Lost at School (5 page)

At the milder end of the spectrum, kids who are having difficulty separating thought from emotion may become highly anxious over, for example, an upcoming test, a new social situation, not understanding an assignment, or being embarrassed in front of their classmates. They may cry over a bad grade, at not being picked first for a team, or when they feel socially excluded. At the more extreme end of the spectrum, their emotions may burst through in such a powerful way that they scream, swear, throw something, hit somebody, or worse. These kids may actually feel themselves “heating up,” but often aren’t able to stem the emotional tide until later, when the emotions have subsided and rational thought has returned. Naturally, the heating-up process will be greatly intensified if adults or peers respond in a way that adds fuel to the fire.

While separation of affect refers to momentary difficulties in managing emotions, other kids have more chronic difficulties regulating their emotions. All kids are a little sad, irritable, agitated, grumpy, cranky, grouchy, and fatigued, or a little anxious, worried, scared, and nervous some of the time. No one responds especially well to problems or frustrations when they’re irritable or anxious, but some kids experience these emotions far more often and far more intensely. Kids who are frequently irritable or anxious often respond poorly to problems and frustrations. Because they haven’t developed the skills they need for modulating their emotions and solving problems, they respond to problems and frustrations in a way that more closely resembles what we might see in a much younger child. When it comes to managing their emotions and solving problems, these kids
are
functioning at a much younger developmental level.

We’ve witnessed a disturbing trend in recent years: the almost automatic inclination to use medication to treat kids who have difficulty regulating their emotions. While medication can be useful, even indispensable, in some instances, jumping the gun on medicating kids whose difficulties are poorly understood is far too common. Pills don’t teach skills, and there are many factors that could set the stage for a kid to be irritable or anxious that medication won’t address. Some kids are irritable or anxious because of
chronic problems that have never been solved,
such as school failure, poor peer relations, being bullied, or having an unrecognized learning disability. Medication doesn’t solve these problems.

Equally disturbing is the recent tendency to diagnose kids who have difficulty regulating their emotions as having bipolar disorder. In my experience, the vast majority of kids who have been called bipolar have been poorly assessed and inappropriately diagnosed.
¹
These kids certainly don’t meet criteria for adult bipolar disorder, and there are no universally accepted criteria for childhood bipolar disorder. Unfortunately, the recent popularity of the diagnosis accounts for a corresponding and disturbing increase in the use of a fairly new, relatively unproven class of medication in kids whose difficulties, in many cases, are very poorly understood. In a nutshell, that’s one reason psychotropic medications are overprescribed: Not enough people are familiar with the cognitive factors that can set the stage for social, emotional, and behavioral challenges, and sometimes it’s just easier to give a kid a pill than to figure out what’s truly getting in his way.

Can irritable or anxious kids be helped to better regulate their emotions and respond to life’s frustrations and anxieties more adaptively? Certainly. But not by putting a lot of effort into coming up with new and creative ways to punish them.

IN FOCUS

Difficulty seeing the “grays”/concrete, literal, black-and-white thinking

Difficulty deviating from rules, routine

Difficulty handling unpredictability, ambiguity, uncertainty, novelty

Difficulty shifting from original idea or solution/difficulty adapting to changes in plan

Inflexible, inaccurate interpretations/cognitive distortions or biases

Young kids tend to be fairly rigid, black-and-white, literal, inflexible thinkers. They’re still making sense of the world and it’s easier to put two and two together if they don’t have to worry about exceptions to the rule or alternative ways of looking at things. As kids develop, they learn that, in fact, most things in life are “gray,” that there are exceptions to the rule and alternative ways of interpreting things. Sometimes we have a substitute teacher, a field trip needs to be rescheduled because of the weather, someone is sitting in our usual seat in the cafeteria, recess has to be indoors instead of outdoors.

Unfortunately, for some kids, “gray” thinking doesn’t develop as readily. Though some of these kids are diagnosed with disorders such as nonverbal learning disability or Asperger’s disorder, it’s more useful to think of them as
black-and-white thinkers living in a gray world.
Predictably, these kids are most likely to exhibit challenging behavior when the world places demands on them for gray thinking.

Many such kids are quite comfortable with factual information because it’s black-and-white but grow uncomfortable when life demands problem-solving because it’s gray.

      T
EACHER
:
Class, what’s the highest mountain in North America? Andrew?

      A
NDREW
(black-and-white thinker): Mount McKinley!

      T
EACHER
:
Excellent, Andrew. Now, I’d like you and Susie to do a presentation on Mount McKinley for the rest of the class. You guys can do it anyway you like, but you have to talk about it and agree on a plan. OK?

      A
NDREW
:
OK.

      
(2 minutes later)

      A
NDREW
:
Mrs. Huggins, Susie won’t do it right!

      T
EACHER
:
What do you mean, Andrew?

      
A
NDREW
:
When you do a presentation on mountains, first you have to show everyone a picture of the mountain you’re talking about. Susie says it doesn’t matter when you show the picture. She’s wrong!

It sounds like Andrew has some pretty clear ideas about how to do a presentation on Mount McKinley, and is having difficulty moving off his original idea. Spoiled brat? No. Control freak? Wouldn’t be the best choice of words. Black-and-white thinker living in a gray world? Classic case.

