Mumsnet/KIDS support session on challenging behaviour: Thursday September 20, 9pm

[RowanMumsnet]

Hello there,

We're pleased to announce that the third support session with members of KIDS staff will be held on Thursday September 20 between 9pm amd 10pm (in the hope that this will avoid most kids' bed-times!). The topic will be challenging behaviour. (You can see the first session here and the second session here.)

KIDS is a national charity working with disabled children, young people and their families across England. The KIDS representative at this session will be Kim Steele (KIDS Development Coordinator for the south-east).

The idea of these support sessions is to complement the advice and support that Special Needs posters already give each other with the insight and experience of people working for an organisation in the field. We hope that the session will pull together perspectives and advice from MNers and from KIDS staff, and that the thread will serve as a reference point for posters looking for advice about behaviour.

It would be great to have as many of you as possible join us 'live' on Thursday evening, but if you can't make it, please also post up any advance questions for here.

We'd really appreciate your feedback on these sessions, so if you can find the time to fill in a survey after the session, that would be great - it's open to lurkers as well as posters - to everyone who has seen the thread.

Thanks,
MNHQ

marking my place

thanks Rowan

marking my place too - seeing a few unpleasant behaviours chez late's

This might be very beneficial for me and my DD.

Will keep an eye out - puberty in a 14yo DD with SN's is proving more than challenging...

Sounds great, I'll mark my place.

I must try to remember this one.

Having to work on acceptable ways of getting my attention with DS2 at the moment.

Also marking my place. Can't do Thursday so will put up some q's before .

Marking my place and checking out links. I work with children with SEN and some of my charges are a bit challenging at times. I find a mums approach to behaviour management can give great insights into how I can work.

I'm interested in what can be done to educate teachers on what consitutes challenging behaviour and that it isn't just about what THEY find difficult.

Currently, challenging behaviour appears to be defined as anything that gets in the way of a teacher doing their job. i.e. disruption and agression etc. and for this there are well used behaviour modification strategies that use extrinsic reinforcements such as stickers, golden time, charts, time out, certificates etc.

But how do we ensure teachers are trained properly to understand challenging behaviour that gets in the way of the CHILD doing THEIR job i.e. learning? Such as not focussing, not listening, chosing the same thing every day during child initiated learning, not initiating interactions with other children.

THESE challenging behaviours tend to be largely ignored by schools despite being detremental to the child's development and any attempts at suggestion of similar 'reward' systems is often met with a horrified look and a lecture about behaviour needing to be reinforced intrinsically rather than extrinsically.

How can we marry the two up.

If the strategies teachers use for behaviour that is detremental to THEIR TEACHING are so effective, why can't they use them for behaviour that is detrimental to the CHILD'S LEARNING?

Okay, so I suppose the first thing I'd like to discuss is what is challenging behaviour. Is it restricted to behaviour someone else can't manage, or behaviour that a child themselves can't manage, or are both the same thing but just dealt with differently?

And should they be?

For example an example of challenging behaviour being uncooperative, or is it actively distrupting a child who IS being cooperative?

further, is lack of motivation to learn considered challenging, because most of the teachers i have dealt with are less able to get my child to listen at carpet time if he doesn't want to than they are able to get him to sit on the carpet if he doesn't want to, so arguably the former is more 'challenging' for them.

Finally, if they WERE able to meet the challenge of motivating him to listen at carpet time, then their need to deal with his demonstrative challenging behaviour of refusing to sit on the carpet would completely disappear.

Marking my place. Wish there was some type of email alert you could sign up for that reminds us on the day, maybe an hour or so before.

I would really like.some advice.

My nt six year old copies my asd 9 year old, and because their maturity is about the same, I tend to give them the same sanctions. But my six year old doesn't accept them well, and I don't feel that they are working to get him properly behaved.

He has a horrible, horrible temper, really explosive. He screams, hits, kicks and goes rigid. He has a tantrum, basically, but he's six years old. I don't know what to do, whether to get his assessed, or whether to.punish him more severely - I tend to issue time outs and privelege loss.

I guess I'm worried as to whether this is normal for a child who has an autistic sibling. If it is, and its a symptom of distress, then he needs councelling, but if it is not, then given the genetic load of an autistic sibling, then he needs assessment.

Is love some advice, including from other posters, because this is the.most challqnging thing I have had to.deal with. I know how to do autism, its ds2 that's baffling me because there's no signpost.

I would also like to know what to do when the challenging behaviour prevents someone from living any type of life, secluded in the peace of his own home, with no one able to talk, type, laugh, text, do household duties etc and I am also talking about an 11yo who doesn't attend school. One with down syndrome and severe learning disabilities and more.

How do I get him to dress, how do I get him to leave the house, how do I get him to brush his teeth etc etc?