Baby behavior steps

Last week I wrote about a special problem-solving meeting I participated in to help with some specific behaviors I am seeing in my classroom with a student who has some issues with self-control. During the meeting, the school counselor brought up a forced choice survey that she would do with the student. A forced choice survey gives the students pairs of motivating options in which the student needs to pick one of the options for each pair; the survey then provides data about what motivates the student in the form of receiving adult approval, competitive approval (being able to "show off", peer approval, independent rewards (free choice), and consumable rewards (treats). With the student in question, the results showed that she prefers peer approval followed by adult approval. When thinking about these results, I felt like they really shed some light on some of the things she has said and done in the past.

Along with the survey, the website http://www.pbisworld.com/ was also shared with me (as I showed last week). If you haven't used it before, I recommend it. I think it is organized well and provides some good ideas for dealing with specific behaviors. Sure, many of the ideas seem to be common sense strategies when you see them, but there are some good reminders of things to try. I used a couple strategies already this week, and I felt like I was seeing some good (baby) steps towards progress. I'll keep you posted.

Mindfulness thought of the week: Look at struggles as opportunities to grow.
I'm bringing it back to the ProYou Podcast by Tom J Deters with some advice that he had read in an email from one of his listeners during his "Why I Do What I Do" episode. I heard this and knew I wanted to share it with the students right away!

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