In a recent Newsletter we discussed how important a relationship is to enhance the learning for students in our class. This importance lies in the reality that we have evolved to live in groups to share resources rather than in isolation where we would have to fend for ourselves. That means our individual success depends on how we fit into that group, how socially aware we are. This is not the case for all creatures, reptiles and some mammals do live in isolation but for the higher forms of mammals belonging to a group is critical for success.
It follows that the strength of our sense of belonging and acceptance is necessary for us to feel secure in our social group. Children who do develop this sense of belonging are categorized as being able to:
Think well of themselves
Trust others
Regulate their emotions
Maintain positive expectations
Utilize their intellect
They learned these skills through their association with a healthy group, from their family and their school.
However, our interest is with those children who have been subjected to abuse and/ or neglect at an early age and develop a toxic sense of their worth and learn a range of dysfunctional behaviours. These have been learned through either abuse of their sense of self or exclusion, neglect from the only company they experience.
In light of this it is informative to examine how we developed the reliance on the group. In the first stage of evolution there was little development of social groupings and the subsequent social brain. This ‘social brain’ coincided with the growth of the limbic system, that place where our emotions and sense of connectedness resides. About 100,000 years ago humans moved into tribes and the social development began.
The benefits of this tribal life went beyond the provision of food, shelter and security it extended to more time for ‘child care’ meaning there was more time for the development of our physical and cognitive skills. Along with this was the development of language, from grunts, to words, from grooming to non-verbal communication. This drive to communicate coupled with more security and better nutrition provided the conditions for the expansion of our brains.
The size of these groups has been shown to be between 50 and 75. This number is still a likely size of other primates who live in groups. These seem to be the numbers where strong bonds and attachments are formed. The cohesion found is supported by a sense of sharing and fairness. We trust things will be fair and we can rely on our group for support when we are struggling.
In contemporary times the tribe has been replaced by the big cities. Now in those cities we live not in discrete groups of about 75 we live with millions of strangers, our contribution to this metropolis often lacks satisfaction, being detached from the feedback your support is providing. We have become very individualised moving away from the supportive benefits of the tribe.
Successful arrangement of these large cities relies on some form of hierarchical authority that needs to dominate the organization. Those in ‘authority’ enjoy their own sense of power and the rewards that come with ‘individual success’ but they are not attached to those who serve them. Likewise workers in large industrial organisations have no contact with those who consume their production.
This loss of an encompassing tribal sized community has forced people to look for alternate ways to belong. This means we look to ‘belong’ to a football team, a political party, or a religion, something that we can identify with. This gives us something to defend but the support back from these communities is questionable. These types of communities have invariably become another version of industrialisation. Football teams have moved from being a ‘district team’ to a ‘franchise’ that really belongs to their owner not the fans. They are businesses where power and authority rest with those who compete for the leadership position.
There is no doubt that this marginalization of the group for the development of large industrial organization has led to an increase in our consumption of materials and benefits in services but at what cost.
However, what has been observed in this industrial age that the best outcomes are achieved when tasks are carried out by subset, tribe-like groups within the larger organisation. Success depends on tasks being designed to be completed by a special section, armies divide into units, police have squads, etc. there is an understanding of the benefit of ownership. This advantage comes from the social interaction of the group.
Schools have by design understood this process and have organized their children into classes. There have been attempts to ignore this process, we have had accelerated progression and vertical streaming but approaches satisfy the rationality of cognitive learning in fact they exemplify this approach but they have failed. Learning is about the development of the brain and the best conditions for neural plasticity for children, the creation of autobiographical memories the substance of all curriculum is in the tribal group.
As teachers it is relatively easy in primary school to create your class as a tribe. It is not as easy in the secondary years but it’s not as important but can still be done. The trick is to develop an identity for the class, create a culture that the kids want to belong to. Handle disputes as you would in a large family emphasizing the responsibility each class member has to the whole.
Creating this tribal class will not only benefit the students’ social learning it will provide the environment that will enhance their academic achievement.
Continuing on with the sequence of dysfunctional behaviours faced by teachers in the classroom we come to perhaps the most frustrating, the students with a Passive Aggressive Personality Disorder (PAPD). PAPD is the condition where the student on the surface seems to comply with your directions but actually resists them. This apparent compliance hides the real drive that is to express anger at the situation. The drive is to be accepted rather than to protect but instead of attention seeking and the consequential behaviours described in the last Newsletter this is a case where the student wants to display their anger but has been taught that this would be too dangerous. Instead through their behaviour they evoke anger in the other person.
This way of behaving is learned in the early years in families where it is unsafe to express their anger and in many cases never being allowed to express any emotions. These children have aggressive parents who severely punish the child if he/she displays anger. The anger that they are forced to swallow must be expressed and so is projected on to others.
