Lost at School

Why Our Kids with Behavioral Challenges are Falling Through the Cracks and How We Can Help Them

Ross W. Greene

• Publisher: Scribner
• Year: 2008
• ISBN:
  9781416583677
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education Administration

From a distinguished clinician, pioneer in working with behaviorally challenging kids, and author of the acclaimed The Explosive Child comes a groundbreaking approach for understanding and helping these kids and transforming school discipline. Frequent visits to the principal's office. Detentions. Suspensions. Expulsions. These are the established tools of school discipline for kids who don't abide by school rules, have a hard time getting along with other kids, don't seem to respect authority, don't seem interested in learning, and are disrupting the learning of their classmates. But there's a big problem with these strategies: They are ineffective for most of the students to whom they are applied. It's time for a change in course. Here, Dr. Ross W. Greene presents an enlightened, clear-cut, and practical alternative. Relying on research from the neurosciences, Dr. Greene offers a new conceptual framework for understanding the difficulties of kids with behavioral challenges and explains why traditional discipline isn't effective at addressing these difficulties. Emphasizing the revolutionarily simple and positive notion that kids do well if they can, he persuasively argues that kids with behavioral challenges are not attention-seeking, manipulative, limit-testing, coercive, or unmotivated, but that they lack the skills to behave adaptively. And when adults recognize the true factors underlying difficult behavior and teach kids the skills in increments they can handle, the results are astounding: The kids overcome their obstacles; the frustration of teachers, parents, and classmates diminishes; and the well-being and learning of all students are enhanced. In Lost at School, Dr. Greene describes how his road-tested, evidence-based approach -- called Collaborative Problem Solving -- can help challenging kids at school. His lively, compelling narrative includes: • tools to identify the triggers and lagging skills underlying challenging behavior. • explicit guidance on how to radically improve interactions with challenging kids -- along with many examples showing how it's done. • dialogues, Q & A's, and the story, which runs through the book, of one child and his teachers, parents, and school. • practical guidance for successful planning and collaboration among teachers, parents, administrations, and kids. Backed by years of experience and research, and written with a powerful sense of hope and achievable change, Lost at School gives teachers and parents the realistic strategies and information to impact the classroom experience of every challenging kid.

CHAPTER 1

School of Hard Knocks

It was early October, and the students in Mrs. Lori Woods’ sixth-grade class were hard at work on a social studies assignment. There was, however, one clear exception, a boy named Joey. Mrs. Woods had already had a few difficult moments with Joey, especially at times when he refused to work on class assignments. That Joey was clearly not working on his social studies project was an irritation; that he was now distracting two other kids pressed Mrs. Woods into action. She walked over to Joey’s table.

“Joey, is there a problem?” Mrs. Woods whispered. “Because you’re bothering the students around you.”

Joey looked up at his teacher. “I don’t know what to do.”

“Joey, the instructions are on the board. How can you not know what to do?”

Two kids seated near Joey snickered.

“Because I don’t!”

Now most of the other kids were watching.

“Back to work, everyone,” said Mrs. Woods. She turned her attention back to Joey. “Joey, let’s talk about it at my desk so we don’t disturb your classmates.” She began walking toward the front of the room, but Joey didn’t budge. Mrs. Woods turned back around.

“Joey, come up to my desk, please.”

“No way,” Joey said under his breath, but loudly enough to once again draw the attention of his classmates.

“Excuse me?”

Joey’s face reddened. “I’m not coming up to your desk.”

The entire class was now riveted, awaiting the teacher’s response.

“Joey, if you don’t come up to my desk now, I’ll have to send you to the office.”

“I’m not going there, either.”

“Joey, now!”

“No way.”

Mrs. Woods walked over to one of the students near the front door of the classroom. “Taylor, please go to the office and tell Mrs. Westbrook that we have a problem in our classroom and that we need Mr. Middleton to come immediately.” Mrs. Woods hoped that the threatened arrival of the assistant principal might persuade Joey to rethink his stance.

Taylor dutifully jumped out of her seat and ran to the office. Mrs. Woods walked to the doorway of the classroom and turned to address the rest of her students. “I don’t want to have to say this again: Get back to work.”

“What’s up?” asked Mr. Middleton when he arrived, a little out of breath. Mr. Middleton had been an assistant principal for twelve years (a science teacher for sixteen years before that), and was known among the faculty as a congenial, even-keeled man who was probably miscast as the school’s primary disciplinarian.

“Joey was disrupting the class so I told him to come up to my desk and he refused. Then I told him that he had to go to the office and he refused. So there he sits.” Mrs. Woods motioned in Joey’s direction.

Mr. Middleton looked over his glasses into the classroom. “Let’s see what I can do.”

