Old Behaviors At New School
Tonight I sent off an e-mail to James's teachers:
[Headers removed for privacy/spam/consent purposes]
According to James's Lifeskills logs for the last two days, it seems that James is having behavior issues similar to last Spring.
Tuesday: James participated in story time, calendar, math activities and social play. James did have some behaviors today including taking another students supplies (numerous times), throwing a chair, throwing puzzles off his desk, tearing paper off the wall, and many instances of not following directions.
Wednesday: James has several instances of aggression today. He hit and kicked a female student this morning. He also hit and pushed down another female student in the afternoon. He had numerous instances of destroying property, not following directions, and leaving his assigned area.... At the end of the day when told his computer was over, he pushed a student hard--she hit the wall.
Of course, I am concerned about this behavior, and we need to get this under control while he is still little. I'd like to mention a few things that might help:
Over the Summer James has calmed down a lot, and I don't remember getting notes about James hitting other children or throwing chairs, but ESY was shorter and probably less challenging. James's behavior in his old day care over the Summer was good (just a handful of minor incidences). He's doing well in his new day care even without a special needs staff, but it's a more relaxed (non-classroom) environment, and most of the kids are bigger than him. A lot of James's behavior problems seem strongly correlated with specific types of peers and his environment. The more James doesn't get his way or loses control of his environment, the more aggressive he becomes towards those peers. Of course, James can't be allowed to coast or vegetate in school, so I'm hoping the Life Skills setting will get him used to working in more challenging environments.
James knows better than to bother most bigger kids, kids that would hit back, "tell on him," or otherwise stand up to him. He tends to act out his frustrations on kids that seem annoyed by him, don't respond to his social initiations, ignore him, or show fear towards him. On one occasion a more aggressive kid hit James when he got too close, so James hit the smallest "whipping boy" he could find in retaliation.
The first and also one of only a few times I have personally observed James hitting another child was when we visited my father last December. He and his wife are foster parents for two severely retarded nine-year old boys. The environment was new to James, so he spent the first three hours getting into everything and slamming and closing doors. James got along fine with Terrell, the boy who could mumble, point, and follow him. After a few hours James began circling, sneaking up on, and slapping the other boy, Jeffery. Jeffery was larger but lower-functioning, and James realized that Jeffery could not react or turn around quickly enough to stop him. After a while it became a challenging game and James continued to tease him. The next day when James started to take Jeffery's French fries at lunch, Jeffery almost bit James's hand. (Jeffery will eat almost everthing, including paper and clothes if you don't watch out.) After that James was cautious around Jeffery and quit teasing him. While we were there James also grew fascinated with my father's Miniature Pincher, and tried to squeeze and "pinch" the dog. (At least James is capable of enjoying a pun.) Eventually the dog bit him--not hard, but it was enough to keep James away. For the rest of our visit, James screamed and ran away from the little dog every time he came around.
A couple of weeks ago my brother and his family came in out-of-state for an unexpected stay for just a few days. James interacted well with his smaller but "normal" five-year-old female cousin (he's only seen her twice), and he was actually better behaved than her (she threw more tantrums). When he tried to squeeze her arm once she stood up to him (snapped back) and he immediately dropped it. She had passed his test, earned his respect. He also spent a lot of time playing with his fourteen-month old cousin, Johnathan. James enjoyed walking up to Johnathan so that Johnathan could push and hit James in the face (I didn't encourage it but James still found opportunities to do this). It became a game. James would laugh and say, "Hit Johnathan," but James never hit him. When James was in day care at Open Door Preschool this Summer they had infants, and he was gentle around the babies.
Anyway, I wanted to give you an idea of my observations on James's social interaction with other children. At the beginning of this week I wrote up some notes for James's new day care that might also help his school as well:
[See the notes for Monday, August 15, 2005: A New Day Care]
[Headers removed for privacy/spam/consent purposes]
According to James's Lifeskills logs for the last two days, it seems that James is having behavior issues similar to last Spring.
Tuesday: James participated in story time, calendar, math activities and social play. James did have some behaviors today including taking another students supplies (numerous times), throwing a chair, throwing puzzles off his desk, tearing paper off the wall, and many instances of not following directions.
Wednesday: James has several instances of aggression today. He hit and kicked a female student this morning. He also hit and pushed down another female student in the afternoon. He had numerous instances of destroying property, not following directions, and leaving his assigned area.... At the end of the day when told his computer was over, he pushed a student hard--she hit the wall.
Of course, I am concerned about this behavior, and we need to get this under control while he is still little. I'd like to mention a few things that might help:
Over the Summer James has calmed down a lot, and I don't remember getting notes about James hitting other children or throwing chairs, but ESY was shorter and probably less challenging. James's behavior in his old day care over the Summer was good (just a handful of minor incidences). He's doing well in his new day care even without a special needs staff, but it's a more relaxed (non-classroom) environment, and most of the kids are bigger than him. A lot of James's behavior problems seem strongly correlated with specific types of peers and his environment. The more James doesn't get his way or loses control of his environment, the more aggressive he becomes towards those peers. Of course, James can't be allowed to coast or vegetate in school, so I'm hoping the Life Skills setting will get him used to working in more challenging environments.
James knows better than to bother most bigger kids, kids that would hit back, "tell on him," or otherwise stand up to him. He tends to act out his frustrations on kids that seem annoyed by him, don't respond to his social initiations, ignore him, or show fear towards him. On one occasion a more aggressive kid hit James when he got too close, so James hit the smallest "whipping boy" he could find in retaliation.
The first and also one of only a few times I have personally observed James hitting another child was when we visited my father last December. He and his wife are foster parents for two severely retarded nine-year old boys. The environment was new to James, so he spent the first three hours getting into everything and slamming and closing doors. James got along fine with Terrell, the boy who could mumble, point, and follow him. After a few hours James began circling, sneaking up on, and slapping the other boy, Jeffery. Jeffery was larger but lower-functioning, and James realized that Jeffery could not react or turn around quickly enough to stop him. After a while it became a challenging game and James continued to tease him. The next day when James started to take Jeffery's French fries at lunch, Jeffery almost bit James's hand. (Jeffery will eat almost everthing, including paper and clothes if you don't watch out.) After that James was cautious around Jeffery and quit teasing him. While we were there James also grew fascinated with my father's Miniature Pincher, and tried to squeeze and "pinch" the dog. (At least James is capable of enjoying a pun.) Eventually the dog bit him--not hard, but it was enough to keep James away. For the rest of our visit, James screamed and ran away from the little dog every time he came around.
A couple of weeks ago my brother and his family came in out-of-state for an unexpected stay for just a few days. James interacted well with his smaller but "normal" five-year-old female cousin (he's only seen her twice), and he was actually better behaved than her (she threw more tantrums). When he tried to squeeze her arm once she stood up to him (snapped back) and he immediately dropped it. She had passed his test, earned his respect. He also spent a lot of time playing with his fourteen-month old cousin, Johnathan. James enjoyed walking up to Johnathan so that Johnathan could push and hit James in the face (I didn't encourage it but James still found opportunities to do this). It became a game. James would laugh and say, "Hit Johnathan," but James never hit him. When James was in day care at Open Door Preschool this Summer they had infants, and he was gentle around the babies.
Anyway, I wanted to give you an idea of my observations on James's social interaction with other children. At the beginning of this week I wrote up some notes for James's new day care that might also help his school as well:
[See the notes for Monday, August 15, 2005: A New Day Care]
posted by Paul Short at 8:26 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home