In October 2023, New York became the fourth US state to outlaw corporal punishment in private schools. Corporal punishment is still allowed in public schools in 17 states, subjecting 70,000 students per year. The NY ban brought renewed attention to a practice considered to be archaic by many and troubling to mental health professionals. Studies have repeatedly shown that physical discipline does not improve behavior and can lead to emotional and academic problems over time. There are effective alternatives.

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Asking why students behave as they do can help teachers and students find solutions together.

Anxiety, one of the most common underlying causes of challenging student behavior, typically goes undiscovered and unaddressed through school-based behavior supports. Jessica Minahan and Stuart Ablon combine their expertise as a behavior analyst and a psychologist to outline how best to support students whose anxiety leads to challenging behavior. They describe the role of anxiety in challenging behavior and introduce skill-building approaches that help students develop the skills they need to succeed. These approaches can help teachers analyze skill deficits in students with anxiety, identify strategies to prevent anxiety from escalating, and build skills by combining opportunities to practice problem solving with specific strategies to manage anxiety.

Read the article on kappanonline.org

Collaborative methods for handling misconduct make their way to the classroom

Wayne D'Orio of Education Next writes "you don’t need a primer on how behavior has become worse—much worse—since students returned to school post-pandemic. Chances are you’ve observed just what the data from the National Center for Education Statistics report: 84 percent of school leaders say student behavioral development has been negatively impacted. This is evident in a dramatic increase in classroom disruptions, ranging from student misconduct to acts of disrespect toward teachers and staff to the prohibited use of electronic devices."

Collaborative methods for handling misconduct make their way to the classroom

Read on to hear from Think:Kids client Matt Cretsinger, director of special services for the Marshalltown Community School District in Iowa, Dr. J. Stuart Ablon, and others on what's causing bad behavior in the classroom and how schools and districts can use collaborative approaches to manage behavior while growing student skills.

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Dr. J. Stuart Ablon joined the Alliance Against Seclusion and Restraint for an interview with Guy Stephens about seclusion and restraint in schools and how Collaborative Problem Solving can support schools in moving away from this trauma-insensitive practice.

When California passed a measure a few years ago banning suspensions for acts of willful defiance in elementary and middle schools, the reaction was mixed. People feared what might happen if we took away one of the most frequently used tools in our schools’ toolboxes when managing severe behavior.

I argued that mandating administrators to stop suspending students would not, on its own, solve the problem. We cannot simply take something that has not been working away. We must replace it with something more effective. Thankfully, proven alternatives exist that do not rely on power and control and combat rather than reinforce racially biased practices.

So, it was incredibly gratifying to see a new law passed in our home state of Massachusetts this past week requiring decision-makers to utilize evidence-based alternatives to suspension in our public schools. The approach we teach at Think:Kids, called Collaborative Problem Solving (CPS), was named as one of the recommended alternatives alongside other models, like restorative practices, which pair very well with each other.

Traditional school disciplinary procedures, like suspensions, have been shown to be ineffective for the students to whom they are most applied—students of color, students with disabilities, and students with trauma histories. Because punitive responses to behavioral challenges only exacerbate chronic stress for students and educators alike, they perpetuate a vicious cycle for the most at-risk, misunderstood, and marginalized students. Research has clearly shown that punitive discipline increases the likelihood of further discipline and is related to higher dropout rates, lower academic achievement, and involvement in the juvenile justice system.

We know why suspensions don’t work and make things worse. Disciplinary strategies like this are targeted at motivating students to behave better. But focusing on motivation is barking up the wrong therapeutic tree. Students who struggle to control their behavior at school don’t lack the will to behave well, they lack the skills to behave well. Focusing on a specific student’s struggles with certain skills as the root of their misbehavior has the potential to reduce the harmful effects of racial or socioeconomic disparities in school disciplinary practices.

Bring Collaborative Problem Solving to Your School

Suspensions don’t work and often make things worse. Proven, relational forms of discipline, like Collaborative Problem Solving, focus on building skills. Bring a more compassionate, effective, and equitable method of discipline and managing behavior to your school.

