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| Author: Ruth Wells, M.S. |
Wherever we present our popular school professional development offering ("Breakthrough Strategies to Teach and Counsel Troubled Youth Workshop") around the North America, we always permit the course participants to set the content for each class. In each live session, participants are asked to name the exact youth problem areas that they want covered. Gathering that information at the start of class allows us to precisely tailor each professional development course to fit the people who attend it. Every so often though, we run into groups who are just chock full of good suggestions and questions. Since you may not have been able to come to one of our workshops, let us bring a little bit of the live course to you. Since we can't query each of you-- we have many thousands of readers for each issue of this magazine-- we have attempted to anticipate your suggestions and queries. Here are some of the most interesting questions from both our general session and on-site classes over the past few months. We hope that some these varied queries will focus on the key youth problem area that you would request if you were present for one of our live sessions. If we didn't correctly guess your key area, then feel free to reply to this email to send your suggestion, or there is still time to catch the 'Breakthrough Strategies Workshop" live this fall.
Our remaining fall schedule dates are shown above, or contact us to bring the class to your site or conference.
Q: This first question came up during an on-site presentation for The Children's Center in New Haven, CT. The workshop participants wanted more information on Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), especially as it relates to emotional and behavior problems.
A: PTSD is a mental health diagnosis that a mental health worker can apply to a child. Simply put, this diagnosis means that the child cannot recall significant, past trauma. Dissociation is the term we use in class so that the focus is not on a diagnostic category, but on the fact that the child can't recall massive trauma, like rape or beatings. We will maintain that focus here too. You may be quite surprised to know that dissociation is not uncommon. Studies suggest that a whopping 50-70% of female incest victims dissociate. Here is what happens: The memories go away, but the consequences flourish. Dissociation can occur after any type of massive trauma, but is most often linked to childhood sexual abuse. Although you may suspect that sexual abuse is perpetrated upon older children, in our class, we read a letter from a girl who says "I have been a lady
since diapers."
You may be shocked by the data on the prevalence of sexual abuse. We actually hear people gasp, or see them grimace in class when this data is covered. Estimates are that 1 in 3 of your girls, and 1 in 5 boys have been sexually abused, with most of those children (70-90%) actually living with incest. While strangers hurting children makes the news, the true danger to
children is not from strangers, but much closer to home. The perpetrator tends to be the male care-giver, and it is this violation of trust by someone in a position of trust, that is believed to be so devastating that a body does what it needs to do to function--even to the point of forgetting trauma. This forgetting is not a conscious choice, but may happen just like you immediately forget a vivid or scary dream.
Recent studies by the University of Oregon and Stanford have helped explain how the mind blocks traumatic events. But these studies don't address how the trauma causes the visible problems that often occur even though recall is lost. For the line youth worker, the visible problems are what you face on a minute to minute basis: the child may be mute, non-compliant, depressed, angry, and/or refusing work. The line staffer may focus on just the outward behavior problems, never suspecting the link to abuse. The key element: for misbehaved, possibly distressed students, be sure to look beyond the muteness, beyond the non-compliance, and so on, then address both symptoms and problems. The misbehavior is merely a symptom; it is the abuse that is the problem. Be sure you have top-notch skills on working with sexually abused youngsters, because as you can see from the data, that although your college training may not have prepared you for this youngster, you work with many, many traumatized sexual abuse victims who have dissociated.
Q: In a recent Portland, Oregon general session, one teacher asked for methods that would work well to motivate students who are not seeing any consequences to dropping out.
A: In that Portland class, we gave motivation-makers for over an hour, but here is a new method that is pretty grim, but potentially effective. The next time that a student indicates that she may drop out of school, ask her if she will ever need a place to live. The student will respond that of course, she will need housing. You can then ask how many jobs the student will want to work. The student will reply "one." Shake your head side-to-side and tell the student: "If you will want a place to live, as a dropout, you will need two jobs to afford housing. If you don't want to work two jobs, then you can't afford a place to live." New research, covered in many newspapers this month, suggests that dropouts must work 79 hours per week to afford even the most humble housing. The situation is expected to get worse as affordable housing continues to disappear.
Your students should know that prior to making decisions about dropping out.
Q: This question comes to us from Trevor, a participant who has attended our workshop at least twice in Portland, Oregon. Trevor will receive a book to thank him for making this suggestion. (Yes, you can win one if we use your idea. Information on that is directly above this section.) Here is Trevor's question: "How do I work with students who are used to using money or their fists to get what they want? We have a lot of kids who aren't used to obeying laws and have little regard for civil or school rules, and think that using their fists is the logical and respectable way of taking care of problems."
A: Trevor, as you know from our class, it is so critical to teach students how to perform target behaviors like self-control, respectful conduct, and so on. Although, in class, we heavily emphasize teaching skills, often skill training is not enough. So, do remedy the skill deficit, but here are two other essential areas that you will need to more intensively address: motivation and attitude. Clearly, the students you describe, see no reason to behave more peacefully. To give them a better attitude, and more motivation, there are several avenues to pursue. First, these youngsters need to experience direct consequences for misbehavior so they learn "when I mess with others, it can come right back at me." Consequences don't need to occur every time-- and since you won't be able to engineer reliable consequences outside your own site, that is a relief. But, you do want consequences for misconduct to occur whenever possible. You can't just offer an occasional reaction; the more consistent the better, but you don't need 100%. Within your site, you can ensure that misbehavior usually incurs consequences. Since a high portion of these youngsters may be conduct disordered, Trevor, look over your notes from class, and be sure to make the sanctions costly to each student, and give a lot of consequences so that the price of misbehavior is just way too high. You want to keep the costs of misbehavior high, and the benefits low.
Second, work on the lack of motivation to behave properly. Here is an intense intervention that you should use only with older, "tougher" students who are vocalizing the benefits of illegal conduct. This intervention should be done in private. To powerfully convey the potential consequences, a harsh intervention like this may be appropriate for some youngsters in some settings. Do not use this intervention if it is not appropriate to your site. Since this magazine serves a broad array of youth professionals, including those in alternative ed, juvenile corrections, police, and juvenile courts, we strive to provide interventions for our entire spectrum of readers. This intervention is not for meant for all parts of the youth service spectrum. When the student is describing the items he has been able to get by drug dealing, for example, ask him: "Do you know what the really well-dressed drug dealer is going to be wearing?" When the student says, "no," cross your wrists over each other, and reply "handcuffs." The element of surprise may get the youngster to think when more conventional approaches would fail. Notice that this intervention will work for youth who are assaultive, stealing, damaging property, or involved in any illegal conduct. If youngsters say that they won't get caught, you can consider replying "Keep telling yourself that." Again, these edgy methods are for use with just older youth, and only as detailed above. These methods are important because even though they are harsh, they are far less harsh than being locked up.
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Author Bio:
Get much more information on this topic at www.youthchg.com and theclassroommanagementsite.com. See hundreds more of innovative, problem-stopping interventions at the Youth Change web site. Ruth Wells MS is the director of Youth Change. Ruth is the author of dozens of books including the popular Temper and Tantrum Tamers, Turn On the Turned-Off Student, Last Chance School Success Guide and Maximum-Strength Motivation-Makers. She annually trains hundreds of teachers, counselors and youth professionals in staff development workshops, conferences, seminars and in-service throughout the country. Get free samples and see 100s more of her problem-stopping interventions at Youth Change's web site. Ruth is the author of dozens of books and ebooks, and conducts professional development workshops. Please visit us at our website at www.youthchg.com or feel free to call us at 1-800-545-5736. |
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