How can parents work with teachers to develop a behavior management plan for their child?

After having worked on multiple IEP and school-based teams, I have found that the most effective parent and teacher teams demonstrate respect and gratitude for one another’s engagement with the child, even if said engagement looks different across settings (i.e., different ways of responding to the child). I’ve also noted that demonstrating gratitude for the entire team helps keep the focus on the main goal: the child’s access to individualized education. Lastly, an often overlooked step of building rapport with a school team includes asking them directly how they best communicate and appreciate collaborating- I’ve seen effective teams openly discuss how, when and what they respond well too, as all parties are stretched thin!

I agree that communication with parents is essential. Parents are often able to pick up on progress that they see from their child which teachers may not notice.

This is the most needed topic of the era. Students are facing behavioral issues and are finding themselves unable to handle the emotional concerns. Of course parents and teachers all together could help them alot and make them ready to handle their emotional issues. Parents must talk to the teachers(who are concerned) openly and let them know about the small detailing of their ward so that teacher can support the student accordingly. Parents should be in regular contact with the teachers to know about the students progress and behavior as well. And the utmost important thing is that parents must keep the faith on teachers.

Being both a teacher and a parent, I understand both sides. Bottom line is that both parents and teachers want what’s best for the child/student. Keep in mind, that is the most important thing. That definitely has to be communicated on both sides. If a parent and teacher cannot see eye to eye about how to go about it, it helps to put themselves in a slightly different scenario—pretend that they are a divorced couple trying to help their child succeed. Both will naturally have different point of views as how to get there, but the key is communication and reminding themselves that the other party only wants the same thing—for the child to succeed. It’s a give and take, but open communication helps for better understanding.

Be aware of and kind to each member of the team, everyone wants to do the best they can within the parameters that have been given to stay within. Even if you want your student to have the gold standard that may be impossible in a public school setting. The staff wants to give you the best they have.

All the more important today than ever before as the young minds need intimate connect with parents and the dear ones to keep their anxieties and mental stresess under control. Teachers and parents today are required to connect with Aatmiyata with their wards and be a great support to creating a blissful world full of positivity, hope and happiness. Inspiring young minds follow those who practice what they preach and lead by example on simplicity, integrity and sustainability so vital to create the desired confidence level in the youth of the day. Let the campuses of universities have a more intimate connect between the learners and their teacher mentors beyond classrooms. Do not forget that dialogue diverts mind away from wories.

This is a lot of additional work for a teacher in a general education classroom. The teacher may also be struggling with other students in the same situation. Ask the teacher or principal if there is an assessment or observation by a school team member (like the school psych or behavior specialist) that you can ask for at a public school or how to initiate the IEP process if more assessment is needed. If the behavior is at a level that is interfering with their safety or others, it needs to be addressed through a plan by the school as soon as possible. If a specific behavior plan, reinforcement system, visuals, etc. are needed specifically for this student, it needs to be documented in an IEP.

When identifying the problem behaviors, having an observation conducted by someone outside of the class setting, is helpful. Gain knowledge of potential setting events, antecedents, and consequences of the behavior to help narrow focus of how to replace the behavior with a more appropriate one that still meets the child's purpose for the original behavior shown. Know there are generally four main functions of behavior: to gain attention, escape from the situation in some manner, gaining access to tangibles, and for sensory stimulation. Knowing this can also help the team identify what the function of the behavior could be to help generate a good behavior plan to help the student manage or replace the behavior with a more acceptable one

Another important thing to keep in mind is that if a child’s behavior is interfering with a significant portion of their access to educational classes, an evaluation is mandated. If a child is losing access to their curriculum due to behavioral challenges, the assessment/ evaluation/ IEP process is not only recommended, it is ethically required. When in analysis for function of challenging behaviors, consult a BCBA or specialist and pay attention to when the child sees their greatest successes-often an overlooked key indicator as to what may evoke challenging behavior in some settings, but not in others .

I think its important to interview the parents and get their perspective regarding triggers/or what we call setting events to problem behaviors. I think helping teachers and other school staff by walking them through what the child and family's routine is at home can help the school based team provide appropriate recommendations that already fit with your schedule. For example: the problem behavior is work avoidance and the child typically sits down for an hour at home and doesn't complete any work. Talk to the team about shortening the work interval (e.g. 15 minutes at a time) to increase the likelihood they complete work and allowing them to earn fun free time (e.g. video games, trampoline) only when work is completed.

The crux of behaviour managment is understanding that a catch all approach isn't going to work. Nearly all children who have been in SEND or specialist provision will have probably had many different strategies and chances are a lot of them wouldn't have worked. Working with teenagers with complex behaviour for years, I have found that consultation with parents, social workers or other professionals, before implementing any new stratgies or system of reward helps to find out what hasn't worked and avoids history repeating itself. Most importantly with older children it's about getting their views on what they feels is fair and attainable. Never take as a given that a young person understands the systems in your setting

This is an over-simplified version which may lead to issues like increased behavior or more intense behaviors. For example, many kids will tease, hit/pinch, etc. other kids - initially it may seem like they just don’t like the kid. It more likely is that they want to interact with the kid and they don’t know how, they always get access to a preferred toy to get away from the kid, or the adult in the situation is not paying attention and doing this consistently results in getting attention from that adult. In my field, we suggest using a Function Based approach which looks at what is happening in the situation before and after the behavior to figure out why it’s happening, what the child is getting and then teaching a replacement behavior.

