Adult
attention
This is for a child who always disagrees with adults and wants to argue.
|
Antecedent |
Behavior Target |
Consequence |
|
According to the adult who filled out this form there is no specific antecedent. Although this is rarely really true- we will go with this. |
Arguing and Disagreeing with the adult (Arguing and
disagreeing are many times a ploy for control.) |
Praise positive, choices of activities, behavior chart, modeling positive words and practice (Based on what the
teacher gave us in the above scenarios would indicate that the function of
the behavior is adult attention.) |
We are going to assume
that the function is partly control and partly adult
attention.
If you know a child will argue with anything and you suspect the function is to gain control or attention from the adult then you need to do two things:
i. Teacher helper- passing out the papers to the rest of the class. This lets the child receive adult attention prior to the opportunity to get engaged in a power struggle.
ii. Teacher messenger to an adult that the child has good rapport with in the building.
i. The teacher would say the following when the arguing starts:
1. “I can see that you want to argue. I would be happy to argue with you at 12:30 or 3:45. Which would work best for you?”
2. This has to become a broken record. The adult can not engage in any arguing at all or the child will have gained what they were wanting.
3. Another enforceable statement:
a. “I’ll be happy to talk to you when your voice sounds like mine.”
b. “Come back and see me then.”
A really good skill to teach children is that you should never offer a problem (and arguing is offering a problem) to someone if you can’t offer a solution. One of my favorite ways to teach this is through class meetings. In class meetings the class learns to handle problems.
Class meetings are a great way to end your week. Here’s what you need:
All class meetings start out the same:
Rules: You can only talk if you are holding the Koosh Ball. You must try to toss the Koosh Ball so that the other person can catch it. All tossing of the Koosh Ball is underhand.
Compliments: The teacher starts by modeling the incorrect and correct way to give a compliment. By being careful not to compliment things like Susie’s shoes, but choosing observable behaviors that are preferred the teacher can guide the kind of compliments that the students choose to give. Each person can only receive one compliment. The ball has to keep going until everyone has had a compliment. Students begin to be on the look-out all week for different people to compliment so they are ready when the Koosh ball comes to them.
Class Meeting: The teacher leads the class meeting after that and brings up things that will be happening the next week so the students have something to look forward to on Monday. You can discuss new units, field trips, visitors, and books you will be reading aloud. Whatever is of interest to the class and will keep them interested in upcoming events. It can be as simple or complex as you want. The students can ask questions by raising their hands and you toss the Koosh ball to them so they can talk.
Problem Box: All week the students will have either written or dictated to you a problem that they would like discussed at the class meeting. They can’t put in a problem unless they also have a solution they would like the class to discuss. Anonymously, you will describe a problem and have the students discuss the first solution and brainstorm other solutions to the problem. After discussing two or three possible solutions, the class votes on the solution they would like to try and then everyone agrees that this is how they are going to handle the problem the following week to give it a try and see if that will work for them. If not, it goes back into the problem box for further discussion.
Problems: Follow up on problems that were discussed the week before are brought up the next week to see how the solutions worked. The class votes on whether they will continue to use the solutions they tried during the week or try something new. This gives them control over handling their own problems and they serve as reminders to each other about how to handle particular problems.
This is the hardest because it means the adult changing their own behavior. Children who like to argue have been practicing that skill since they were born. It’s a skill that has a payoff because the adults usually get involved. This is going to be hard but when the child says something of an argumentative nature the adult should play the “Perhaps” game.
This statement is going to sound harsh but when someone tells me that a child is arguing with them it is really hard to not smile. The reason is that it is very hard to have an argument if the other person doesn’t argue. This means if someone is arguing with a child it means the adult is taking the bait that the child is sending. Why wouldn’t the child keep arguing because the child is getting the reaction they desire.
If I like to argue and I say to you, “The sky is green.” You will probably say, “No, the sky is blue.” Since I like to argue I’m so thrilled that you said that because then I know I have pushed the argument button in your brain and “let’s get it on.” If I say to you, “The sky is green” and you say: “Perhaps you could be right, Probably so, or Could be”, then I have nothing left to argue. Game is over and the adult wins.
Although it probably seems as though there is no antecedent to this behavior, most likely, if the teacher were to collect data they would find a clear pattern to when the behavior was most prevalent. Let’s hypothetically surmise that the behavior occurs during three times during the day: 1) reading group, 2) social studies, and 3) science. If we analyze these we can see that all three of these activities involve reading. Perhaps the child has reading difficulties and has learned they can delay immersing themselves in these activities by engaging in arguments with the adults. I would suggest really collecting ten days of data on this behavior to determine if such a pattern exists. If it does, then appropriate therapy for increasing the child’s skills in academics in those areas would be warranted.
Some children are born with the intention of becoming lawyers and they have been practicing their closing arguments since birth. For these children, it would be best if a behavior support team were formed so that all the adults in the child’s life know the function of the behavior and help the child channel this behavior to better use than alienating themselves from others. Fourth grade is not too early to start a small debate team as an extra curricular activity. Help these children learn how to substantiate arguments with facts and use their skills to further their education rather than destruct bonds with adults and other students.