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Requiring the use of proven, relational forms of discipline, like Collaborative Problem Solving and restorative practices, that focus on building skills is critical if we are to make progress toward more compassionate, effective, and equitable school discipline. I am hopeful that this law will help to decrease the disproportionality of school discipline and, in the most severe cases, help interrupt the school-to-prison pipeline.

 


A version of this article originally appeared on PsychologyToday.com.

Dr. J. Stuart Ablon, Founder and Director of Think:Kids, and Dr. Tia Lites, Principal of the Helen Y. Davis Leadership Academy, presented at SXSW EDU 2022 on the School-to-Prison Pipeline and discussed ways we can end it.

Traditional school discipline flows from bias, not science. Kids of color suffer double jeopardy behavior bias—explicit bias that has their behavior misunderstood and implicit bias borne of racism, delivering more punitive responses. Neuroscience proves students with challenging behavior lack the skill, not the will, to behave. Let’s listen to science to interrupt bias, build school culture, and promote Black leadership to end the school-to-prison pipeline. In this recorded presentation Dr. Ablon and Dr. Lites share how behavior is determined by skill, not will; how school culture and leadership set the tone for how discipline is addressed; effective and equitable solutions to support our most challenging students, and those labeled “at-risk,” succeed.

 

Dr. J. Stuart Ablon and co-author Dr. Alisha Pollastri have been working with schools throughout the world to refine the Collaborative Problem-Solving (CPS) approach, creating a step-by-step program for educators based on the recognition—from research in neuroscience—that challenging classroom behaviors are due to a deficit of skill, not will. This book provides everything needed to implement the program, including reproducible assessment tools to pinpoint skill deficits in areas like frustration tolerance and flexibility that are at the root of students’ challenging behaviors.

The authors host a three-part interactive book club for The School Discipline Fix: Changing Behavior Using the Collaborative Problem Solving® Approach.

  • Session 1: Chapters 1-5, Rethinking Challenging Behaviors
  • Session 2: Chapters 6-11, Using Collaborative Problem Solving in Schools
  • Session 3: Chapters 12-15, Scaling & Sustaining the Shift in Discipline School-wide

The School Discipline Fix

A complete guide to a paradigm-shifting model of school discipline.

Traditional school discipline is ineffective and often damaging, relying heavily on punishments and motivational procedures aimed at giving students the incentive to behave better. There is a better way.

Order from the Publisher
Schools ordering 10+ copies are eligible bulk pricing. Call: (800) 233-4830 Email: orders@wwnorton.com

Free Discussion Guide

School Discipline Fix Discussion GuideThis discussion guide for The School Discipline Fix: Changing Behavior Using the Collaborative Problem Solving Approach is designed as a professional learning resource and can be used to facilitate a professional book study or to create a roadmap for schoolwide change.

Download the Free Guide

Quick Reference Guide: Collaborative Problem Solving with Students

Norton-Guide-for-Students-Blog-CropThe easy-to-follow guide is an essential tool for tackling challenging student behavior effectively, collaboratively, and compassionately. This 8.5" x 11" multi-panel guide is laminated for extra durability and 3-hole-punched for binder storage.

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Sue O'Connell of NECN/NBC LX interviews Dr. Stuart Ablon about the recent increase in school violence and challenging behavior from students. Dr. Ablon offers insights into why this is happening and what we can do.

Dr. J. Stuart Ablon

The new school year is just getting started, and students are finally back in the building. Unfortunately, many school districts are sending home emails about yet another dangerous new social media challenge on TikTok, the “Devious Lick” Bathroom Vandalism Challenge.

What is the “Devious Lick” challenge on TikTok?

On TikTok, students record themselves vandalizing school bathrooms and then encourage classmates to do the same and share their destruction videos. Schools are finding missing or broken soap dispensers, damaged plumbing and fixtures, and extensive paint and toilet paper messes. This is an especially hard time given the importance of handwashing and keeping bathrooms clean to limit the spread of Covid. It is also providing ample opportunity for students to visit the restroom more often. This “challenge” seems to play out in middle and high schools, but that doesn’t mean your younger child, who doesn’t have unsupervised access to the Internet, won’t learn about dangerous social media challenges at school through peers with older siblings.

What Should a Parent/Guardian Do?