Mr. Middleton walked over to Joey, leaned down, and spoke softly. “Joey, I understand we have a problem. Why don’t we talk about it in my office?”

Joey exploded. He jumped out of his seat, his head hitting Mr. Middleton in the jaw. “I’m not going to the freaking office!” he screamed and ran toward the door. The other kids gasped. Stunned by the blow to his jaw, Mr. Middleton grasped vainly at Joey. Joey pushed Mrs. Woods out of the way, screaming “I hate your guts!” As he passed Taylor’s desk, he blurted, “I’m going to kill you!” Taylor recoiled as Joey ran out of the classroom. He ran down the hallway to the front of the school and out of the building with Mr. Middleton giving chase. As Mr. Middleton ran past the main office, he yelled to Mrs. Westbrook, the secretary, “Get Mrs. Galvin!” Mrs. Westbrook hurried into the principal’s office and told Mrs. Galvin, the school principal, that Joey had just run out of the building with Mr. Middleton in his wake. Mrs. Galvin bolted out of her office to assist in the chase. Mr. Sizemore, one of the physical education instructors, heard the commotion from the copy room and sprinted after Joey as well.

Mr. Middleton and Mr. Sizemore found Joey hiding behind a car in the school parking lot and forcibly escorted him back into the school. The two men planted Joey in a chair in Mrs. Galvin’s office. “Call his mother,” puffed Mrs. Galvin to Mrs. Westbrook as she reentered the office.

With Mr. Sizemore and Mr. Middleton still holding his arms, Mrs. Galvin looked sternly at Joey. “Are you going to sit in that chair without them holding you?”

Joey strained against the grasp of the two men. “Get these creeps off of me.”

“They will let go of you when you calm down and tell me you’ll sit in that chair until your mother arrives.”

Joey tried to break out of the hold of the two men, his face red, tears streaming down his cheeks. “Get them off of me!”

Mrs. Galvin was still catching her breath. “They will let go of you when you calm down. We will not have this kind of behavior in our school.”

Joey continued to struggle against the two men. “Joey, just calm down,” Mr. Middleton tried to soothe despite the pain in his jaw.

“Screw you,” said Joey, struggling slightly less.

“Joey, we don’t talk that way in this school, either,” said Mrs. Galvin.

“Screw you, too,” said Joey, glaring at the principal but struggling still less.

“Come on, Joey, just relax,” said Mr. Middleton. “I don’t want to hold you like this.”

“So let go!” Joey seethed. “You already hurt my arm.”

“We don’t want to hurt you,” said Mr. Middleton, “but we can’t let you go running out of the school again. It’s dangerous. Please just calm down so we can let go.”

Joey’s mother, Ms. Lowell, arrived ten minutes later. “What’s going on here?” she demanded breathlessly.

“They hurt me,” Joey glared at Mrs. Galvin.

Ms. Lowell looked at Joey’s arms, then at Mrs. Galvin, seeking an explanation. Mrs. Galvin was a straight-talking administrator who prided herself on running a tight ship and making sure that the kids in her school got a good education.

“He threatened the life of one of his classmates,” the principal said. “That’s just unacceptable. He then ran out of the school and needed to be physically escorted back. That’s why his arms are a little red.”

Ms. Lowell tried not to raise her voice. “Joey, you threatened another kid?”

“I didn’t mean it.”

“Why did you run out of the school?” asked Ms. Lowell.

“I didn’t know what to do on the social studies project,” Joey mumbled.

Ms. Lowell was uncomprehending. “You didn’t know what?”

“Apparently he was refusing to do his work,” said Mr. Middleton. “Mrs. Woods asked him to come up to her desk and he refused to do that, too. Then she told him to go to the office and he refused again. Then I tried to talk to him and he ran out of the classroom.”

“I didn’t know what to do!” Joey insisted.

“I should add that he hit Mr. Middleton in the jaw and shoved Mrs. Woods during this episode,” said Mrs. Galvin. “That’s called assault, and it is just totally unacceptable in this building.”

Joey slumped in his seat, again mumbling, “It was an accident.”

“Joey, I can’t believe you did that,” said his mother. Joey’s eyes welled up.

“On purpose or not, Joey will be spending the next five days at home,” said Mrs. Galvin.

Ms. Lowell looked at the principal, eyes wide. “What do you mean?”

“I mean he’s suspended from school for five days. We will not tolerate this sort of thing in our school. Joey’s classmates have a right to a safe learning environment, and that right was violated today. I also need to talk with the superintendent about whether other action needs to be taken.”

“Other action? Like what?”

“When a student assaults a teacher in this school system and threatens to kill people, our school discipline code says we need to notify the police. And Mr. Middleton and Mrs. Woods will have to decide whether they want to press charges.”

