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Dealing with Angry Students- When Nothing Else Works

The last section deal with angry students who no strategies implemented seem to be working.   A referral should be considered.  Does the child need counseling?  Is his/her pediatrician involved? Does the school need to do educational testing and psychological screening? Does the child have a learning disability?  Is he/she depressed?

We also need to remember to be patient.  The author tells teachers that some years the best they can do is to keep the angry child from getting worse.  If the child isn't regressing, well, that progress.  The following strategies are ones that I found practical:

1. Hands Off- Never try to grab, hold, or restrain an angry child unless he/she is hurting themselves or others.

2.  Shadowing- If the child is unmanageable, arrange for one of his parents to shadow the child all day at school. 

3. Inform others- All adults who interact with the angry child must be aware of the situation and situations that can trigger the outbursts of anger.  This means substitute teachers, coaches, babysitters, etc. 

3. Never Wave the White Flag!- We must never give up on these children, even though the may take much of our time and energy.   It is true that there are situations in which extreme measure, such as residential facilities,  may have to be resorted to.

The book,131 Creative Strategies for Reaching Childen with Anger Problems, concludes with a template for a 5 session parent training workshop "How Do You REACT to An Angry Child", complete with worksheets. 

 

Dealing with Children with Extreme Anger

Level 3- Extreme Anger-

The author offers 42 strategies for reaching extremely angry children. The following strategies were the one's I, again, found most pratical and easily implemented in the classroom setting:

1.  Sublimation-  Angry children need positive ways to use their energy.  Try not to take away playtime.  Get them walking, jogging, lifting boxes, carrying books, dancing or running errands.  Physical activities can reduce anger outburst.

2.  I Get to Pick the Consequences? Let angry chldren determine the consequences of his/her behavior.  Have the consequence options written down ahead of time.  This is a step to helping him become more responsible for his anger.

3.  Talk Lower and Lower- When encountering an angry chi ld, you may have to raise your voice to get her attention.  However, as you continue to talk, keep lowering your voice.  This acts as a calming device.

4.  Good Neighbors- "Tell me who you walk with, and I'll tell you who you are."  If the angry child sits with other angry children, he will remain an angry child.  Instead, sit him near postive peers and he has a better chance of improving.

5. Getting in the Last Word-  Next time you are in a heated discussion and you reach the point when you feel things are getting out of control, give the child your permission to get in the last word.  Often, this catches the angry child by surprise and it takes the air out of her balloon.  Make sure you keep your word and not respond to their last word.   You are still in control because you granted her permission to get the last word in.

6.  The Eyes say Help-  This is interesting!  If you ever come upon 2 students who are starting to fight, most of the time one of the students does not really want to fight.  Once you make your presence know, look for the student who looks at you.  The one who gives you eye contact is usually the one who doesn't want to battle.  Rescue him!  If neither look at you, call for help immediately!

Dealing with More Challenging Anger

The next section of the book is devoted to helping children with more challenging anger.  He provides 32 strategies to deal with these children.  The strategies that I found most useful were those that can be integrated in a classroom, not just an indiviual student.  The following strategies are practical and can be used by anyone in authority to combat anger:

1. Be flexible with orders and give choices.

2.  As often as possible, avoid tangible reinforcement.  The author strongly discourages the use of "bribes" such as candy, small prizes, and stickers as rewards.  In his book, Punished By Rewards, Alfie Kohn (1993) notes that a child who complies in order to get a reward is not "behaving himself", rather, the reward is "behaving him."  Once rewards are one, children often go back to their negative behaviors.  

3.  Don't play Volleyball-  It takes 2 people to argue.  It does no good to verbally retaliate to angry child.  Education and discipline expert Fred Jones (1987) says "It takes one fool to back-talk, but it takes two fools to make a conversation out of it. Back talk is a melodrama written and produced by the student.  If you take you speaking part, the shoe goes on.  If you keep your mouth shut, the show bombs."  Know when to remove yourself from a heataed exchange.

4.  Be Careful with Consequences- It is often easy for an angry child to get at us, and we react with threatening consequences.  Three important things to remember regarding consequences: (a)  Don't shout consequences when you are angry (2)  Don't state consequences you can't keep and (3) Keep your word and follow through with consequences.

Creative Strategies for dealing with Mild to More Challenging Anger

The shot of adrenaline that hits one's bloodstream when he gets angry is present for 28 minutes.  During that time, one is hyperactive to external stimuli and has a shortened attention span.  Think of the educational ramifications of that!  The author gives 32 strategies for dealing with mild to more challenging anger in students. I found the following strategies interesting:

For Mild Anger:

1.  Classroom Creature-  Research shows that the presence of an animal can lower blood pressure in adults and children.  The author suggests a classroom pet.

2. Hot Topics Class Meeetings-constantly monitor classroom "triggers" ( name calling, bossing, tattling, etc) and schedule a weekly meeting to sit together as a class and discuss the "trigger" that is causing the most problems.

3. Teach Them How to Give Compliments-  Most children don't know how to give compliments.  Anger does not survive long in an environment filled with kind words.

4.     I messages-  Teach students to start their sentences with "I feel", rather than the provoking "You did.

5.  The Toothpaste Theory (My favorite!)-  Take a tube of toothpaste and toothbrush.  Put toothpaste on the brush and say "I have changed my mind,  I don't  want to brush my teeth now."  Then say "Do you think I can get all the toothpaste back into the tube?"  Obviously, no.  Then,  "How is this like words we use when we are upset?"

