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Special Needs
2lovelyboys
member
Behavior Modification for Kindergarten...the teachers approach.
2lovelyboys
member
We had open house last night at my DS (NT) school and his teacher has noted what she does for behavior modification. I kind of like it and want to get your thoughts on it. So far she said the class has been great. All the children have a "fish swimming in the fish pond". If a child breaks a classroom rule their fish moves to the bridge-- the consequence is 5 min lost from recess. If they break a second rule, they move to the grass-- consequence is no recess. Children have teh ability to move back to the water if they show good behavior. Comments, thought? Thanks!
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Re: Behavior Modification for Kindergarten...the teachers approach.
OP and Auntie, wow, this sounds like some thing I could relate to my DD, she does not do well with neg-consequences, but does much better with pos-re-enforcement. She has made it to 5th grade with some modifications and extra finess from her teacher. Her step mom is a teacher in our district so she is able to know which teacher will be a good match for DD and we request that particular person very early on. But to some degree despite all the modifications and extra tender care, we are still barely passing, if she is tested one on one with individual areas she is very smart but functioning daily in a classroom pulls her grades down tramendiously. She told us this year she wanted to switch to a "special" class, that even if no one there had her specific issues, they would all be different like her, this broke my heart, she said it is too difficult being the only "different" person in her class. We don't know if this is something that will help her socially but not accademically or if it would be great for her all around. Negative here is that in our small town, if she moves to these classes, working her back into a regular class later on is nearly impossible, we have struggled every year to prevent them from removing her from an open class room, she is smart and we want what is best for her education, just don't know what that is.
I could see how this would be a good model for a typically developing child, but I know for my kindergarten son (Asperger syndrome) he would not benefit from it.
Like Auntie mentioned, he really struggles when we try to use a consequence based discipline system. We have made great strides in his behaviors since we started using a positive reinforcement system.
In his kindergarten class now, they use a green, yellow, red system. If a child has one misbehavior, they flip the card to yellow and after two it flips to red. Yesterday they had a surprise fire drill in the afternoon. After the fire drill, he threw a pebble he found on the floor at a teacher instead of throwing it in the garbage like she asked. At this point, I imagine he was in overload from the fire drill as 1) it was a surprise that he wasn't prepared for; and 2) he has pretty significant auditory sensory issues.
When we went over his daily note home last night, all he could talk about was that he was on yellow. He was totally consumed by the negative consequence and not able to move on from that.
I am already in touch with his case manager to get the whole story and try talking about a more positive approach to discipline for him. (which is already written into his IEP, but I digress)
Anyhow, I think having a visual is great, but often time I don't imagine this working for a kid on the spectrum and perhaps some typically developing children at the very least.
Hmm, I think it has a positive component...like OP said, the child can earn their recess back for good behavior. I'm assuming the fish goes back in the pond when that happens...? In this case, I think it is a sound system....it provides a visual and lets kids know exactly where they stand with their behavior.
My son's class does the traffic light approach. When you're on the green for however long, you get to pick something from a treasure box. However, if you slip into yellow and then red, you do get certain privileges taken away.
DS likes it. He's visually oriented and he also likes to know where he stands. It's not overly distracting to him, but it does matter to him to be in the green, so it's a huge motivator for him.
Ha, auntie....it's actually the Eastern-European style in my case....where we beat our kids to a pulp! Lol - no really....I guess I still don't understand what we do with kids who disrupt the class and don't listen, if we have no negative consequences. What does a positive discipline look like in that situation? Am I understanding it right that if the kids who behave nicely get more of the "good", then the kids who misbehave, see the rewards and get jealous and it motivates them to be good, so they get the same great rewards?