Challenging Behaviors

The Orientation Of Social-Emotional Competencies through School Identity and RTI

By: Tolay Alturk

A successful learning process requires a well-prepared environment that meets the student’s mental, cognitive, physical, and social-emotional needs. A prepared healthy educational environment will enable the students to reach the gratification levels within what is known as a Little Scientist phase. During the first plane of development (birth-six) years, students are curious to explore and scaffold critical early childhood skills, which cannot be achieved unless highly educational and health techniques are applied. Emotional and mental health stability is considered the key to positive self-regulation that profoundly impacts the student’s academic performance and the success of the learning process. Furthermore, being conscious of early childhood’s interconnection is fundamental to comprehend what lies beyond the student’s challenging behaviors. Positive self-regulation is strongly connected with presenting knowledge, self-management, and practical techniques. Therefore, the teacher who understands those problematic behaviors, such as biting, as a normal developmental milestone will develop the children’s positive self-discipline. Accordingly, Quality Management (QM) is essential to improve self-regulation skills that promote better performance. Self-regulation, self-awareness, and self-discipline are crucial skills to enhance the students’ social-emotional competencies (Craig M. Becker et al., 2020).

The interconnection between mental health status and emotional stability is crucial for the structure of well-being. However, the ramifications of the children’s incapacity of co-regulation will generate more significant side effects on the orientation of the children’s minds, hearts, and behaviors. Therefore, adults must celebrate the children’s mistakes to recognize the underlying needs of the challenging behaviors. Increasingly, the emotional imbalance dilemma creates mental health diseases that will sharply hit the critical functions of the child’s brain. For that reason, nurturing the students’ social-emotional skills early is critical in avoiding the emotional imbalance that leads to challenging behaviors. Classifying the feelings and emotions will enhance the individual’s capability to maintain a healthy psychological state and develop problem-solving skills (Katherine Dowling et al., 2019).

The importance of a school-based on mental health pedagogy that supports the students’ social-emotional competence in preparing independent learners will enable them to impact the future positively. A Montessori teacher is a half scientist and half psychologist to foster the students’ welfare. This occurs by actively listening to the child’s needs and following their readiness to learn a new skill, demonstrating Grace & Courtesy by making eye contact at the child’s eye level, catching the child being good, and accommodating the child’s emotional needs with evidence-based practice in a soft voice. These strategies will establish a secure teacher-student association and increase the emotional-awareness skill across the classroom.

Children present challenging behaviors for three reasons which include:

·        Attention-seeking

·        Access tangible materials, and

·        Lacking of social-emotional skills.

Montessori teachers observe a child to collect data about why particularly challenging behavior occurs. Each Montessori child has an individual educational and behavioral plan to detect their progress and provide the most optimum accommodation, modification, and intervention if needed. Gathering data based on following the ABC procedure, which refers to antecedents, behavioral description, and consequences to understand the reason beyond a challenging behavior. The environmental and instructional factors must be measured to provide a free-stimulation learning environment that triggers disruptive behavior. The plan must be created with parental participation to guarantee a meaningful implementation in a home-school setting.

Since Montessori schools are built in Response to Intervention (Irinyi, 2015), Teaching Pyramid Model is a four-tiered system that aligns with Montessori pedagogy to enhance our children’s social-emotional skills and promote prosocial behaviors (Hemmeter, 2006). The consecutive tiers focus on the following chronologically:

·        Collaborative relationships between all stakeholders and parents

·        Providing teachers with professional development training to follow the children’s needs according to their pace

·        Supporting all children through providing a whole-child approach

·        Providing an intervention for a group of students who are at risk after implementing the whole-child approach, and

·        Providing an intensive individual behavioral intervention with parental participation to maximize the student’s outcomes.

Below is an example of how Montessori school and TPM work parallel in closing the achievement gap and preparing your child to be an independent learner. The example below demonstrates a target behavior (biting) as lacking social-emotional skills and the plan that should be implemented for the specified behavior. Of course, a group of professionals such as the general education teacher, a behavioral specialist, administrators, and the school psychologist cooperatively work to inform the parents on how to implement TPM and Montessori in home-school environments.

Individualized Positive Behavioral Interventions

  Establishing Interventions Strategies

•         Teaching the Most Two Contradicting Emotions Within Routines.
•         Role-Playing & Waiting Turns.
•          Promoting Communication Skills Through Grace and Courtesy, such as saying "thank you,” "may I Help?".
•           Providing Positive Feedback (NCPMI, 2021).
•         Booklet of the Child's Emotions. Connect it with the child's Emotional State or Connect it With the Task.

Positive Behavioral Intervention Family Plan at Home

 In conclusion, as adults, we must nurture the children’s emotional bank account with love and kindness (Haslip, 2019) to build other vital skills and be valuable members of our society.

References

Craig M. Becker et al. (2020). Pilot Assessment of the Scholar Checklist: A Tool for Early Childhood Health & Education.

Haslip, M. J. (2019). How do Children and Teachers Demonstrate Love, Kindness, and Forgiveness? Findings from an Early Childhood Strength‑Spotting Intervention.

Hemmeter, M. L. (2006). Social and Emotional Foundations for Early Leaming: A Conceptual Model for Intervention.

Irinyi, M. (2015). Response to Intervention (RTI) in the Montessori Environment.

Katherine Dowling et al. (2019). A Cluster Randomized-Controlled Trial of the MindOut Social and Emotional Learning Program for Disadvantaged Post-Primary School Students.

NCPMI. (2021). Retrieved from https://challengingbehavior.cbcs.usf.edu/