A more subtle way PAPD is developed in an environment where the parents
place excessive guilt or shame on their children when they fail to present as sociable and acceptable in the parents’ social circles. For example when a child appropriately attempts to get their needs met by asserting their rights over other children their parents reject the behaviour as well as the child for the sake of appearing sociably ‘nice’ in the eyes of others. The child is rejected, devalued and never taught effective behaviours for the sake of the parent’s image.
Another cause of PAPD behaviour can occur if the child is falsely overvalued. In this scenario the child, typically male, bright is raised in a passive aggressive family. They have an aggressive father and a mother who is submissive. In the family the mother is unable to confront the father, get her needs met and so enmeshes the son. As this occurs when the child is so dependent on the mother he will learn to carry her anger without learning how to express that anger.
Remembering the motivation of these children is to make you angry but without you being able to ‘blame them’. They do things like ‘accidentally’ spilling ink onto another person’s project, walking to the door very slowly, give one word answers to your questions, they slam doors ‘too hard’ and when you confront them they insist they are ‘doing the right thing’ or it was a genuine mistake. They take away what they think is any real evidence.
The student is passively resisting the fulfillment of work set for them putting the work off with no consideration of deadlines. They are reluctantly joins in ‘group work’ but if forced to, they make sure the other students know he doesn’t want to be there.
When you confront them they protest about the unreasonable demands placed on them, and resent any suggestions of help from the teacher or classmates.
There has been a long dispute as to whether or not PAPD is a developmental disability. It has been dropped from the DSMV but whether or not it is a classified illness these kids are certainly present in many of our classrooms.
These students can be amongst the most challenging a teacher will face. The whole motivation behind their behaviour is for you to become angry and these students soon develop a sense of which of your buttons they need to press to achieve this. They are particularly effective in identifying areas where the teacher has a heavy personal investment. If they take pride in the presentation of their room the PADD kid will ‘accidentally’ make a significant mess. Or if you struggle with your weight these kids will be full of suggestions for you to deal with your ‘obvious problem’ after all they are just trying to help. It is in these areas the PAPD student thrives.
However there are techniques that will allow the teacher to confront the PAPD student. These are outlined below:
Calmly address the behaviour without rejecting the individual.
Get the students to explain why they choose to act the way they have. Ask them what they wanted to have happen.
Establish, for them, that you understand what is going on, what they are doing.
Give them a choice in what they need to do next but explain the consequences that will follow will be attached to each action. It is fine to let them know what you would prefer but they need to know the choice is theirs and the following consequence is their responsibility.
Explain to them that anger is a natural process and that people must learn to deal with it. It may be that the whole class can address the issue of anger and its appropriate management.
When dealing with these kids never impose consequences that have a negative effect on the rest of the class. You may feel these ‘whole class’ consequences may evoke peer pressure on this student; the risk of rejection should force them to comply. However, as the aim of the PAPD student’s behaviour, is to annoy others, by punishing the class, they all get angry so you are in fact rewarding the behaviour.
Remember PAPD is a behaviour the student uses not to avoid the responsibility of dealing with their own anger but because they don’t have the skills to do so. By approaching them with the belief that they can be taught to take responsibility for themselves, own their anger and express it appropriately they can become productive members of the class. The teacher needs to be aware of the tactics these students implement and used a systematic approach to deal with them.
In our previous Newsletter we spoke about addictive dysfunctional behaviours that children and adults use to protect themselves from attacks on their sense of self. If you have followed these Newsletters you understand that stress is the result of finding our self in a state of homeostatic disequilibrium, that is we feel uncomfortable. Of course this occurs when we are threatened from outside forces but it also occurs when we are denied access to our immediate community. The sense of personal rejection is the motivation for so much of our behaviour and the following describe just how this rejection can be manifested in our classrooms. For children from abused backgrounds they are likely to find themselves excluded and their dysfunctional reaction will have unwanted long term consequences.
The Austrian psychiatrist Rudolf Dreikurs presented a model of how children react to a feeling of not belonging in a classroom. Dreikurs suggested that when a child feels ostracised they would act in four different ways to rectify this. Although not stated these styles of behaviour escalate from attention seeking to a challenge of power, then on to seeking revenge and finally withdrawal or avoidance.
Attention Seekers
When children feel left out they behave in such a way as to draw attention to themselves. This is not a problem if the behaviour is functional but for children who lack the training in ‘level-headed’ behaviour their techniques range from showing-off, the class clown, being forgetful, tapping pencils, the list well known to all teachers goes on and on. These children do attract your attention but for the wrong reasons and you become annoyed and irritated.
With these kids never acknowledge low-level inappropriate behaviour by referring to it, don’t validate it, don’t nag or appeal to them because this conveys the message you did notice and that is their goal. Attempt to redirect the child by refocusing on the task at hand. Eventually you may have to deliver consequences for this behaviour.
But remember the purpose is to seek your attention and whenever it is appropriate give them lots of praise and attention. Attention seeking is a low level attempt by the student to gain attention and is relatively easy to recognise and provide.
