– Situation –

Elena is sitting at the side of the room kicking at a nearby chair and making popping noises with her mouth. The rest of the children are at story circle, but Elena was sent to the time-out chair for being disruptive. It is difficult to ignore her continued noises.

What causes challenging behavior and what can we do about it? That is a basic question parents and care-givers face everyday. Some needs are easy to meet, others take more work, and some require outside help.


— Solution —

(This is the first of a multi-part series about dealing with Challenging Behavior, both at home and school.)

Sifting

It helps to have a systematic response when dealing with challenging ­behaviors. Imagine that we have a pile of earth composed of sand and rocks, and maybe a few boulders. By using different screens we can sift through this pile. First, we'll use a fine mesh screen to remove the sand. In behavioral terms, sand represents the most common needs, such as hunger or tiredness. These are basic 'conditions' that affect behavior, so we'll call this 'Conditional' sifting.

What's left behind after we've sifted out the sand? Our second screen needs larger holes to allow larger rocks through, or those behaviors and needs that require more effort to be removed. Here we will look at the child's development (age appropriate) and behavior (attention-getting, power struggles), how his perspective (birth order, temperament) influences his behavior and the behavior (rigid, punitive, inconsistent) and attitudes/expectations of adults (why is this upsetting?). How do these interact? This is 'Behavioral' sifting.

Once we have sifted out Conditions and Behaviors, we face a final sifting, those real-life boulders — problems too big to handle without help. We'll call them, Critical Needs (biological, psychological, emotional).

Critical Needs can be daunting, but the progression of our siftings will have reduced the risk that we confuse mere molehills with real mountains, or mistake 'problem behaviors' for 'behavior problems'. Today we will do the first, 'Conditional Sifting'.

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