The most important advice to give people when talking to our kids about difficult things is to talk less and listen more. While it can be comforting to us to prepare some sage words to pass onto our kids, the best thing we can do when we are concerned about something they are seeing, reading, or hearing about is to listen to them. We really can’t know what to say until we understand more about their understanding of and reaction to something in the first place.

We, adults, tend to be wordy. So if you need to start a conversation like this, bring the topic up neutrally and succinctly. Perhaps something like: “Have you heard of this thing called “Devious Licks” on TikTok or the Bathroom Vandalism Challenge?” Then ask for information: “What do you think of it?” And bite your tongue. You may well be rewarded by having a chance to hear their perspective, their point of view, or perhaps even what worries or concerns them about something like the Vandalism Challenge. You can ask plenty of clarifying questions like, “Why do they think kids are participating when they clearly know it’s wrong to do so?” If they simply shrug their shoulders or offer the all too common, “I don’t know,” you can make some educated guesses. Is it peer pressure, to garner attention and be “cool,” or are they hoping to gain followers and clout on social media?

Once we hear them out, we will be in a better position to try to answer any questions our kids may have to the best of our ability. And yes, then (after listening to them first) we can provide critical adult perspective and advice while setting the clear expectation that this kind of behavior is not acceptable by explaining our concerns, including that this behavior is illegal and could have serious consequences. But it remains still more important to ask questions, reflect what we hear from them, and show interest in hearing more from them since they probably already know that this kind of behavior is not acceptable. This advice applies to all disturbing or confusing content or undesirable behaviors seen on the Internet or anywhere else, for that matter. Because ultimately, if we want our kids to listen to us, we should start by showing them how we listen to them!

If you are pretty confident this hasn’t happened in your child’s school yet, it can still be important to have this conversation proactively. And if you want to know more about what’s going on in their social media world, make sure to follow them on social! Nothing like seeing things firsthand to put us in a good position to ask questions and learn more from our kids directly. If, however, you already know your child was involved in something like this, your first instinct is probably to take their phone / social media access away or issue other punishments. While understandable, reactions like this rarely address the issues that give rise to challenging behavior. As hard as it can be when furious at or disappointed in our children, try listening first if you want to solve the problem in a durable way.

 


This article originally appeared on Psychology Today.

Dr. J. Stuart Ablon

November 27, 2019

California recently banned suspensions for willful defiance in elementary and middle schools. When we shared this news on social media, the reaction was passionate—in both directions. It was lauded by many as crucial to addressing the school to prison pipeline and especially when students of color are suspended at alarmingly higher rates. And yet it was sharply criticized by others as being soft. The comment I read that struck me the most, however, was this:

“There has to be some alternative to just doing nothing. What programs is the state going to establish and pay for to help these students… what measures are being put into place instead of just banning?”

I’ve learned over the years helping hundreds of organizations change their disciplinary programs that you really shouldn’t take things away from folks before you give them something of equal or greater value to use in their stead. Otherwise, all hell will break loose. Taking away suspension for willful behavior might be a start towards more equitable and effective discipline, but it won’t make the problem go away, could make it worse, and will only be effective if educators have something effective to do instead.

I recall visiting a program serving adolescents with severe behavioral difficulties years ago. From the very beginning of the introductory training I was there to provide in our Collaborative Problem Solving approach, I sensed an unusual amount of tension and even hostility in the air. One of the staff members who looked particularly angry stared menacingly at me and asked, “Did you write that book on Collaborative Problem Solving?” I later learned that three days prior to my arrival their leadership had told the staff that they were no longer allowed to use their system of rewards and consequences to shape behavior since they had decided to implement this new approach I would be sharing with them. In the intervening days, chaos had ensued as people had no idea how to respond to episodes of challenging behavior.

Another phenomenon I’ve noticed is that if you take away one form of something from staff, they will likely resort to more of other forms of the same thing. In a therapeutic school to which I was consulting, the staff was told that they had to stop putting out-of-control students in the quiet room due to new legislation, which they did. Successfully. The problem was that they ended up restraining students at alarming rates instead. In essence, they traded seclusions for restraints. I can foresee how banning suspensions could simply result in dramatic increases in things like detentions and other forms of punitive responses aimed at curbing bad behavior. This is especially likely because when we fear increased disruptive behavior from easily dysregulated students, we get dysregulated ourselves and reach for more of the only thing we know, even if it isn’t working. Our followers on social media echoed these fears, suggesting that banning suspensions would be:

“Turning schools into holding pens for kids who lack the… self-control to attend class without behaving in ways that interfere with an instructor’s efforts to teach… Instead of teaching or learning, we are making laws to accommodate and tolerate unacceptable behavior.”