Power Seekers
These children react to their rejection by challenging your own boundaries. They will argue, sulk, refuse to comply and sneer at others. When pushed they will throw tantrums anything to challenge you to place them ‘at a disadvantage’.
These children react to their rejection by challenging you.
The effect on you is to feel threatened, angry and powerless. You get a sense of inadequacy and can become defeated.
If you understand the strategy being used by these children you can deal with them by refusing to get trapped in their power struggle. Just remain calm and deliver the consequences for their behaviour avoiding making comments about their personality. Remember these kids still crave recognition so catch their good behaviours and praise their positive qualities. Acknowledge their worth.
Revenge Seekers
These children will try to hurt you as a payback for their perceived rejection of them. They appear sullen, vicious, and violent, they destroy property, trash or scratch cars or other public buildings. They will insult you personally, etc. but do this without the need for you to know that it was they who did it. They have almost given up on being accepted and now want to tear down the community that has rejected them.
You will feel under threat and their behaviour will evoke feelings of outrage or wounded and it is easy to develop a dislike for these children. In a perverse sense they have your attention.
Remain calm and don’t react in a way that lets them know they have hurt you. Explain the consequences of their behaviour and deliver them without emotion. Although challenging, try to hang in with these students, try to convince them of their worth. This is not so hard to do when you understand the motivation of this behaviour.
Withdrawn Student
These children appear not to care. They will deliberately fail or make no effort to finish work despite your encouragement. They are often absent from school and when they do attend they do not bring their equipment. They appear withdrawn, ‘dead’, making no effort. They answer the teacher’s encouragement with ‘don’t know’, ‘don’t care’ their behaviour frustrates the teacher leaving them with feelings of inadequacy, hopelessness and a failure. This can lead to making you feel like giving up on these students.
When you challenge them they will not take responsibility for their actions.
These are the most difficult kids to salvage but can still be reached. When confronted with these behaviours ignore their failures. Set easy or errorless learning tasks. Don’t judge or criticise them and hang in with them longer then they or anyone else expects you to.
When confronted with these kids remember they are using dysfunctional behaviours to meet valid needs. Act to provide that sense of belonging through praising any appropriate efforts and never forget the power of inclusion in ‘group work’ with other students.
These kids will provide you with a significant challenge but knowing how to deal with them is what distinguishes professional teachers from others.
In a previous Newsletter (Different Expressions from an Abused History 25th June 2018) we discussed how children who are abused in a predictable way develop some form of control over their behaviour. In disputes between individuals, times of undesired border intrusion we all need to develop behaviours that protect us from this aggression while maintaining our sense of security. The following describes three methods that are often developed that may protect us from the abuse but they prevent learning new, effective behaviours that will easily deal with comparable attacks in the future. They may protect us but they will only work in the short term.
The following describes how students make such attempts to protect themselves from the painful feelings that are aroused when their boundaries are threatened. The primary goal of this behaviour is to make the pain go away. This ‘acting to protect,’ is to eliminate the pain that is at the seat of all addictions.
Any time addiction is discussed the most common interpretation is about the addiction to some type of substance, things like alcohol, marijuana etc. The use of a chemical or substance is used to make the pain ‘go away’; you can’t feel it. But this only lasts until the effect of the substance wears off.
There is a second form of addiction where people eliminate the pain by immersing themselves into some activity. By concentrating on the activity you can ignore the problem. Again the relief only endures while distraction lasts. Typical of these addicts are the gamblers addict, or the work-a-holics.
There is a lot more that can be said about these problems but this Newsletter focuses on what I call people addiction. This describes behaviours the students, and teachers use to deal with the source of the stress; that is the person or people who are causing the discomfort. Unlike numbing the stress with substances or distracting attention from the stressor with an activity, this form of addiction attempts to control the source of the stress. This takes three forms, overt control, covert control and resistance.
The first of these is to take the challenge head on. That is if you stress me I will stress you back much more aggressively so that you will stop causing me problems. The techniques to do this take the form of actual physical or psychological attack, threat to attack or use of any form of aggression against the boundary of the other person. So for example, if the teacher wants the student to change seats, that child will adopt a behaviour like making fun of, abusing, discounting the worth of, or any other technique that makes the teacher feel uncomfortable. The student is overtly expressing their feelings, needs and ideas at the expense of others including the teacher and ignoring their rights.
If this works and the teacher backs down to avoid the conflict then the student has protected them self but only until a similar situation reappears. This use of abuse will only work if the other person backs off. If they don’t then you have no-where to go to protect yourself.
The thing is, by being aggressive towards others they distance themselves from others and the resulting isolation will leave them frustrated and bitter. As well they have not learned to deal with this type of attack in an effective way and so will rely on this behaviour every time they are threatened. These are the ‘in your face’ type of kids that can intimidate all but the must skillful teacher.
The other method of control is through being ‘so nice’ to the other person they have no reason to attack you. These sort of people will comply with what the other person wants, always trying to predict potential threats and position themselves to avoid such confrontation. A classic statement these people might make is ‘I don’t care, what do you want to do’? They suppress their own needs to avoid challenging others.
