Some people want to know, "How to help a child with behavior problems at school?"
Well, if that's you, you're in the right place. I'm Nicholeen Peck. I'm a parenting expert
and that's what this video is all about.
First, we're going to talk about some of the behavior problems you might be experiencing.
And then I'm going to give you 6 expert tips that you can use to help stop any behavior problems at
school for the child in your life. There are a lot of different ways that a child can act
up at school. They could tease people, they could be mean, they could bully other people or engage
in fights. And they could not obey the teacher. They could even start fighting with the teacher.
I've heard of cases of that happening. In fact, some of my foster children that I had years ago
had some pretty terrible problems at school. And what I'd like to share with you today is some of
the 6 things that we did to help them conquer their problem behaviors at school. Number 1,
have a good bond with your child. I know that seems like it's not related but it absolutely
is related. If a child has a good bond with their parents, that increases their security
overall and oftentimes they end up not thinking of lashing out at other people. If they feel like
they're in power struggles with you or trying to maintain dominance over you, control you,
then they're going to move that to everywhere else that they go. So, that means the school is
going to have a person who is engaging in power struggles with other students and teachers all
of the time.Number 2, if you find out that your child is having behavioral problems at school,
it's time to have a talk. So, the second thing is have parent counseling sessions,
probably on a regular basis at first. I don't mean getting with a counselor and meeting with
them about it. I just mean you and your child counseling together for how to solve this problem.
You should be talking about it as one of the issues that they happen to be working on.
Don't make a big deal out of it. Just pull them aside and say, "You know what? Let's go have a
popsicle on the porch." Or maybe when you're on a drive sometime you say, "You know what? I'd like
to talk to you about something." And you mention the issue of school and say, "So, what can we do
about this?" In fact, be sure to talk about what they would like their school relationships to
be like with their friends and their teachers because that's the perfect way to start things
going in a positive direction. During this parent counseling session if you haven't done it before,
teach your children 4 basic skills. These are 4 basic skills that I teach in my
Teaching Self-Government Parenting course. They are: following instructions,
accepting no answers and criticism, accepting consequences and disagreeing appropriately.
Because these are the 4 skills that they need to conquer themselves in that school setting. What if
they could disagree appropriately with teachers when they wanted to be understood. Or what if
they could just be okay following instructions or accepting no answers from teachers and peers.
If they have those skills under their belt then they have way less problems in the future. So,
teach them those skills, work on them. Each one of those skills has a skill set attached
to it which means that there's multiple steps for how to follow instructions. Sor instance,
there's 5 steps for following instructions, 4 steps for accepting no answers and criticism,
6 steps for accepting consequences, and 7 steps for how to disagree appropriately. Learn those.
Use them in your family and then teach them to use them at school too. Number 4, during this
parent counseling session talk to your child about what would motivate them to make a change. Now,
this isn't bribery, this is planning. So, what you do is you say, "What type of negative consequence
would motivate you not to have this behavioral problem at school anymore? Or "What type of a
positive consequence would motivate you to accept more no answers and disagree appropriately. So,
you can set those things up with your child getting their input. Now, if they say, "Ah,
nothing." Or they act like they don't care. Then say, "All right, well it sounds like you don't
know so this is what I recommend." I don't have time to get into all the negative consequences.
I use at my home and with my foster children but you can definitely find more about that in my
Teaching Self-Government books and on my website, teachingselfgovernment.com. After you've made your
plans and you send your child on their way then you're going to send a note to teachers. You're
going to have a note that you give to the teacher not through the child because if the child's
oppositional or in any way dishonest the teacher is not going to get the note. And this note's
going to have some little checkboxes on it that will represent how your child did that day. So,
maybe you'll talk about things with other students. Were they bullying or were they
kind to other students? Yes, definitely, kind of, not so good, definitely did, bad. And then have
a place where they can write a brief description. Now, keep in mind this is extra work for teachers.
But if you can really sell them on the fact that if you guys are consistent together on how you're
handling things with the child, that things will improve for them too then maybe they'll do it for
you, I've found that most teachers will agree to this especially because they know after a while
this practice can go away. So, have a note system that goes back and forth between you and the
teacher so that you can make sure to correct your child for anything that happened at school that
day and the teacher can see some success in the classroom, Number 6, don't engage in any fights
with other students or teachers. If you feel like your child has been wronged, make sure that you
also disagree appropriately. Fighting with them is only going to make things harder for your child,
in the long run. You need to be the advocate for the teacher the advocate for your child
and the advocate for the other students all at the same time. Don't just put your child up there as
perfect just because you love them so much. Accept that other people are in this group with them
every day and that they possibly could need some correction that you might not think actually
exists at first. So, don't fight with teachers, work with teachers, maintain a good rapport,
some good communication. Even if the teacher or other students come off wrong or accusatory
against your child. Now, that we've talked about how to handle behavioral problems at school,
I think you're going to like my next video which is How Do You Control a Child with Behavior
Problems? There are more skills and more tips there. Click that link and we'll see at that video.