Other followers feared that taking away suspensions would render teachers defenseless and impact the rest of the students, commenting that:

“Kids that disrupt class and can’t be disciplined keep others in the class from learning.”

And that:

“Well-behaved students are punished by the disruptive behaviors of others.”

Perhaps the biggest fear of our followers could be summed up by this comment:

“So kids will learn there are no consequences for bad behavior… soon they will be out of school doing petty crimes and they will learn once again in California there is no consequence for that.”

Fortunately, there are proven alternatives to detentions and suspensions—which is especially critical given the tragic consequences of the disproportionality of school discipline across race lines. Research clearly shows that when teachers learn evidence-based, relational approaches like Collaborative Problem Solving or restorative practices challenging behavior is reduced so teachers can teach and students can learn. All students that is. The students who struggle with their behavior and the ones who are impacted by their behavior. And yes, these students take responsibility for their actions. How so? By being on the hook to solve the problems their behavior is causing. After all, isn’t that the most meaningful consequence there could be? Missing school provides no accountability. The most powerful consequence is one of accountability.

It’s time to focus on providing educators with intensive, high-quality training in alternatives to suspension. Just like our students, who do well if they can, so do educators! We are putting our educators in an impossible situation if we take things away without equipping them with the training and resources they need to do something else.

 


This article originally appeared on Psychology Today.

References

Ablon, JS, Pollastri, AR. The School Discipline Fix: Changing Behavior using Collaborative Problem Solving. New York: Norton; 2018.

Pollastri, AR, Epstein, LD, Heath, GH, & Ablon, JS. The Collaborative Problem Solving approach: Outcomes across settings. Harvard Review of Psychiatry, 2013, 21(4), 188-199.

Dr. J. Stuart Ablon

October 19, 2018

Traditional school disciplinary strategies are guilty—guilty of being woefully ineffective and failing kids and educators alike. They aren’t needed for most of the students in our schools, and in a sad irony, they don’t work for the students to whom they are most applied! Research has clearly shown that disciplinary actions actually increase the likelihood of further discipline and are related to higher drop-out rates as well as lower academic achievement and even eventual juvenile justice involvement (APA, 2008).

Despite having learned a lot about the brain in the last few decades, school discipline hasn’t changed much. Sure, we have fancier jargon for describing these strategies, but the basic ideas and interventions are the same. Time-out, detention, suspension, expulsion are all aimed at motivating students to behave better—which ought to work if a lack of motivation is the reason kids are behaving poorly in the first place. But, as I’ve explained in a previous blog, thanks to research in the neurosciences we now know that this conventional wisdom about challenging behavior is flat out wrong. Students who struggle to control their behavior at school don’t lack the will to behave well, they lack the skills to behave well—skills like flexibility, frustration tolerance, and problem-solving. No end of motivational strategies will teach students neurocognitive skills like these that are the reason they are struggling in the first place. I’ve also discussed in a previous blog some of the dangerous side effects of the ineffective disciplinary strategies we use in schools.

As if all this wasn’t enough, guess who suffers the most from traditional school discipline? The most at-risk, misunderstood, and marginalized students, specifically students of color and students with histories of trauma and exposure to chronic stress. Students of color, particularly African-American students, are suspended at disproportionate rates and are on the receiving end of much more severe punishments than their white peers for far less serious behavior (Gilbert & Gay, 1985; Weinstein, Tomlinson-Clarke, & Curran, 2004). They are also punished for more subjective offenses because of something called implicit bias. Caucasian adults are much more likely to perceive the behavior of students of color as angry or threatening. It is absolutely imperative that we implement new approaches to school discipline that address these racially biased misinterpretations of behavior. Fortunately, we are finding that when we teach school staff how to focus on a specific student’s struggles with certain skills as the root of their misbehavior, they are less likely to rely on things like race and socioeconomic status in judging students. In other words, focusing on skill, not will, has the potential to reduce the harmful effects of racial or socioeconomic disparities in school disciplinary practices.