This is a covert approach that, like the overt aggressive pattern may work but will leave you addicted to this form of behaviour and you will not develop the healthy boundaries needed to really get your life under control in a long term, healthy manner.
Students who use of this ‘passive’ approach to handle attacks deny their access to the things they need to develop. They may avoid unpleasant situations but they will be prone to develop anger and a low self-worth.
These students are hard to recognize particularly in a class with a number of difficult, acting out behaviour problems. They remain quiet and cooperative as some sort of insurance against being picked on. Teachers like these kids and its hard to distinguish the tactic of avoiding any conflict with those other nice kids who are well equipped to get their needs met so they are ignored by all but the most astute teacher. But this is dysfunctional behaviour and should be treated that way.
Individuals will have a tendency to adopt one style, depending on their history of abuse but the overt or covert techniques can be used by the same person depending on their relative social power in the particular conflict to gain control. That is, in one situation they will attack the source of their stress and the other they will placate that person. This will in a general sense depend on things like that’s person’s gender, the position in the family and other issues like their social class, the influence of their relatives and the school attended. However, in all social groups there is an understood pecking order and members have a sense of their position in that group.
Another technique to deal with the stress generated in relationships is to deliberately ignore the source. These people refuse to engage in any situation that causes them stress. It is common for teachers to have some students who just refuse to get involved in the lesson. There could be a range of reasons for this disengagement but one that is not easily recognized is that the lesson is threatening the child’s sense of self and they are choosing to ignore the lesson and therefore ignore the stress. It may not be the content of the lesson; it may be the fear of being called for an answer or being placed in a certain seating plan.
These people appear to not respect social ‘rules’; withdraw from interactions with others and by doing this they try to communicate that ‘they are not responsible’ for any potential conflict. If they are ‘not there’ they are not involved and so they avoid the stress that indicates that they are not in homeostatic equilibrium and will remain off-balance in their life.
Take the time and learn to recognize these types of behaviour and while you are at it analyse the behaviour of your colleagues. You will find those who use an overt approach are those authoritarian teachers who are demanding and inflexible. Those who are submissive, using covert techniques never hold the kids responsible for their actions, will let them hand work in late without penalty. Their students are never shown how to be responsible for their actions.
The final type of teacher, the resistive one will ‘fail’ to impose school rules, never participate in staff meetings and generally criticize all efforts to improve the school’s performance. They cut themselves off but in doing so lose the opportunity to enjoy the benefit that participation brings.
Understanding these dysfunctional behaviours will allow you to recognize the motive behind the behaviour and treat it appropriately by providing the structure and inclusion these kids need.
A relationship between a teacher and their student is generally accepted as being the critical factor in the successful engagement of the child in learning. Just how these relationships evolve will give teachers a clue to developing and maintaining this most important dynamic in the classroom.
How or the type of relationship reflects the environment in which the child is raised. Remember it is the environment that builds or changes the neurologic structure of the brain. If the first experiences are good then there is a flow on effect that allows future bonds to be easily made. Of course the converse is true and the severe dysfunctional kids we are focusing on will have a reduced ability to form healthy relationships.
The emergence of a relationship for a child occurs from the very first interaction with their caregiver usually their mum. Evidence that they are seeking a connection comes almost at birth evidenced by, from the very beginning mothers and others can get a baby to smile and ‘giggle’ by their attention. In fact from a very early age, if you poke your tongue out at an infant they are very likely to return the gesture. Now the tongue is a complex muscle and not easily controlled however this reflected behaviour is attributed to our mirror neurons.
Mirror neurons were first observed at the University of Parma in Italy where a team of researchers, Rizzolatti, Gallese and Fogassi were trying to map the neurological pathways of a chimp performing a motor action. The experiment was in a break but the chimp was still wired to the recording device. One of the experimenters picked up a piece fruit and the part of the chimp’s brain associated with movement lit up despite the monkey remaining still. Subsequent work has shown these mirror neurons exist in humans as well.
The crucial thing about these neurons is they send messages without any cognitive assistance; that is they convey massages without words. These are the non-verbal communications that supply the emotional content of the relationship. They help us understand the others’ emotions and they also communicate intentions. In one famous experiment the subjects were faced with a dinner table. In one sequence the subjects were exposed to a table that is ready for dinner to start. In the second condition the table looked as if it was ready to be cleaned up. Although the items were identical different parts of the brain were in use. This indicated that the subjects had anticipated what comes next.
One of the findings around these studies is that children who suffer Autism or Asperger’s have fewer mirror neurons than the average child. This may account for these children’s struggle to accurately read the feelings or intentions of others. Of course this is only a small part of this very complex disease but may go some way to explaining their difficulty in successfully integrating in a big classroom.
