Lost at School (9 page)

“Well, I must confess, I haven’t looked at it very closely,” said Dr. Bridgman. “But since it sounds like no one’s gotten a handle on Joey’s problems yet, I’m not sure whether the information would be terribly useful anyway.”

Joey’s mother found herself warming slightly to the psychologist.
“Joey’s been difficult since he was a toddler, things got worse once he started school, and things are still bad now. And to tell you the honest truth”—she could feel herself starting to get emotional—“to tell you the honest truth, I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

“Look, I can’t make any promises,” said Dr. Bridgman. “I know how hard it can be to deal with schools, especially if you have a challenging kid. All I can tell you is that I’ll listen to you and try to understand what’s going on with Joey and do my best to make things better. But I can’t do any of those things unless you’ll come in with Joey and meet with me.”

What do I have to lose? thought Ms. Lowell. “Joey probably won’t talk to you,” she said.

“I guess I can’t fault him for that,” said Dr. Bridgman. “But maybe you’ll talk to me.”

“You don’t have to worry about that.”

Ms. Lowell was already apprehensive as she knocked on the door to Dr. Bridgman’s office several days later, with a reluctant Joey by her side. Her anxiety spiked when he opened the door. Dr. Bridgman was a large man, his clothes didn’t quite fit, his shirt was partially untucked, his tie hung loosely around his neck, and his thick-rimmed glasses slid down his nose. His office was extraordinarily unkempt.

“Hi, Carl Bridgman,” he said, shaking her hand. Then he turned his attention to Joey. “You’re Joey, yes?”

Joey nodded.

“Come in, let’s talk a little.” Dr. Bridgman guided Joey and his mother into his office and removed stacks of files from two chairs so his guests could sit. “This office is already a mess, and I’ve only been here a month,” he said to no one in particular.

“Where exactly did you come from?” asked Ms. Lowell, scanning the office.

“Oh, I’ve worked in a few different states over the years,” Dr. Bridgman replied. “But my office has always been a complete mess no matter what state I’ve been in.”

Joey chuckled.

“And you say you’re a psychologist?” asked Ms. Lowell.

“School psychologist,” said Dr. Bridgman. “At least that’s what my degree says I am.”

“What do you say you are?” asked Ms. Lowell.

“At the moment, I’m the guy who’d like to help things go better at school for you and Joey,” Dr. Bridgman responded. “It would be nice if what happened the other day didn’t happen again.”

“That would be nice,” said Ms. Lowell, still skeptical.

“Joey,” said Dr. Bridgman, “can you tell me what happened the other day?”

Joey was silent.

“Joey, he can’t help us if you don’t talk,” said Ms. Lowell.

“I don’t want to do this,” mumbled Joey, looking at his mother.

“I don’t blame you,” said Dr. Bridgman. “The thing is, if I don’t hear your ideas about what happened, then I’ll have to rely on everyone else’s ideas, and I’m not sure you want me relying on what everyone else is saying about what happened.”

Joey considered his options.

“Joey, please,” said Ms. Lowell.

Dr. Bridgman looked carefully at Joey. “You’ve talked to a lot of doctors, Joey. And I’m betting you don’t think they’ve done you much good. I mean, all those doctors, and you’re still suspended for five days. So I can’t say that I blame you for not wanting to talk to a perfect stranger.”

Joey was still silent.

Dr. Bridgman continued. “Now, I don’t know what all those other doctors did. I’m sorry they didn’t help you very much. I don’t know if I’ll be able to help you or not. But I know I can’t help unless I hear what you have to say.”

Joey surprised his mother and started talking. “All the teachers hate me. They like embarrassing me … and getting me in trouble.”

“The teachers like embarrassing you,” said Dr. Bridgman. “And you’re probably not too keen on being embarrassed … or getting into trouble.”

“I don’t care about getting into trouble. I’m used to it.”

“So what happened the other day that made you run out of the school?” asked Dr. Bridgman.

