Interpreting and Responding to Classroom Behaviors: A Guide for Early Childhood Educators

by Michael O. Weiner, Les Paul Gallo-Silver, Tal D. Lucas

Overview

"I spend all my time with this kid!" is a typical teacher complaint when challenged by a young child who disrupts the classroom with rebellious, impulsive, worrisome or odd behaviors. It is vital that teachers gain the skills to holistically decipher and respond to these complex classroom situations. By addressing the underlying meanings that motivate children's behaviors, teachers increase the opportunity for change within the classroom setting. Focusing on communication, this book discusses practical ways to apply child developmental theories to help address common classroom situations, problems, and worries. It identifies new frameworks and rationales, such as the troubling child, the testing child, the worrying child, and the hiding child; describes the unique aspects of these children's communication; and offers an easy-to-use language for successful teacher intervention. It also provides an adaptable, week-by-week planning and intervention structure as a way of creating some balance between practicality and theory.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781476673752
Publisher:	McFarland & Company, Incorporated Publishers
Publication date:	08/27/2021
Pages:	399
Product dimensions:	7.00(w) x 10.00(h) x 0.80(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Michael O. Weiner is a licensed clinical social worker and a Portland, Oregon-based child and adolescent psychotherapist. He has a private practice working with children, adolescents, and parents, teaches social work practice at the graduate school level, and provides child development consultation to early childhood educators. Les Paul Gallo-Silver is a clinical social worker and an adjunct professor of social work at Adelphi University School of Social Work in Garden City, New York. He has extensive experience providing psychotherapy to children, adolescents and adults specializing in helping them with sexual, medical and environmental traumas. Tal D. Lucas is a second-grade teacher in Montgomery County, Maryland. She has taught in the primary grades for twenty-three years specializing in reading and literacy. She has spent much of her career as a team leader and has worked as a mentor teacher.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Preface
Introduction
List of Figures and Tables
List of Challenging Behaviors
Part One
A Different View of the Children in Your Classroom
 1. Children in the Round: A Holistic Approach to Understanding Children
 2. Who Needs a Diagnosis, Anyway? Understanding Behavior as Communication
 3. A Child’s Communication Scaffolding
Part Two
The Children Communicating in Your Classroom
 4. The Child Who Is “Troubling”: Loud and Over Reactive
 5. The Child Who Is “Testing”: Loud and Under Reactive
 6. The Child Who Is “Worrying”: Quiet and Over Reactive
 7. The Child Who Is “Hiding”: Quiet and Under Reactive
Part Three
Pulling Back the Curtain on Specific Communicative Behaviors
 8. A Week-by-Week Guide for Behavior Assessment, Prioritization, and Planning
 9. Distractibility, Daydreaming, and Attention-Related Issues
10. Elopement and “Moving Away”–Related Issues
11. Excessive Clowning
12. Aggression, Bullying, Fighting, Out-of-Control Temper
13. “Hyperactivity”
14. Difficulty Observing Personal Space and Other Boundary Problems
15. Not Speaking
16. Toileting Accidents and Toilet-Related Issues
17. Upsetting Artwork, Writings, and Play
Conclusion: Keeping Your Balance
Appendix A: The Troubling Child Worksheet
Appendix B: The Testing Child Worksheet
Appendix C: The Worrying Child Worksheet
Appendix D: The Hiding Child Worksheet
Appendix E: Self-Fulfilling Prophecies
Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

The use of the four child communication personas to help inform a teacher’s response to classroom behaviors and the Model of Understanding Child Behavior (AURA) are both unique and valuable ways of looking at communication and behavior.... [T]his book will be an asset to educators who ... are looking for a new way to investigate the why behind a student’s behavior.”—Janice Eisenberg, school counselor

From the Publisher