As far as the emotional message is concerned the exchange from one person to others is contagious. Everyone knows if one person yawns it is very likely his or her companions will join in. The same with laughter or sadness they are infectious. Emotions such as Guilt, shame disgust, pride, etc. are all communicated through this system of mirror neurons
It is important for teachers to remember the students get 93% of the emotional content of any message through your facial expression, tone of voice and posture. These messages will be automatic and unconscious because they are communicated through the mirror neurons.
Because of this the authenticity of insincere messages are very hard to fake. Paul Ekman the famous psychologist from the University of California studied facial expressions and concluded that there are 90 different facial muscles that can produce 10,000 different facial expressions. These give us information about our intentions. They fill in the gap between what we say and what we mean.
As pointed out earlier students with early childhood trauma have rarely had positive experiences in forming healthy relationships. The style of relationship formed reflects the environment it is experienced in and if they haven’t been exposed to nurturing relationships they will find accepting positive relationships difficult later in life. These students:
Minimise or misinterpret positive stimuli
Are hypersensitivity to negative social cues
Find it extremely difficult to understand or read non-verbal cues
Have a high propensity to be overwhelmed by the emotional content of any incoming stimulus.
These students are at a disadvantage, they think everyone is against them and they even suspect or misconstrue the intentions of the most positive teacher. But this is just another example of the chance we have to have a positive impact on the behaviours of these most needy kids.
We have to remember that the brain is a work in progress and they can change. However, to make that change in these most difficult/damaged students will take a great deal of effort. But they can be taught how to create relationships. This involves the teaching of social and emotional skills to change the structure of the brain and constant repetition strengthens these changes. This is part of the interventions to assist the children suffering Autism or Asperger’s.
We have to remember these children are not their traits; they are not locked into a genetic destiny. They have the ability to change and you can effect this change through your treatment of these most needy children.
In these Newsletters we have asserted that the majority of dysfunctional behaviours kids display in schools have their origins in early childhood abuse and/or neglect. The following describes ways children, particularly but not exclusively boys have learned to respond differently when exposed to threat. I say boys because they are more likely to externalize their behaviour. Another strong response to abuse is to dissociate and eventually withdraw form any meaningful involvement in life and this has a particular gender bias. Girls are more likely to internalise and ‘dissociate’ in response to abuse. Dissociation will be discussed in a later Newsletter.
Abuse comes in various forms but it helps to discuss the nature of abuse on a continuum from a highly anticipated manner to a totally unpredictable kind. For example, let’s say a father always treats their children the same cruel way and so the children learn to expect what will happen given a certain set of circumstances. At the other end of the scale is a father who is erratic and completely unpredictable in the way he responds to that same set of circumstances. This latter style of behaviour is a common state for addicts or the seriously mentally ill and so their children have no idea what to expect, they can’t predict and subsequently fail to learn how to behave.
Therefore the hypothesis is that the developed sense of self and the resulting boundary issues reflects the environment in which it is formed. Fundamentally, boundaries are what healthy people use to protect their core sense of self from external influence. In this essay we will contrast those children who have no opportunity to develop functional boundaries with those who are raised in an abusive but predictable environment. The children will either have no protection; an exposed core to the influence of others or build walls of protection and no one gets in! Either experience results in dysfunctional behaviour and teachers should be conscious of this difference when dealing with them.
The illustration below describes these differences in terms that reflect the characteristics of children’s personality. These traits are just to facilitate the conversation. Of course human habits vary from individual to individual and so these personality features exist on a continuum but it is easier to discuss the extremes.
The model refers to the child’s core, their sense of security within the external environment. At the left we describe a child with an exposed core. These are the children raised in a chaotic environment. They are subjected to arbitrary consequences for specific behaviours. For example, say a boy gets into a fight and the father finds out. On one occasion he is praised for standing up for himself, ‘a chip off the old block’ but if he gets into another fight he might be severely punished even getting hit so he ‘knows how the other kid feels’ or maybe taken to the other child’s home where the father could make him apologise or want to fight the other kid’s father. This boy will have no way of predicting what will happen if he gets into a fight. Therefore, he will have no sense of control.
At the other end, the walled core, are the children who have been treated in an abusive manner but always in the same way. In the example this father might praise the son for ‘being a man’, ‘standing up for himself’ or being told about all the success and prestige the father got from ‘winning’ all his fights. The kid knows how to behave to get his father’s approval or avoid his wrath. ‘Encouraging’ the boy to fight is abusive and will impair his ability to form healthy relationships outside the home. The son develops a ‘sense of control’ but only in the family.
The kids with exposed cores are easy to identify at school. They will cause the most trouble in class and destroy your lessons. However, the kids who have built walls of behaviour to survive in their home build a sense of not being vulnerable. They feel they are in control, good or perfect but this belief is false. The thing is they only feel comfortable when they think they are living up to these unrealistic descriptions. To maintain this illusion they cannot consider any other possibility. These kids are harder to recognize and are not an obvious problem unless someone threatens their self-belief. When this happens they will put up this illusionary wall and refuse to change.