These kids love details (black-and-white) but aren’t so adept at handling ambiguity (gray) and often miss the “big picture” (gray). They love predictability (it’s black-and-white) but don’t do so well when things are unpredictable (gray). They love certainty (black-and-white) and routines (black-and-white) but don’t handle uncertainty (gray) or changes in plan (gray) very well.

      T
EACHER
:
Class, we’re not going out for recess today at ten-fifteen because we have an assembly.

      A
NDREW
:
What do you mean we’re not going out for recess at ten-fifteen? We always go out for recess at ten-fifteen! I’m going out at ten-fifteen!

Tough way to go through life. No one would choose to be that way.

These black-and-white kids tend to interpret the world in some pretty rigid ways, too. These are the kids who are prone to make black-and-white statements such as “I’m stupid,” or “You always blame me,” or “Nobody likes me,” or “You’re mean,” or “It’s not fair,” or “Things will never work out for me,” or “People are out to get me.” These rigid ways of thinking—sometimes called cognitive biases or cognitive distortions—can cause these kids to respond to even the most benign circumstances in powerful (and challenging) ways. Can you imagine interpreting common social stimuli—a friend’s smirk, peers whispering, a slap on the back—as evidence that people were out to get you? That would set the stage for some pretty maladaptive responses.

The Andrews of the world often present significant challenges to their teachers and classmates as they struggle to apply concrete rules
and interpretations to a world where few such rules apply. Some sulk or become anxious when events don’t conform to their original configuration, or when they’ve interpreted an event in a distorted fashion. Some scream. Some swear. Or throw things. Of course, those are the things they
do.
All that tells you is where they are on the spectrum of challenging behaviors. Now you know
why
and
when
they’re doing them. That’s where the action’s at.

Can black-and-white thinkers be helped to think more flexibly? To move from an original way of thinking and adapt to circumstances or perspectives they may not have taken into account? Most definitely … so long as adults recognize that it’s hard to teach kids to be more flexible by being inflexible themselves.

IN FOCUS

Difficulty appreciating how one’s behavior is affecting other people; often surprised by others’ responses to his/her behavior

Difficulty empathizing with others, appreciating another person’s perspective or point of view

Many kids with behavioral challenges have difficulty understanding another’s perspective and appreciating how their behavior is affecting others. These are crucial skills, for they help us gauge whether we’ve caused someone pain or pleasure, whether our behavior is being well- or poorly received. Whether a joke was funny. Whether a pat on the back was too hard. Whether a comment was embarrassing or humiliating or hurtful. This information helps us decide whether to repeat the behavior or change course.

Kids who lack these skills are prone to behave in ways that fail to take the needs of others into account and to repeat behaviors that are causing emotional or physical discomfort. These are not endearing traits, and kids who lack these skills are frequently punished in one way or another. Here’s the hitch: Punishment may not be a terribly effective way to teach kids how to take another’s perspective or to appreciate how their behavior is affecting others. Many adults are incredibly vigilant in ensuring that kids suffer immediate, adult-imposed
consequences for maladaptive behavior, yet helping kids appreciate how their behavior is affecting others is a much more reliable mechanism for ensuring that kids do the right thing without adult assistance.

Appreciating how our behavior is affecting others, taking others’ needs and concerns into account, and modifying our behavior in response to the feedback we receive are vital developmental skills that many challenging kids have yet to master. Can these skills be taught? Yes, usually. Of course, it does take a while, and we’ll need some new methods.

So now you know, if you didn’t already, that the skills required for adaptive social, emotional, and behavioral functioning don’t come naturally to all kids. We adults tend to think that all kids are created equal in these capacities, but this simply isn’t true. You also know that challenging behavior occurs when life demands skills that a child lacks, and that there’s a whole spectrum of challenging behaviors that can occur—some relatively mild, others much more severe—under these circumstances.

By the way, there’s a big difference between interpreting the lagging skills described above as “excuses” rather than as “explanations.” When lagging skills are invoked as excuses, the door slams shut on the process of thinking about how to teach the kid the skills he lacks. Conversely, when lagging skills are invoked as
explanations
for a kid’s behavior, the door to helping swings wide open. As you shall see.

UNSOLVED PROBLEMS

I’ve described some of the lagging skills that can set the stage for challenging behavior, but there’s a crucial piece of information missing. Those lagging skills are especially problematic in specific situations. We need to identify the specific conditions or situations (sometimes called triggers or antecedents) in which challenging behavior occurs. I prefer to call these situations
unsolved problems.
How do we know
these problems are
unsolved
? Because they’re still precipitating challenging behavior. If you don’t identify the problems that are precipitating a kid’s challenging behavior, it will be hard to know what you’re working on, the problems will remain unsolved, and the kid’s challenging behavior will persist. But if you identify the kid’s unsolved problems, you can work with him to solve them, and his challenging behavior will subside.

For example, if a kid is having some of his greatest difficulties during circle time, then circle time is an unsolved problem precipitating challenging behavior. If a kid is having difficulty getting along with other kids during recess, then getting along with other kids during recess is an unsolved problem precipitating challenging behavior. And if a kid is refusing to work when paired with a particular classmate, then working with that particular classmate is an unsolved problem precipitating challenging behavior. A lot of adults nominate the word “no” as a trigger. But it’s not specific enough. It’s what the adult is saying “no” to—going to the bathroom (yet again), sharpening a pencil (yet again), excessive talking or teasing—that helps adults know the specific problem they need to solve (so they don’t have to keep saying “no” so often).