“The police?” shrieked Joey’s mother. “For an accident?”

“Based on what I’ve heard, I don’t share Joey’s view that it was accidental,” said Mrs. Galvin. “For now, you need to take Joey home. We can discuss other developments once I have more information. Joey needs to understand that this type of behavior is unacceptable.”

“He already knows this behavior is unacceptable,” said Ms. Lowell.

This observation was met with silence.

Ms. Lowell had heard enough. “Let’s go, Joey.” She looked at Mr. Middleton. “I’m very sorry you were hurt.” Joey followed his mother out of the office, his hands jammed deep in his jeans pockets, his head low.

The two administrators watched through the window as Joey and his mother got into the car and drove off.

What are we going to do about Joey?

More than ever, that’s the big question. Because there sure are a lot of Joeys out there. Kids who can’t seem to function in a classroom, have a hard time getting along with other kids, don’t seem to respect authority, aren’t responding to the school discipline program. Kids whose problems don’t get better. Sometimes we read about them in the newspaper and see them on TV, especially if they hurt someone badly enough or are led out of the school in handcuffs. The stakes are high. When we don’t help the Joeys, we lose them.

How are we going to help Mrs. Woods? Another big question. Mrs. Woods’ classroom is full of kids with all kinds of academic, behavioral, emotional, and social challenges. She’d like nothing better than to be able to give all of them the help they need. She’s put a lot of time and energy into helping her challenging students over the years, but often hasn’t had much to show for her efforts. At a minimum, she needs some way of making sure the challenging kids in her class don’t disrupt the learning of the other kids. But she also has high-stakes testing to worry about, lessons to plan, countless meetings to attend, and the latest school system initiatives to digest and implement, so she’s pressed for time as it is. When we don’t help Mrs. Woods, we lose her, too.

What about Ms. Lowell? It’s a scary, lonely, callous, frustrating world out there for parents of challenging kids, even more so if the kid is challenging at school. Ms. Lowell has grown accustomed to feeling blamed for her son’s difficulties, accustomed to the stares of people who identify her as the parent of “that kid.” She’s all too familiar with the different medicines used to treat challenging kids, along with the books and TV shows that characterize her as a passive, permissive, uncaring, unmotivated, uneducated parent. There are millions of Ms. Lowells out there, all wishing there was a better way, one that actually worked.

If we’re going to start helping Joey and Mrs. Woods and Ms. Lowell, we need to start paying much closer attention to what we now know about how kids come to be challenging. Then we need to consider some important questions. Does the way we’re disciplining kids in our schools address the actual factors that set the stage for kids’ social, emotional, and behavioral challenges? If not, then what should we be doing instead?

What we’ve been thinking about challenging kids—that they’re manipulative, attention-seeking, coercive, unmotivated, limit-testing, and that these traits have been caused by passive, permissive, inconsistent, noncontingent parenting—is way off base most of the time. As a result, the interventions that flow from these ways of thinking have been way off base as well. You see, if you believe that passive, permissive, inconsistent, noncontingent parenting has caused a kid to behave maladaptively, then you’re going to put a great deal of effort into being rigid, firm, consistent, and contingent, typically through use of adult-imposed consequences. We live in a culture where many adults think of only one word, only one intervention, to deal with kids who don’t meet adult expectations: consequences. Consequences can mean rewards (in schools, this might include special privileges or stickers, happy faces, and tickets or points that can be exchanged for tangible prizes) for appropriate behavior, or punishments (being deprived of privileges, being given extra assignments, time-outs, suspension, detention, expulsion) for undesirable behavior. Consequences are wonderful when they work. They are less wonderful when they don’t work. And they often don’t work for the kids to whom they are most frequently applied.¹

That’s because there are really only two goals imposed consequences help us achieve: (1) teaching kids basic lessons about right and wrong ways to behave, and (2) giving kids the incentive to behave the right way. But—and this is important—the vast majority of challenging kids already know how we want them to behave. They know they’re supposed to do what they’re told. They know they’re not supposed to disrupt the learning of their classmates or run out of the school when they’re upset or embarrassed. And they know they’re not supposed to hit people, swear, or call out in class. So they don’t need us to put lots of effort into teaching them how we want them to behave. And while this may be hard to believe, most challenging kids already want to behave the right way. They don’t need us to continue giving them stickers, depriving them of recess, or suspending them from school; they’re already motivated. They need something else from us.

The premise of this book is that kids with behavioral challenges lack important thinking skills, an idea supported by research in the neurosciences over the past thirty years on kids who are aggressive and have difficulty getting along with people and those diagnosed with ADHD, mood and anxiety disorders, oppositional defiant disorder, conduct disorder, autism spectrum disorders, and langu...