FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

It is important to remember that all behavior is communication. It is important to determine what the child is communicating by their behavior. Therefore, the best “catch-all” technique is curiosity combined with record-keeping. Document what is happening, noting the following:

• Behavior
• Day and time
• Circumstances (location, whether it was noisy or quiet, who else was around)
• Antecedent (what happened right before)
• You are looking for patterns:
• Is it a sensory issue?
• Are behaviors worse on a certain day of the week and, if so, what is different that day?
• Do negative behaviors happen at a time of day when the child might be more hungry, thirsty, or tired?

Usually, patterns will emerge. Don’t forget to consult with parents to see if they have seen the same challenging behaviors and ask what they think causes them—they know their child best! And if the child is old enough, when the child is regulated, well-rested, and not hungry, ask the child: “I noticed that you tend to get angry during the second recess. What’s happening?” Once you determine the need behind the behavior, you can be proactively plan to reduce or prevent the negative behavior.

The tricky thing with this is that we can’t always be sure what the child’s needs are ourselves. As educators, we can’t actually diagnose special needs unless we have advanced training in diagnostic techniques—and even if we do, that is often outside of the scope of what we do. But we can strongly suspect that a child has a disability or other unique needs.

Parents know their children best, so partnering with parents and asking their input is generally the best starting point. Avoid using labels, such as by saying, “I think your child has ADHD.” Instead, describe the behavior you are seeing, and ask whether the parent is seeing that same thing at home. Examples:

• “I’ve noticed that Jimmy has trouble staying seated on the rug for our classes. Does he tend to need to move a lot at home?”
• “I’ve noticed that Susie seems to struggle with learning her letter sounds. Have you noticed her having difficulty with that, or with learning other things, at home?”

Often when you describe the challenge and ask the parents what they have observed, you will find that they have made similar observations. At that point, you can ask, “What have you found to be helpful with this at home?” If they have tips, try them. If they say they are stumped about what to do, you could ask how they would feel about having the child evaluated—not to get a label, but to find out how you can best work with their child.

Important note: Sometimes parents have difficulty acknowledging their children’s challenges because they (the parents) had the same challenge as a child. They might feel guilty for “passing on” a learning disability or ADHD, or they might be very fearful of their child going through what they went through. A gentle, patient approach that emphasizes your desire to meet their child’s needs is ideal. As a Christian teacher, you have the added advantage of being

able to express how precious the child is to God and to you, even if they have challenges, knowing that God has also given that child gifts that can be used for his glory.

This can be made much easier by the way you set the tone for the school year right at the beginning. As you begin each school year, tell your students that you are not going to treat them all equally! Instead, you are going to do things like these:

• Adjust assignments to make sure that each student is working at their level and making progress
• Give students who need breaks, breaks, and students who need movement, movement
• Provide extra tools (fidgets, multiplication charts, special seating, etc.) to students who need them

Often children who have been with their classes in previous years are well aware that certain children in their class have unique needs, and they will understand. Taking time at the beginning of the year to do some disability awareness training is also helpful, especially when the training emphasizes the following:

• They and their classmates are more alike than different.
• Each of them is fearfully and wonderfully made, just as they are, and is a precious child of God.

If you feel it would be helpful to teach the students about a classmate’s specific challenge (such as autism, epilepsy, diabetes, and the like), you may be right! However, before you explain that “Johnny has diabetes,” do the following:

• Check with Johnny’s parent(s) and Johnny to make sure it’s ok to do a class talk about him.
• If they agree, offer the parent(s) and, if possible, Johnny, a chance to talk to the class and answer questions themselves.
• If they don’t wish to talk to the class but are ok with you doing so, ask what they would like you to share and not share.
• Give Johnny the choice of being in the classroom during the talk or being elsewhere.

Often children have hidden disabilities or health problems (ones you cannot see in a still photo of the child), and sharing that information helps classmates be more understanding and helpful toward that child.

It’s great that you are approaching the situation with curiosity, looking for understanding!

Before asking the student anything, I’d encourage you to remind yourself that children generally don’t begin school with the intention of doing nothing and failing. Something must have happened along the way that led to the lack of motivation. Here are some possibilities:

• Often students become convinced that they cannot do well, and that is embarrassing to them. They will refuse to do the work because they would rather be labeled as “defiant” than do the work and fail, making others (in their mind) see them as “stupid.”
• Other children are dealing with challenges outside of school or in their past that we teachers may know nothing about; school doesn’t seem very important compared to the challenges they are facing outside of school.
• In addition, some children may be coming to school hungry, thirsty, or tired; even we adults have trouble being motivated when we feel exhausted or hungry!

Look for the need behind the behavior.

• During a time the student and you are calm, sit down and make eye contact. Say to the student in a gentle, on-threatening way, “I can see that you really don’t want to do [name an assignment]. What’s up?” Understand that their answer might not be the real reason.
• If you suspect the student has a lack of confidence because of past academic struggles (and parents may be able to confirm past struggles), start by differentiating the level of the material so that the student can experience success with something easy. Make sure the student experiences success, and gradually raise the bar, praising effort over achievement. It can also help to give the student choices for how to demonstrate understanding (writing, drawing a diagram, making a presentation, etc.).
• If the student is experiencing other challenges in life, whether difficult life situations, tiredness, or hunger, express your concern about the student’s lack of motivation with the parent(s), and work with them to find a solution.

See the previous question for some starting points. Also, please know that it is possible to motivate a student even if the parents do not seem to back you up at home. Remember that some parents are going through a lot of challenges and truly do not have the time to work with each child on homework at night. Here are just a few things that could be happening:

• Single parents may be overwhelmed with handling family responsibilities alone.
• Parents of children with disabilities may be taking their children to various therapies throughout the week and doing therapy “homework” at home, in addition to needing to take extra time to help their children with activities of daily living.
• Parents may be experiencing their own physical or mental health challenges.
• Adoptive parents may need to prioritize building attachment and connection with their children over nightly homework battles.
• Parents of children with severe medical needs may need to take extensive time at night to do their children’s cares, such as feeding them, changing tubes, working on range-of-motion exercises, giving injections, and the like.

If parents say they don’t have time to help their children with homework, give them the benefit of the doubt, and ask if there is anything their fellow-Christians can do to support them.

In the meantime, as stated in the previous answer, you will need to look for the reason the student isn’t motivated. You can do a simple, informal assessment of that with the student when they are calm and able to respond honestly. Here’s how:

• Show the student a simple 1-10 rating scale.
• Ask the student to point to the scale to rate various aspects of school (math class, reading class, recess, friendships, lunch time, work to do at home, energy level, etc.).
• For items given a low rating, ask the student, “Can you tell me more about that?”

By breaking school activities into smaller parts, you often can get to the root of the problem. Be sure to validate the student’s feelings in a non-judgmental way.

When done gathering information, involve the student in problem-solving. You can find excellent guidance for how to do this in the Collaborative and Proactive Solutions model by Dr. Ross Greene (https://cpsconnection.com/).

This is a great question, as documentation is so important! Whether using accommodations (such as larger print, a quieter work area, or movement breaks) or curriculum modifications (having the student work at a different level than classmates or reducing homework assignments), it is good to have a plan in the student’s permanent file.

Parents and teachers can meet to determine which accommodations and/or modifications are needed, and then list them in a dated document, showing when these things began and, if applicable, ended. Having accommodations listed and placed in the permanent file each year should be sufficient for those, but for modifications, it is good to also make a brief note on the quarterly progress report for each affected subject, such as “reduced assignments” or “modified curriculum.” That way the next teacher will know that this student might not yet be ready to work fully at grade level and can check the student’s file for more details.