Interpreting and Responding to Classroom Behaviors: A Guide for Early Childhood Educators

"I spend all my time with this kid!" is a typical teacher complaint when challenged by a young child who disrupts the classroom with rebellious, impulsive, worrisome or odd behaviors. It is vital that teachers gain the skills to holistically decipher and respond to these complex classroom situations. By addressing the underlying meanings that motivate children's behaviors, teachers increase the opportunity for change within the classroom setting. Focusing on communication, this book discusses practical ways to apply child developmental theories to help address common classroom situations, problems, and worries. It identifies new frameworks and rationales, such as the troubling child, the testing child, the worrying child, and the hiding child; describes the unique aspects of these children's communication; and offers an easy-to-use language for successful teacher intervention. It also provides an adaptable, week-by-week planning and intervention structure as a way of creating some balance between practicality and theory.

Table of Contents:
Table of Contents Acknowledgments Preface Introduction List of Figures and Tables List of Challenging Behaviors Part One A Different View of the Children in Your Classroom  1. Children in the Round: A Holistic Approach to Understanding Children  2. Who Needs a Diagnosis, Anyway? Understanding Behavior as Communication  3. A Child’s Communication Scaffolding Part Two The Children Communicating in Your Classroom  4. The Child Who Is “Troubling”: Loud and Over Reactive  5. The Child Who Is “Testing”: Loud and Under Reactive  6. The Child Who Is “Worrying”: Quiet and Over Reactive  7. The Child Who Is “Hiding”: Quiet and Under Reactive Part Three Pulling Back the Curtain on Specific Communicative Behaviors  8. A Week-by-Week Guide for Behavior Assessment, Prioritization, and Planning  9. Distractibility, Daydreaming, and Attention-Related Issues 10. Elopement and “Moving Away”–Related Issues 11. Excessive Clowning 12. Aggression, Bullying, Fighting, Out-of-Control Temper 13. “Hyperactivity” 14. Difficulty Observing Personal Space and Other Boundary Problems 15. Not Speaking 16. Toileting Accidents and Toilet-Related Issues 17. Upsetting Artwork, Writings, and Play Conclusion: Keeping Your Balance Appendix A: The Troubling Child Worksheet Appendix B: The Testing Child Worksheet Appendix C: The Worrying Child Worksheet Appendix D: The Hiding Child Worksheet Appendix E: Self-Fulfilling Prophecies Bibliography Index

About the Author :
Michael O. Weiner is a licensed clinical social worker and a Portland, Oregon-based child and adolescent psychotherapist. He has a private practice working with children, adolescents, and parents, teaches social work practice at the graduate school level, and provides child development consultation to early childhood educators. Les Paul Gallo-Silver is a clinical social worker and an adjunct professor of social work at Adelphi University School of Social Work in Garden City, New York. He has extensive experience providing psychotherapy to children, adolescents and adults specializing in helping them with sexual, medical and environmental traumas. Tal D. Lucas is a second-grade teacher in Montgomery County, Maryland. She has taught in the primary grades for twenty-three years specializing in reading and literacy. She has spent much of her career as a team leader and has worked as a mentor teacher.

Review :
“The use of the four child communication personas to help inform a teacher’s response to classroom behaviors and the Model of Understanding Child Behavior (AURA) are both unique and valuable ways of looking at communication and behavior.... [T]his book will be an asset to educators who ... are looking for a new way to investigate the why behind a student’s behavior.”—Janice Eisenberg, school counselor