Challenging Behaviors

 As educators, and as parents, we are quick to respond to a child's positive or negative behaviors. Especially the negative ones when we are trying to mold them into the best versions of themselves. It is so easy to see a challenging behavior, and in a desperate attempt to try to teach them that is not appropriate, we miss the idea about teaching them instead what is appropriate.  What do I mean by that?  All behaviors stem from somewhere. A root cause. By just focusing on the behavior we don't want to see them display, addressing only that behavior, and issuing a consequence or punishment to not see it displayed again, we are doing a disservice to them. Studies show that this will only work in a short-term window and there is no long-term benefit or learning provided this way. Instead, as educators and parents, we need to dig deeper than behavior and determine what the root cause is. Only through identifying what CAUSED the behavior, eliminating that cause or teaching th...

 You just got off the phone with your child's school, only to be told that your son or daughter has been referred to a tier 2 intervention under their school RTI model. They probably said something along the lines of how they have been progress monitoring your child for some time since he wasn't making the necessary growth that was expected. Through different in classroom interventions and reteaching, you were probably told your child was still struggling to make progress. Thus, the tier 2 placement.  What does that even mean? In RTI (Response to Intervention) there are 3 tiers of instruction delivery. The first tier is the teaching that occurs in the classroom with the entire class. Think of this as the lessons that occur each day. Students are regularly assessed to determine how well they are learning with the instruction that was provided to all students. After instruction and practice, if your child is still struggling to understand the concept and make gains, they are ref...