I spent the past three days at the Alaska Association for the Education of Young Children Conference. I attended a few inspiring workshops and a few not so inspiring ones. One of the speakers that I really enjoyed was Clarissa Willis, PhD. She is a very energetic speaker with a wonderful outlook on working with the special needs child. My favorite quote from her was "kindergarten teachers would rather you send them a child who can monitor their behavior than a child who can read." I can totally relate to this having spent 9 years as a multi-age K-3 teacher. Clarissa also talked about the idea that unwanted behavior from a child falls into two categories, avoid/escape behavior and gain access behavior. I like the idea of keeping it simple so you can understand what the child's goal is with the behavior.
Right now there is a firework show going on at the resort that I can see from my couch. It is making our small A-Frame shake with each boom! I never tire of fireworks, but as soon as they are over I am off to bed. This is my second 6 day work week. I need to be well rested tomorrow so that I can make up for lost time with the little guy.
I once went to a similar conference and I remember having a light bulb go on when they said "some kids don't care if it's good attention or bad attention that they are getting, so some kids are bad just to get attention. So ignore the bad and praise the good and sometimes you'll be surprised." and often I was in my "emotional/behavioral" classroom.
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