Even when it is difficult, it is important for both parent and teacher to be honest and to openly negotiate. I have witnessed parents who are so eager to say " I did what you said", that they say yes to every suggestion even when this means sacrificies that threaten the strategy. I believe that it is more valuable to take little steps that will be permanent than do major changes that we can′t keep as needed.

There must also be fidelity and consistency across different settings, as well as having students awareness/buy-in of the goals and rewards/negative consequences. Far too many BIPs are put in place (mainly for older students) where there is a disconnect between needs, preferences, and abilities. The bar is set either too high or too low.

To create an effective behavior management plan for a child, parents and teachers need clear communication and shared understanding of the child's behavior. Setting specific behavior goals, agreeing on consistent reinforcements and consequences, and creating a practical behavior plan are essential steps. Consistent implementation and regular progress check-ins allow for adjustments, while celebrating the child's achievements and seeking professional guidance when needed ensure a successful approach.

In my experience, working with parents and children within the African context, I have noted that developing effective behaviour management strategies requires collaboration between parents and teachers. By working together, they can create a consistent and supportive environment that promotes positive behaviours and addresses challenging ones. Parents and teachers should establish consistent expectations, rules, and consequences for behaviour in both home and school settings. This consistency helps children understand what is expected of them and reduces confusion. This leads to the development of a sense of awareness of expectations that is more likely to result in positive behaviours and the effectiveness of the whole exercise.

For this to work, the parent has to follow through. Leaving it only for the teacher to work with your child’s decision making process is setting the child up for failure.

Bridging the home/school gap is imperative when implementing a behavior plan. Consistency is key. Once you identify the target behaviors, you must work on replacement behaviors. Helping the student practice replacement behaviors at home and school will increase the plan's effectiveness. Students with disabilities need to follow a consistent plan with structure. If the student is only receiving this type of instruction at school and not at home, the success rate for these students is lowered. Parents can provide quality observations and feedback that offer deeper insight into target behaviors. Strategies that help students have a productive learning environment and quality home life make for an independent, thriving student.

In my experience, the parent relationship is key to moving forward with providing appropriate behavioral support. A helpful way to intervene is by asking the school based team for a meeting so you could share your child and family's routines with them. Typically, it is best for the team to try to make gradual changes (e.g. if the problem behavior is work avoidance talk to your team about restructuring their homework schedule from one complete full hour interval to 15 minute increments). If they complete work during this interval, they may earn a positive reinforcer (e.g. trampoline time for five minutes and keep increasing the work interval gradually). However, if they don't complete work then the reinforcer would not be earned.

If the teacher or school staff give examples of situations that led to the behavior (like having a hard time waiting, not being able to ask for help, transitions away from preferred items/activities, wanting to play with peers but not knowing how, etc), see if you can practice those at home, the park, or in a play date! There are a lot of moving parts in a classroom so the teacher may not know every detail as to what happened but giving additional opportunities to practice the general skills the teacher mentions can go a long way. If you don’t know where to start, you can ask how they work on it in school or what the protocol is for sharing, turn taking, etc. so you can follow that at home.

Including the child as much as possible on the front end of planning will usually help with child participation later on. Building a collaborative communication style with the child that encourages their input in the interventions and harnesses honest feedback about the program and information gathering with the child about their day to day school experiences. This information can used to tune the program to be effective for the individual. This isn’t always easy (and in some cases near impossible) but the effort usually pays off!

I personally feel home visits should be done if possible or parents may want to set up a camera somewhere to video their interaction with the child to see the “triggers” and behaviours of the child because not all behaviour happen both in the home and school setting and it can get very frustrating for parents to share and us as educators not being able to “see” or understand what is going on at home

Having excellent recording systems for behaviours that allow data anaylsis is critical to finding those important triggers, antecedents, and small factors we may miss, and ensuring staff are skilled at writing and recording behavior incidents. Patterns and trends are crucial in behavior managment- are Mondays a problem? Is it a key anniversary? Going back to the start of my career, it was all paper based, now having customisable systems with anayltics has helped me build systems of behaviour support that are built around identifiable breaking points. However staff recording and reporting behaviour are the "boots on the ground" and ensuring they are equipped to produce well written incident reports with the correct language is imperative.

Sincerely, all the aforementioned steps are okay only that as teachers and parents we must strategize to create age-appropriate plans. For example, a plan to correct the misbehavior of an elementary school student may not work for a high school student. Therefore, in any of our plans, the age of the student in question matters a lot. It's when we consider that that a high school student will appreciate our efforts in correcting his/her misbehaviour. Another strategy I will like to add is an unplanned visitation by a teacher to the apartment of the student. Sometimes, when a teacher is seen as part of a family, it brings easy and effective correction of misbehaviour of a student. It shows that there is no hiding place for the student.