“Um … I was sitting at my desk and I didn’t know what to do on the social studies project. And Mrs. Woods got a little mad at me because I didn’t know what to do. So she told me to come up to her desk, and I didn’t want all the kids looking at me. So I told her I didn’t want to go up to her desk. So she had Mr. Middleton come in the class and he wanted me to go to the office, and then
everyone
was looking at me. So I jumped out of my
seat. I guess that’s when Mr. Middleton got hurt … but I didn’t mean for him to get hurt. That’s when I ran out of the classroom … and then they found me and grabbed my arms and Mrs. Galvin,” Joey’s facial expression and tone signaled his dislike of the school principal, “suspended me.”

Dr. Bridgman was listening intently. “Sounds pretty scary. Were you scared, Joey?”

“Um, no … not really.”

“What were you?”

“Um, I don’t know …
embarrassed
?”

Ms. Lowell interrupted. “Mrs. Galvin said she was going to see about pressing charges. Do you know anything about that?”

“No, I don’t,” Dr. Bridgman replied. “Hard to imagine that would fix anything.”

Ms. Lowell was surprised by Dr. Bridgman’s candor. She couldn’t recall having ever heard school staff question the wisdom of the school’s leaders.

“Am I going to get arrested?” asked Joey.

“I hope not,” said Dr. Bridgman. “But we do need to get a handle on what’s going on so we can make sure things don’t get out of control again.”

“How do we do that?” asked Joey’s mother.

“Well, I know everyone’s focused right now on what Joey did,” said Dr. Bridgman. “You know, jumping out of his chair so Mr. Middleton got hurt, telling Taylor he was going to kill her, running out of the school. But I usually find it’s a lot more helpful to focus on the problem that set the stage for Joey to do that stuff in the first place. If we can find a way to solve it, that should keep it from causing trouble again.”

CHAPTER 3

Lesson Plans

You now know that
kids do well if they can
; that if a kid
could
do well he
would
do well. And that behind every challenging behavior is either an unsolved problem or a lagging skill. You’re also familiar with the lagging skills that usually set the stage for social, emotional, and behavioral challenges, along with two tools—the
ALSUP
and the
situational analysis
—to help you pinpoint the specific lagging skills and unsolved problems that may be involved. And you know that once a kid’s lagging skills and unsolved problems are pinpointed, his challenging behavior becomes
highly predictable,
which means that his difficulties can be addressed
proactively.
You’re ready to consider your options. But let’s first think about what your expectations are, because
unmet
expectations let you know you have a skill to teach or a problem to solve.

If you’re an educator, you presumably have the expectation that the kids in your classroom (or school or school system or caseload) will learn what they need to learn in a given school year. Maybe you expect that they’ll learn not only the requisite academic material, but also maybe even develop a love of learning, a curiosity about the world around them, and the ability to think about, analyze, and solve problems. Certainly you expect your students to conduct themselves
in ways that are safe, respectful, and don’t disrupt the learning of their classmates. And you want to pursue these expectations in ways that are fair, respectful, humane, and effective.

If you’re a parent, you want pretty much the same things. You want your child to learn the requisite academic material and maybe even develop a love of learning, a curiosity about the world, and the ability to think about, analyze, and solve problems. You want your child and his classmates to conduct themselves in ways that are safe, respectful, and don’t disrupt anyone’s learning. And you want your child to be treated fairly, respectfully, humanely, and effectively by school staff.

Looks like everyone’s on the same page. When these expectations are being met, kids, teachers, and parents tend to be pretty satisfied. But if these expectations are
not
being met, you need a plan.

There are basically three options for handling unmet expectations. I call these options plans, as in Plan A, Plan B, and Plan C.

Plan A is when adults
impose their will
in response to an unmet expectation. Plan A is far and away the most popular way adults handle problems or unmet expectations with kids, and not only in schools. Often, Plan A implies the preferred option, but not in this book. More on Plan A soon—but not much more, since it won’t be our primary focus.

Plan C involves
dropping an expectation completely,
at least temporarily. At first glance, Plan C may sound like “giving in,” but, as you’ll read below, that’s not the case. More on Plan C soon—but not much more, since it won’t be our primary focus, either.