Children with Anger Problems

"Of all the human emotions, anger has created the most harm and caused the greatest destruction within individuals, couples, families, and between social groups and nations." Bill Borcherdt (1989) p. 1.    The author deals with four areas that are most pivotally effected by anger (1) crime (2) inter-personal relationships, (3) health issues, and (4)  teaching and learning.

The

Week 3- Reader's Workshop

     As previously stated in the book ,reading may seem like a quiet, isolated activity, but it should be considered a social time (p.118).  While individual reading is important, social reading has a prominent place in Reader's Workshop.  There are several avenues of social reading that students should be exposed to, including, partner reading, story chats, flexible skill groups, and guided reading.

     Reading conferences allows the teacher to understand the student's reading process and provide individualized instruction.  Some tips for teachers conferencing with students are:        (1) Teacher "randomly" wanders among students and meets a student on the student's turf, (2) sit close and on-level with student, (3) begin conference with "how's it going", and with a positive observation about the student's reading, (4) ask student to either read aloud, summarize passage, or connect to other literature or a previous mini lesson, (5) keep a record of each conference and use this information to plan future mini-lessons.

 

 

Revisiting the Reading Workshop- Week 2

Chapter 4  deals primarily with getting the Reading Workshop off and running the first month of the school year.  I like the way each procedure needed to make the program work is taught in detail.  A full day's lesson is devoted to each procedure, regardless of how simple it may seem to the adult reader.  For example, the procedure of finding the perfect reading nook.  An entertaining read aloud book is selected that is tied to the procedural lesson of the day, in this case finding the perfect reading nook.  The book is read aloud and students and teacher chart out how to pick the perfect reading nook.  Then, students are told to search the room and find a spot that meets the criterea listed.  Students try out the nook and if they are satisfied, they map it out on a classroom master.  This spot is theirs, and becomes part of the daily routine of Readers Workshop. 

Chapter 5 goes through how the teacher teaches important reading strategies and skills to students in Reading Workshop.  Reading strategies are what readers do before, during and after reading to make sense out of print (p. 66).  The 8 keyreading strategies the authors focus on in the text are: Looking ahead, Fix-up strategies, Making Connections, Questioning, Visualizng, Making Inferences, Making it your own, and Looking back.  The strategies help to students with reading comprehension.  As I read through these strategies, I began to think of ways I could incorporate them into my guidance lessons.  I have been using some of the strategies, such as looking ahead, making connections and making it your own with my guidance picture books.  Some ideas I gained from for implementing the other strategies are:

1.  fix-up strategies- stop when I come to a word that may be unfamiliar to students, adjust my rate of reading when I go back to re-read a passage.

2.  questioning- using sticky notes to mark places where you have a question

3.  visualizing- model closing your eyes to visualize an image from the book and asking students to do the same

4. making inferences- demonstrate "reading between the lines"- read, stop, and think aloud.

 

Chapter 6 is about using mini-lessons to teach literary elements and literary techniques.  Literary elements focuses on characters, setting, plot and theme.  Literary techniques is how the author writes his work, using symbolism, style and figuarative language.  Mini-lessons on literary techniques call your student's attention to the authors use of language (p.90).  This makes the reader into a better writer, as well as reader.  Some literary elements highlighted are: relating charachters to the setting, Character development and change over time, theme, mood or tone, passage of time, story patterns, role of the author/illustrator, and role of illustrations.   In a guidance lesson, students must be able to determine the theme of the story for the lesson to be successful.  I like to determine if the students "get" the theme, but asking them what important lesson did the character(s) learn in the story, or "what is the moral of the story?".   I would like to implement the role of the author/illustrator and the role of illustrations in my future guidance lessons read alouds.

 

 

Revisiting The Reading Workshop- Week One

When I was assigned "Revisiting the Reading Workshop" as my next reading, I was puzzled.  What did  a school counselor need to learn about teaching children to read?  As I read through the first 3 chapters, my question was answered.  As a matter of fact, I had unknowingly been implementing some of the strategies of the Reading Workshop into my classroom guidance lessons.

Most of my guidance lessons, especially with primary students, begin with a read aloud.  On page 11, Jim Trelease says that "We read to children for all the same reasons you talk to children; to reassure, to entertain, to inform or explain, to arouse curiosity, to inspire."  To add to Trelease's list  I read to children to counsel.   I use picture books to open discussions about  the many social, personal and academic issues that elementary students face. 

How can I take what I am already doing as part of my guidance curriculum and integrate the Reading Workshop philosophy into it?   By reading aloud, I am (1) conditioning children to associate reading with pleasure, (2) creating background knowledge and (3) providing a reading role model.  I can expand my role as a supplemental reading teacher by incorporating positive reading techniques into my read alouds.  Reading techniques like, predicting, drawing on background knowledge, questioning, drawing conclusions, tying in to students' experiences and connecting with other text can be seamlessly integrated into my guidance lessons.

 

 

Revisiting The Reading Workshop- Week One

     When I was initially assigned "Revisiting the Reading Workshop", I was puzzled.  Why would a school counselor need to learn about "The Reading Workhop"?  Teaching students to read was not the role of a school counselor... or so I thought...

 

Revisiting The Reading Workshop- Week One

    When I was initially assigned "Revisiting the Reading Workshop", I was puzzled.  Why would a school counselor need to learn about "The Reading Workhop"?  Teaching students to read was not the role of a school counselor... or so I thought...

 

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