We need these kids to take control of their lives but on the walled end of our model interpret control as being on everything. Obviously, those out of control kids have no idea there is any chance of control of anything. The truth is we can, at best control our behaviour and appreciate we can’t make anyone else do what we want them to do. Understanding this is perhaps the most liberating bit of information a teacher can get. All you can do is provide the environment that is most likely to present the conditions that suit the other person and then they choose the action you want.
So what to do for these abused children. The message is the same as always. Provide the structured, consistent environment so the ‘out of control’ kids can build a sense of predictability and those kids behind the walls are shown there is an alternate set of outcomes for their behaviour and that they can begin to trust an alternate way of behaving that might allow them to better function in the school community.
And of course you must maintain respectful relationships with these students. Remember their behaviours have been ‘put on them’ by dysfunctional adults and while they are behaving the way they do they are doing the best they can. It will take your best effort to make a difference for these kids but that’s why you're a teacher.
A successful trait that has evolved in our species is that we have learned to take the advantage of living in groups. It is ‘the group’ that provides us with an advantage in survival through things like shared meals and shelter and has presented us a range of potential partners so we can reproduce. The development of our sense of belonging comes through the process of attachment.
Attachment is a process that begins at birth and evolves from the formation of intimate relationships with our primary carer, usually mum and on through to our attempts to join in with our peers from preschool through our schooling years. It is well understood that healthy attachment is essential for physical and social wellbeing.
However, it is when our attempts to attach with others are declined, our wellbeing is threatened. In recent years since the advent of brain imaging techniques it has been shown that rejection activates the same brain regions as a physical injury. It is the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex that becomes active when people are experiencing physical pain and the same area is initiated when we experience social pain. Research into this process has shown that the use of pain relief medication can assist people to deal with social rejection just as it does with physical pain relief.
It follows that rejection experienced by our students has an adverse impact on their psychological wellbeing. Karen Bierman of Pennsylvania State University has shown that children who are rejected display one or more of the following behaviour patterns:
Low rates of pro-social behavior, e.g. taking turns, sharing
High rates of aggressive or disruptive behavior
High rates of inattentive, immature, or impulsive behavior
High rates of social anxiety
These rejected children suffer internalizing problems that lead to depression and social anxiety and of course these psychological impediments will have a negative effect on their learning. Their obvious social clumsiness leads them to be the target of teasing and bullying which exacerbates their isolation.
The leader of this victimization from the social group that produces the rejection is usually that member with the most ‘social power’. These are often those with the most confidence, physical prowess or social status. The archetypical, main bully, in the popular media is the star footballer or for the girls the ‘queen bee’. They are so threatening there is obvious pressure on the others in the group to ‘go along with the bullying’ because if they refuse they risk being ostracized as well.
Some children with long-term rejection will eventually deal with their pain by acting out, externalizing their problems. This lashing out can be directed at them selves with the tragic extreme of suicide or in a few but significant cases it can be outward displays of violence towards others.
In an analysis of 15 school shootings in the United States between 1995 and 2001 found that peer rejection was present in all but two of the cases that is in almost 90% of the cases. These perpetrators had suffered both acute and chronic rejection being bullied, ostracized and had been unable to form a relationship with a romantic partner. Of course in these extreme cases there would be other pathological symptoms like extreme depression but it could be argued that these negative traits were a result of the rejection. The question is could these children’s violence been avoided if they had experienced some form of acceptance? This is the tragedy of the lack of genuine psychological support provided for children who are easily identified as being in need.
The pain of rejection is not limited to children; adults who have taken place in experiments including the famous ‘cyber ball trial’ have shown similar feelings of ‘pain’ if they feel excluded. This experiment takes many forms but fundamentally involves three participants, only one that is truly involved. In a simple form each member of the group pass a Frisbee between each other with a generally fair amount of sharing. After a period of time the two confederates, those ‘members’ who are really part of the experiment reduce the number of passes to the research subject and eventually leave them out all together. The subjects consistently report the feelings associated with rejection. This feeling has been confirmed by playing a similar game in a functioning MRI. When the subject is rejected the parts of the brain associated with physical pain light up.
So what to do for those students in your class you know are suffering from rejection? In a perfect world we could send them to the school counsellor where they could be treated professionally but we know that this is not always, if ever available and so it is left to the teacher to at least try to minimize this.
One of the easiest things you can do is manipulate the combinations of students for group work making sure you place that student away from the perpetrators and with empathetic classmates. Teachers already construct groups to achieve the best learning outcomes and so to incorporate the goal of reducing the ostracism is appropriate. In any case I would never allow the students to pick their working partners for any project work, apart from this being a chance to academically strengthen all students it will avoid that most tragic happening I see in schools and on sports teams. When picking teams the process is usually the choice of the best player and down until we get to the last chosen and that is a public display of their lack of value to the group!
