More good stuff about my job.

Last week, I had an interesting session with the little boy who's learning to speak (HR). On top of his speech problems, he's very badly behaved - at home. He pretty much rules the house with his tantrums. He even attacks his baby sister and because he doesn't speak, he's been allowed to get away with it. His mum has tried to discipline him but at times it just gets too much and she gives up - and he refuses to listen to her anyway, so for her, it's just one battle after the other.

The thing with kids like this is, they need structure, firmness and consistency. They need to know what is expected of them. For parents, I know this is hard. With my own kids, I have trouble doing this, but with someone else's kids, it's easier because I'm an outside influence.

When HR first came to me, I was very firm from the start and I made it known that I would not tolerate anything beyond complete compliance. He did try to tantrum once or twice and when he did, I sat down with him on a thick yoga mat and held him in a firm cross-armed hold with his back to me, until he stopped. He tried to kick, bite and scratch but the hold I was using prevented him from doing any real harm and I just repeated 'stop and I'll let you go' until he started to calm. The minute he showed signs of becoming calm, I very gently and slowly released my grip and when I was sure he wouldn't start up again, I let him go. He screamed and cried but he got over that and then we went to work. Any signs of aggression during our session was met with a firm 'no' and if needed, the same 'sit and grip' technique. It took him only one session to understand that I wasn't going to put up with any sort of misbehaviour and he's had a near perfect record since. If he even looks like he's going to try something on me, I only need to raise my voice a little and he backs down. I swear, I can make that kid crumble with just a look and a bit of a growl.

It's important in my job to set up my authority from the start. If I don't, I'm just creating problems for myself and then the student won't be able to learn anyway. So I have a zero tolerance level for bad behaviour. A couple of years back I had a group of 3 autistic teenage boys and I ran their class like a military camp. No kidding. For the first few weeks, those kids weren't allowed to do anything without my permission first. They had to come into my small back room, line up, say hello then sit down and be quiet. It worked. They were co-operative, respectful and were able to learn and we even had some fun along the way.

But I digress. Back to HR. His mother had asked me to help her with a problem she'd been having since he could walk. He takes his shower in the afternoons and after he's dried off, he runs around the house naked. To a conservative chinese family, this is just not on. And it bothers his mum because she feels out of control. So I thought about it and came up with the idea (not that it's a new one) of making him a chart or a book with all the expected steps. There were 5 steps in all:
1. Take off clothes
2. Have shower and wash
3. Dry
4. Put on clothes
5. Play.

It was the time between steps 3 and 4 that he would run off and want to play whereas his mother wanted him to dress first.

I made a little book with the steps in it, accompanied by some fairly crude line drawings to help his comprehension. Staple the pages together and viola, one 'how to take a shower step by step' book is born. Simple. I was just hoping it would work because like anything, there are no guarantees here.

So anyway, I went to his house, the book and some of his other favourite familiar activities in my bag. It's always good to start with something familiar because it's less threatening and the child knows what to do. To say he was distressed at seeing me there was an understatement. When I arrived (and he knew I was coming) he put on the biggest tantrum I'd seen from a kid in ages. Understandable I suppose. Here I was, the only adult who he couldn't push around, stepping in to his territory. He knew that his BS wouldn't work with me so he threw a huge one.

His mother was onto him though. She successfully distracted him by blowing some bubbles with him outside. I waited til he was calm and smiling and then proceeded to join them, first sitting a few feet away and then gradually moving myself closer until he chose to happily interact with me. It reminded me of those people who study gorillas - they get down low, sit a distance away and gradually move in until they're considered one of the group. It worked though and pretty soon he was happily blowing bubbles with me.

From there we moved inside and did some alphabet activities and some counting. This had two purposes. One was to show his mum how much progress he'd made and the other was to further familiarise him with me being in his space.

Once that was done, I showed him the book and while he was happy to look at it he was reluctant to actually go and have a shower.

POUNCE! Nothing doing, kiddo. I picked him up (I'm sometimes grateful for my size) and carried him like a sack of potatoes to the bathroom and told him "SHOWER!" and pointed to the book. RESULT. He stopped protesting and followed the book to the letter. When it came to step 3 and 4, I showed him the book again. At step 4 I showed it again and he was happy to comply.

Now when he takes a shower, he gets the book out, reads it with his mum, happily follows the steps and then gets dressed before running off to play.

Job done!

I hope she can keep it up and even apply this to other areas. I love doing this kind of thing because it can make such a difference to the lives of the family. Now instead of trying to catch him and coerce him for an hour into getting dressed, it's over and done with and she can go and attend to her baby and her life.

Good stuff.