Plan B refers to
Collaborative Problem Solving,
in which the child and adult are engaged in a process of
resolving a problem or unmet expectation in a realistic and mutually satisfactory manner.
As you’ll soon discover, this is the Plan with the greatest potential for durably solving the problems and teaching the lagging skills giving rise to kids’ social, emotional, and behavioral challenges in a way that is fair, respectful, humane, and effective. As you may have guessed, Plan B is what the rest of this book is about.

Let’s take a closer look at each option.

PLAN A

If a kid isn’t meeting a given expectation, one way to approach the problem is by imposing your will. Let’s say a kid is badgering one of his classmates and causing the classmate to become agitated, and the teacher has already asked the kid to stop badgering. The teacher would be using Plan A if she said, “Rodney, go stand in the hallway now! Come back when you’re ready to treat people kindly.”

Or if a kid says, “I’m not doing this assignment unless I can work with my friend,” and the teacher has already made it clear that he expects the kid to partner with a different student, then a potential Plan A response would be “Elena, you’re not working with Hector. Let me know if a detention is necessary to help you understand that.”

Or if a kid is distracting his classmates because he doesn’t understand an assignment and the teacher says, “Joey, let’s talk about it at my desk so we don’t disturb your classmates,” and Joey refuses to comply, then a potential Plan A response would be, “Joey, if you don’t come up to my desk now, I’ll have to send you to the office.”

At first glance, these probably sound like perfectly ordinary, reasonable responses. However, there are a few problems with responding in this manner to kids who aren’t meeting expectations. The first is that
Plan A greatly heightens the likelihood of challenging behavior in challenging kids.
When we “rewind the tape” on most of the challenging episodes that occur in schools (and homes), we discover that the vast majority of these episodes are precipitated by an adult responding to an unmet expectation using Plan A. The second problem is that
Plan A doesn’t help us figure out why the kid isn’t meeting our expectations in the first place.
Third,
Plan A doesn’t teach lagging skills or durably resolve problems giving rise to challenging behavior.
In view of these shortcomings, it’s not clear that Plan A qualifies as fair, respectful, humane, or effective treatment.

Are you thinking that you do a lot of Plan A? If so, you’re not alone. Most adults use Plan A when kids aren’t meeting expectations. Are you wondering if it’s still Plan A if you impose your will nicely? Yes, that’s still Plan A (it’s called Gentle A, but it’s Plan A all the
same). Are you thinking that Plan A usually “works” with “ordinary” kids? If so, you’re right. But, once again, it depends on your definition of “works.” If, by “works,” you mean that the kid ultimately complied when you imposed your will, then yes, Plan A usually works with ordinary kids. But even ordinary kids have skills that need to be taught and problems that need to be solved, and Plan A doesn’t teach skills or solve problems.

PLAN C

Plan C involves dropping a given expectation completely, at least temporarily. When you’re using Plan C, you’re not solving any problems or teaching any lacking thinking skills. But Plan C can help adults remove low-priority expectations, thereby helping a kid to be more “available” to work on higher-priority problems or skills and reducing the likelihood of challenging behavior.

If Liam is sharpening his pencil for the seventh time in the past hour, and it’s the teacher’s expectation that Liam remain in his seat because all that pencil sharpening is distracting other kids or making it hard for Liam to complete his work, and the teacher has already made it clear to Liam that his pencil sharpening is excessive and disruptive, but the teacher chooses to say nothing about the pencil sharpening because she has bigger fish to fry with Liam, then what the teacher chose to do is Plan C.

If a particular kid says “I’m not doing my homework,” and his teacher has already decided that homework isn’t a high priority right now given other more pressing issues with this kid, then letting the kid know he needn’t do the homework is Plan C.

You probably still need convincing that Plan C is not the same thing as “giving in.” The definition of “giving in” is when you start with Plan A and end up using Plan C because the kid made your life miserable.

But when you start with Plan C, your reasoning is: “I understand why this kid is challenging, and I know I can’t fix everything at once. I also know what unsolved problems we’re working on right now, and this is not one of them. I’m going to drop this expectation, at least for
now, so the kid is more available to work on our high-priority problems.”