 

Cycle of Chronic Stress

Our schools aspire to be “trauma-informed” or “trauma-sensitive.” Many educators are being trained to understand the impact of chronic stress or trauma on students’ development, behavior, and learning. Educators have far more empathy for how chronic stress and trauma delay brain development, causing lags in skill development which result further downstream in challenging behavior at school. However, these same schools often then rely heavily on punitive school disciplinary strategies for these very students. And let’s be honest here: traditional school discipline is about as trauma-uninformed as it gets! Nowhere in the trauma-informed practice literature have I seen anyone advocating for the use of power and control to manipulate a student’s behavior. Using behavior charts and rewards and consequences is doing just that. Students who exhibit challenging behavior are often the students with trauma histories for whom these interventions not only don’t work, they do damage and make matters worse.

We have referred to this as the vicious cycle of chronic stress and punitive discipline (Ablon & Pollastri, 2018). Punitive discipline adds more chronic stress which further delays skill development resulting in escalating behavior which is then often met by raising the stakes with even more punitive discipline. Systems of escalating consequences are sometimes called “progressive discipline.” When it comes to curbing challenging behavior, those systems are anything but progressive. In fact, I like to refer to them as progressive dysregulation where both the student and the educators become increasingly dysregulated dealing with one another which leads nowhere good. In fact, it has been well documented that dealing with challenging behavior in the classroom is one of the biggest sources of stress for educators which drives talented, young teachers out of the profession just when we need them most.

What’s the good news here? We have the power to interrupt the cycle of chronic stress and trauma. Proven alternatives exist. Instead of adding stress resulting in further delaying skills and escalating behavior, we can buffer stress, build skills and reduce challenging behavior. These alternatives don’t rely on power and control and are restorative rather than punitive. And they are inclusive alternatives that combat, rather than reinforce, racially biased practices.

Schools represent a remarkable opportunity to help our most vulnerable kids. Where else do we have kids the majority of their waking hours, the majority of their youth surrounded by trained, professionals whose goal is to teach them? So, let’s harness that opportunity and bring school discipline into the 21st century. We need a call to action. It is high time we fix school discipline.

 


This article originally appeared in Psychology Today.

References

Ablon, J.S., & Pollastri, A.R, The School Discipline Fix. (2018). Norton: New York, NY.

American Psychological Association Zero Tolerance Task Force. (2008). Are zero tolerance policies effective in the schools? An evidentiary review and recommendations. The American Psychologist, 63(9), 852.

Gilbert, S. E., & Gay, G. (1985). Improving the success in school of poor black children. Phi Delta Kappan, 67(2), 133-37.

Weinstein, C. S., Tomlinson-Clarke, S., & Curran, M. (2004). Toward a conception of culturally responsive classroom management. Journal of teacher education, 55(1), 25-38.

The Double Jeopardy of Behavior Bias

Dr. J. Stuart Ablon

September 29, 2020

Our understanding of the causes of challenging behavior often do not flow from science. They flow from bias.

We assume that kids who behave in challenging ways do so on purpose, in order to get or avoid things. Stop anyone on the street and ask them why kids misbehave, and you will likely hear some version of this conventional wisdom. These assumptions are what we might call an explicit or conscious bias. They are explicit because we are fully aware of, endorse and knowingly pass these ideas onto others. And they are a bias because the ideas have been completely disproven by science.

More than half a century of research at this point confirms that people who struggle to control their behavior do not do so purposefully, but rather because they struggle with the skills required to behave better. Skills like flexibility, frustration tolerance, and problem-solving. As I’ve written many times, it’s about skill not will. Countless kids have suffered as a result of this explicit bias about their behavior that leads to carrot and stick approaches which typically don’t work and often make matters worse because they are poorly matched to the actual problem.

Tragically, kids of color who struggle to manage their behavior suffer from double jeopardy when it comes to biases about their behavior. They suffer from both explicit bias that has their behavior misunderstood in the first place and implicit bias borne of racism that has them receive far more punitive responses.

Implicit or unconscious bias is what lurks beneath the surface, often outside of our awareness but causes people of color to be subject to far more frequent and severe discipline for lesser infractions. So kids of color with behavioral challenges are both explicitly and implicitly misunderstood and mistreated.

