think it's a very good reason not to use them, for the benefit of all the children concerned. If it can't be done properly, I don't think it should be done at all.

Amarettis post proves that these reward systems can be very damaging when they are not used correctly. Sadly, I think the belief amongst small children that you can't get stars unless you are naughty and then good is very common.

Just come back online - the background is that littleschmee has been hurt by this child regularly at school and the school have been working with the parents to try to help him behave in a more "prosocial" way. They've also been trying to help my child who has been particularly affected. So I don't have many complaints there. My son was very upset when the child got a reward on a day that the child had hit him: but the teacher and I explained it was because littleschmee hadn't told a teacher when it happened. And also that the teacher is trying to help the child learn the rules so he needs more encouragement yada yada yada. I've still spent six months trying to help my son manage his anger and fear as a result of the incidents.

I genuinely have been trying to understand whether the mother's nonaction at out of school occasions is because she has been following some sort of plan of ignoring bad behaviour or whether she is just in denial/bone idle/doesn't care about other people's children.

On the particular occasion I did intervene to remove my child, but I was further away and had to find someone to hold my baby for me, whereas she was within a couple of metres of the incident.

The book brings up the 'we don't have time to deal with this in school' and the authors response is to consider how much time is being taken up dealing with behaviours, and that if you want to deal with the behaviour then you will make time (and save yourself heck of a lot of time in the future).

If you are going to remove positive reward systems because no one can be arsed to learn how to use them properly then you are just creating a whole heap of problems and failing everyone - the child, the rest of the kids in the class, the staff member having to deal with them and ultimately society.

A functional analysis doesn't really deal with issues that need psychologists - it's smaller scale than that (although if a child was kicking off because their sibling had SN then really school should be able to call a TAC meeting and get proactively involved in getting some more support from SS for the family - having a severely disabled sibling is not a reason to kick off imo - and certainly not something that should be noted then ignored with a 'nothing we can do about it') - it's just about immediate triggers. I take your point that some children will kick off without apparent triggers - but often, more commonly, the trigger has been missed. For example when my son was headbutted someone inexperienced in dealing with challenging behaviours might have missed my son's quiet humming as the trigger and assumed that the attack came with no warning. And if a child is displaying CB's without trigger there's still something that can be done - identifying the environment in which it occurs for example (playground being a big trigger point for many - but there are things that can be changed within the playground environment if necessary) and if necessary seeking extra funding to provide extra hands on support for that child.

And sometimes school's create their own triggers. For example my son aged 5 was terrified of the hand dryer in his mainstream school toilets. They tried to make it 'fun' by adding tinsel - which just made him more terrified. He began to wet himself (only recently trained) and began to attack if people tried to get him to go into the toilet. Now the simplest solution would have been to allow him to use the disabled toilet - which he was quite happy to use (no hand dryer). But they would not allow him to as 'it wouldn't be fair on the other children' (presumably sitting near him while he wet himself or watching him meltdown when they tried to get him into the toilet was perfectly acceptable for them ). He is categorised a severely disabled btw so I'm not quite sure what the point of the disabled toilet was (actually I know - staff liked to use it ). When you're dealing with that level of idiocy it's no surprise really that many schools can't handle any sort of CB.

Now I realise that none of the above suggestions for funding or support etc will be freely given, but I get so cross when school's throw up their hands saying 'nothing can be done' because it's all too difficult. It's so much easier to deal with behaviours than deal with the fall out. And I get really cross (as you may have gathered) when a school won't listen to professional advice, or won't admit they are struggling and reinforce CB's leaving others to pick up the pieces.

schmee - a non reaction to behaviours shouldn't lead to others getting hurt.

So for example when ds1 was pinching adults the appropriate response was a calm 'hands down' (we couldn't use 'no' as he found that word hilarious and very funny and reinforcing) and then a removal, so either 5 seconds the other side of the door, or even just a turning away and facing in the other direction for 5 seconds. If he'd ever gone for kids he would have been completely removed from the situation (luckily he didn't except for siblings on about two or three occasions).

Any sort of squealing or door slamming or shouting was just an open invitation to being used as a pin cushion for the next week.

Believe me, I get cross too! I'm only the TA though so the descisons aren't mine to make. I just get to stand by and watch while getting frustrated at being unable to do more. I have been called in for extra hours to do one to one work with a child, (im part time) but unless a child is statemented we don't get extra funding and paying me comes out of the school budget. I am not highly trained enough to deal with everything that comes along, and I usually only get a few extra hours for one or two weeks so as soon as I feel I'm making progress, i have to leave it. As I already said, behaviour support from the LA are close to useless.

I will have a look at the book you recommend.

Oh I sympathise - and I am a huge fan of specialist provision, especially when the environment is one which doesn't support children with challenging behaviours in behaving well (too loud/open plan/too many other kids/no safe spaces/not enough staff etc).

The book is aimed at kids with SLD's - but the behavioural techniques & suggestions will be useful for any child. There's also the challenging behaviour foundation which has quite a few factsheets for download. Again it's aimed at people working with or caring for those with SLD's but a lot of the tips can be adapted and used with regular kids.

For example simple technique I was taught to prevent meltdowns with ds1 was to give warnings before changing activities. I do the same all the time with ds2 and ds3 '10 mins until bed boys, 5 mins until bed, okay 1 more minute' and it works with them too (ds1 would have been more formal with buttons and symbols or timers, but the same idea).

Thanks, I agree with you about warnings! It's a habit I got into with ds1 (AS), but I think it helps with ds2 as well. Any child can be prone to tantrums when it's time to leave something that are enjoying.