You can also weave social skills training into your lessons and even manipulate public speaking exercises that focus on the problems of isolation in general allowing the students to apply this to their life. Make sure that your classroom is inclusive and everyone is of equal value.
In recent Newsletters I have outlined techniques to develop structure in the classroom and have advocated a method of ‘rule making’ that assumes the students are capable of making ‘appropriate’ choices. There is no fundamental problem with this approach however it is important to keep in mind that children are works in progress and we assume they understand what we would consider appropriate.
Until relatively recently it was believed that the brain was fully developed by the time a child turned seven. Since the advent of more sophisticated instruments to examine the brain this assumption has been dismissed and it is well established that the brain does not fully develop until the mid-twenties. This development is not straightforward; there are periods, ‘windows of time’ when the brain prepares itself for the acquisition of new ‘behaviours’ such a sight, personal attachment and all the skills that make us human. At these times the child experiences the particular properties of the environment and learns how to behave in a way that allows them to function in that environment. At the risk of getting ‘off subject’ it is this learning how to behave relative to the environment that is critical to the long-term functionality of that behaviour. In other words if the behaviour, say attachment is developed in a dysfunctional setting, perhaps the mother or father is over anxious, disorganized or suffers from an addiction the behaviours learned by the child at the time will create unhealthy behaviours in a future, functional environment.
The brain matures in two ways, from the bottom up and from the back to the front of the structure. The latter development is through the cerebral cortex where the skills of sight, sound, language, etc. are acquired and situated. The last stage of this development is in the frontal cortex, particularly the prefrontal cortex.
The bottom up development goes from the brain stem, up through the midbrain on to the limbic system and finally the cortex. This is not to say all these parts of the brain are not being used until they are ‘turned on’ of course they are but they are not sculptured, not exquisitely structured until the correct neurological conditions are in place, that is abundant myaline to reinforce developed neural pathways and effective pruning of unused neurons at the end of that process.
And so it’s the prefrontal lobes that are the last to be developed and this task is not complete until the mid to late twenties.
In 2004 developmental psychologist Slywester described the early development into two ten-year cycles. In both cases the first four years were characterized by an awkward period of learning followed by the gradual mastery and confidence.
During the first ten-year cycle children learn to be ‘human’, to move, communicate and master fundamental living skills. The second ten-year period they focus on becoming productive, reproductive adults. They explore emotional commitment, sexual expression and a ‘vocational’ interest. They learn these skills through testing behaviours in their environment.
The repercussion for the teacher, and for parents is how much choice about what consequences are appropriate for behaviours when we include the students in the construction of their classroom structure. In crude terms the amount of appropriate responsibility is related to their age, their stage of development. The graph below gives a simplistic illustration of how much freedom of choice is appropriate at a given stage of development.
It can be seen that very young children are dependent and it is the carer’s duty to tell them what to do. I often despair when I hear parents ask a six year old what would they like for dinner. Children are incapable of making appropriate decisions about the food that is good for their long-term health just as they are ill prepared for deciding what time to go to bed.
As they get older the issues that you can introduce choice must be those that do not have a direct bearing on their physical or emotional development. As you introduce them to limited control this must be linked to the consequences and their responsibility for those consequences. This is the balancing act all caregivers must satisfy, that is when ever possible you should only allow the child to make choices when the worst case scenario is tolerable for the child.
And so it is in the classroom. As a teacher there are times when you impose conditions that you know are right for their current level of development. You need to know when they can, and should take responsibility and only when they are able to make those decisions. This is true for lessons and for the setting of behaviour standards.
If a bat and a ball cost $1.10 and the ball costs ten cents more how much does the bat cost?
Ask any group and the number of incorrect answers never ceases to amaze. This is an example used by Daniel Kahneman to illustrate our propensity to make quick decisions. Kahneman, a psychologist was awarded the Nobel Prize for Economics through his appreciation of our propensity to make quick decisions. In his influential book ‘Thinking, Fast and Slow’ he explains the reasons we make quick decisions and discusses the problems that can occur. Although fast decisions are made in an emotional setting and can be considered a gut reaction Gladwell also bases them on instinct, a process described in his book Blink.
Slow thinking may not always be needed to yield the best answer it will be the most considered and most likely to provide that best answer. Slow decisions are more accurate and considered.
However, when you examine the work done by institutions that manage natural or man-made ‘disasters’ you soon find that they do not have the luxury of making slow decisions. At the time they have to act immediately to minimize the losses that will occur unless early support is available. It is the same for a teacher at the time when ‘that student’ behaves in a disastrous manner. The teacher does not have the time for ‘slow’ consideration; they must act immediately. This is why a planned, structured behaviour management plan is so important.
In a previous Newsletter I presented the illustration below to describe, albeit a simplistic interpretation of decision-making.
When we apply this to our ‘disaster model’ we can demonstrate how the process works for both cases. The most important planning is done away from the scene of the destruction, preferably before but at least after experiencing such an event.