When we focus on the actual problem—skills struggles, rather than a lack of motivation—we can interrupt these two behavior biases and instead set the stage for relational approaches that help kids build the skills they need to succeed.

It’s high time we begin to listen to science—not bias—to spare kids of color from the double jeopardy of behavior bias.

 


 

This article originally appeared in Psychology Today.

Why change is needed to meet the needs of students exposed to trauma.

Dr. J. Stuart Ablon

I was asked to write a blog post about a recent trend in education for K-12 Talk that I find either exciting or concerning. So, I decided to write about a topic that is both exciting and concerning: the impact of trauma on learning and behavior. I’ve re-created that blog post below.

The School Discipline Fix

 

First the exciting part.

These days, many educators are being trained to understand the impact of chronic stress and trauma on students’ development, behavior, and learning. Schools everywhere are devoting significant professional development time to this topic and prioritizing being “trauma-informed” or “trauma-sensitive.” Thankfully, as a result, educators have far more empathy for how chronic stress and trauma can derail learning and be a primary cause of disruptive behavior in the classroom.

Now the concerning part.

These same schools often still rely heavily on punitive school disciplinary strategies. I recall visiting a school recently where the leadership proudly described their trauma-informed training and then proceeded to show me examples of the behavior contracts they use with their students. These traditional disciplinary strategies (including sticker-charts, time-outs, demerits, detention, suspension, and expulsion) aren’t very successful for the students to whom they are most often applied. Research has clearly shown that such disciplinary actions actually increase the likelihood of further disciplinary measures and are related to higher drop-out rates, as well as lower academic achievement and even eventual juvenile justice involvement (APA, 2008). And to whom are they most often applied? Sadly, to the most at-risk, misunderstood, and marginalized students, including those with histories of trauma and exposure to chronic stress. Students who exhibit challenging behavior are often the students with trauma histories because being exposed to chronic stress or trauma delays brain development, causing lags in skill development which in turn result in challenging behaviors. As a direct result of their trauma, many of these students struggle with skills like flexibility, frustration tolerance, and problem-solving. They don’t lack the will to behave well; they lack the skills to behave well. No wonder traditional school discipline doesn’t work with traumatized students: motivational strategies don’t teach students the neurocognitive skills they lack.

Even more concerning.

Not only do punitive interventions not work with traumatized students, they can do developmental damage and make matters worse. Nowhere in the trauma-informed practice literature have I seen anyone advocate for the use of power and control to manipulate a traumatized student’s behavior. Using behavior charts and rewards and consequences is doing just that. It is leveraging a power differential to increase compliance. Put more simply, traditional school discipline revolves around rewarding students when they do what we want and revoking privileges when they don’t: a toxic dynamic that many traumatized kids are already all too familiar with in their past relationships with adults. In other words, traditional school disciplinary strategies are about as trauma-uninformed and trauma-insensitive as it gets!

There are additional side-effects of this vicious cycle of chronic stress and punitive discipline (Ablon & Pollastri, 2018). When punitive discipline is ineffective, it adds more stress, which further delays skill development, which results in escalating behavior, which is then often met by raising the stakes with even more punitive discipline. Systems of escalating consequences are sometimes called “progressive discipline.” But this is a misnomer: when it comes to curbing challenging behavior, those systems are anything but progressive. In fact, I like to refer to them as “progressive dysregulation,” since both students and educators become increasingly dysregulated, with dire consequences for everyone, including the teachers. Dealing with challenging behavior in the classroom is one of the biggest sources of stress for educators; it drives talented, young teachers out of the profession just when we need them most.

Thankfully there is still good news.

We have the power to interrupt this cycle of chronic stress and trauma. We don’t have to respond to challenging behavior with punitive discipline. Proven alternatives exist. Instead of adding stress that further delays skills and escalates behavior, we can buffer stress, build skills, and reduce challenging behavior in a truly trauma-informed and trauma-sensitive way (Perry & Ablon, 2019). Effective alternatives, such as Collaborative Problem Solving and restorative practices, are relational forms of discipline that do not revolve around the use of power and control.