Kahneman presents the concept of ‘what you see is all there is’ (WYSIATI) that underpins decisions. At the time a decision needs to be made WYSIATI will determine the decision made. This is because all we rely on is what we know we know; our known/known condition. This is how quick thinking operates. But it is obvious that when we are faced with a decision that requires a decision we understand that the following conditions are present:
Known/Known – as described above
Known/Unknown
Unknown/Unknown
If we are dealing with a child we ‘know’ what we have observed the child do. It is unlikely we know what has historically happened to the child either during their childhood or at home that morning or even in the playground before class. We do not have access to his/her emotional memories nor their beliefs but we should comprehend that these plus other complex factors will weaken the precision of the consequence we deliver. This is why it is important to find out as much as you can about every child in your class. The more you decrease the unknown the more effective your intervention will be.
Then there are the ‘unknown/unknowns’ the questions we don’t even know to ask. But they will be there and they are the reason behaviour management is at best an imprecise practice.
So this is where the teacher’s slow thinking takes place, the development of classroom rules and structure, the acquisition of ‘historical’ information about each child’s behaviour history and the accumulated information about behaviour and the management of it’s dysfunctional expression. Now when the inevitable classroom disaster occurs the teacher is best equipped to make an effective ‘fast decision’.
There is a bonus pay-off for this approach. These effective fast decisions are also described as fluent decisions. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, professor of psychology and management at Claremont Graduate University in California, has termed this fluency as the feeling of ‘flow’ and are associated with feelings of confidence, control, being in the zone. He described that for highly practised tasks, fluency and accuracy go hand in hand. For example a musician might report feelings of flow when performing a piece that has been internalised after years of practice. Sports men and women will often described as being ‘in the zone’ during competition.
On a personal level a teacher who achieves this level of expertise in behaviour management will feel more confident, more in control. In addition to this, people who display fluency command respect and are seen as competent. Their behaviour in the midst of the situation appears authentic and informed even when the inevitable mistake is made.
We have been discussing the process a child, anyone goes through for a given behaviour event. Of course the caveat still remains that the visual representation below is extremely simplistic but it provides a scaffold on which to begin a more complete explanation.
If we consider this schematic model, it is evident that the only section considered to be under the immediate control of the student is the decision to act and then the actions. This can be referred to as the ‘cognition driven behaviour’ and this is where the various varieties of cognitive behaviour programs operate however it also contains the emotional component of the decision. More about this matter later.
The antecedent condition, for the child will be their current homeostatic status, are they happy, stressed, indifferent, whatever their state it is brought to the situation. For those kids with a history of abuse and neglect and a history of failure rarely do they bring to a situation a sense of homeostatic calm. At this stage of the cycle they have very little control of their ‘condition’ but that will influence their reaction to the situation they find themselves in.
The situation is not in their control especially at school. Even on the broadest sense they have to by law attend school even if it is a source of continuous failure. But like all of us we are always finding ourselves in situations outside our control. That’s life!
At the end of the cycle is the consequence that follows the actions. There is no guarantee that if we act in a certain way we will get a predictable result. This unpredictability will be discussed in a later Newsletter but for now we understand that consequences follow our actions but they are delivered by powers, for these kids at school it is teachers.
This leaves us with the part of the behaviour cycle we could control. The following line of reasoning highlights the failings of cognitive behaviour therapy at times of emotionally charged situations.
The cause of the limitations of cognitive interventions involves our instinctive survival response to threats. In the diagram below the process of responding to a stimulus is represented. How that response is developed depends on how the stimulus incites our memories.
The stimulus linked to the situation comes in to the thalamus, the clearing-house for the brain where it is distributed across the brain. To facilitate our survival when under immediate serious threat that stimulus will go directly to the amygdala. Here we can respond to threat long before we are consciously aware of the situation. This is the general adaptive syndrome or flight/fight immediate adaption to protect us. This process by passes all but genetic memory and is, excluding extensive training, beyond our control. This is the fast track in our decision-making.
But this fast track to the amygdala is also the route to our emotional memories that are located in this area. This means that the emotional memories are the first referenced in regards to the situation. That means we ‘feel’ about the situation before we think about it.
A slower response is through the thalamus to the hippocampus where our cognitive, autobiographical memories are located and then move up to the frontal lobes where a considered decision can be made. It is through this slow track route the cognitive approach operates. We see the situation, we ask what is going on and what can we do to that will make the situation better for us.
This works unless the emotional memory is so powerful that the decision via the so-called slow route is over ridden and the decision will be the habitual one that has been in use. This is a problem for kids who have been raised in abusive, neglectful environments. The way they have learned to respond worked best for them growing-up but is inappropriate in the current situation.
The secret to working with these kids is to create an environment that, as much as possible minimizes those kids being placed in situations that stimulate their destructive emotional memories.
The principals of the company have had long careers in education with a combined total of eighty-one years service. After starting as mainstream teachers they both moved into careers in providing support for students with severe behaviours.