Schools represent a remarkable opportunity to help our most vulnerable, traumatized kids. Students spend the majority of their waking hours—the majority of their youth—surrounded by trained professionals who are experts in helping kids build skills. So, let’s harness that opportunity and turn trauma-informed principles into concrete, actionable strategies that transform school discipline.

 


References

Ablon, J.S., & Pollastri, A.R, The School Discipline Fix. (2018). Norton: New York, NY

American Psychological Association Zero Tolerance Task Force. (2008). Are zero tolerance policies effective in the schools? An evidentiary review and recommendations. The American Psychologist, 63(9), 852.

Perry BD, Ablon JS. (2019) CPS as a Neurodevelopmentally Sensitive and Trauma-Informed Approach. In: Pollastri A., Ablon J., Hone M. (eds) Collaborative Problem Solving. Current Clinical Psychiatry. Springer, Cham

It’s only August, but already many families’ minds are turning to back-to-school issues. Certainly this is true for many of the families we see and work to support, given that the stresses of school often contribute greatly to behavioral challenges.  Furthermore, many families contend with ongoing worries about how their school’s discipline practices may impact their child.

A recent story in the Washington Post caught our eye in this regard.  It discusses a large study of Texas schoolchildren showing that nearly identical schools—in terms of student demographics, teacher experience, and a host of other variables—suspended and expelled students at
very different rates.  The article talks about how this “discipline gap” isn’t reflective of, for instance, one school having tougher kids than another, or anything else for that matter, but rather “it’s a choice that schools make.”

Of course, it’s a choice that is not without significant consequences, as the data from this and many other studies indicate that “suspension or expulsion greatly increases a student’s risk of being held back a grade, dropping out, or landing in a juvenile justice system.”

We know that, increasingly, many schools are making a very different choice about how to handle students with behavioral challenges—the audience at our recent Tier 1 Advanced Training was made up predominantly of educators—but much work remains to be done. This fall, as your own child returns to school, do what you can to educate staff at your child’s school about our approach, and see if you can’t help them rethink school discipline practices. And if we can, let us know how we can help!

We were encouraged to read that a state task force in Colorado is looking to put an end to one-size-fits-all school discipline that flows from zero tolerance policies. While the examples provided in the story are clearly egregious, they point out how unlikely it is that zero tolerance policies could address the issues in any specific individual situation. Much research has documented that zero tolerance policies not only don’t make our schools safer, they actually make our schools less safe! But it’s not surprising that zero tolerance policies continue to rear their ugly heads when it comes to school discipline. When we are scared, we run for more of the familiar. In this case, that means more traditional, punitive discipline when ironically what’s needed to ensure everyone’s safety is something very different. We have a saying that goes like this:  the more serious or unsafe the behavior, the more important it is to solve the problem and teach the lagging skills leading to the behavior in the first place. And sadly punitive discipline does neither well. Fortunately, there are alternatives, such as our approach, that focus on solving the problem leading to the unsafe behavior and teaching the skills that are lacking so it doesn’t happen again under different circumstances. You might even call such approaches a “100% Response Policy.”

In his latest article for the New York Times, David Bornstein nicely articulates the effects that trauma, as well as chronic stress have on the behavior and learning of young children. He notes that children are frequently punished for misbehavior that they do not know how to control, which he compares to “punishing a child for having a seizure.”

He goes on to describe efforts across the country in which schools are finding ways to reduce stressors/triggers within a child’s school day, as well as ways to provide strategies for these students to more effectively manage stress.

We at Think:Kids applaud these efforts. And, we would like to see these practices taken one step further.  In addition to unilaterally reducing stressors and providing strategies, we know that involving the student in the problem solving process helps them develop the helping relationships which are crucial for a more positive outcome. Further, proactively problem solving specific unmet expectations, not only helps these students meet these expectations and reduce misbehavior, but it also builds the crucial thinking skills the students need to become self-reliant, independent, healthy adults.

You may know that many therapeutic schools and psychiatric settings seclude and/or restrain children for the purposes of de-escalation and regaining behavioral control.

“Seclusion” typically refers to the removal of an individual into a specifically designated space used for de-escalation (e.g., a small bare room with padded walls), while “restraint” encompasses a range of interventions by staff member including holding a child’s arms and legs, or use of special tools such as straps, in order to restrict the movement of the child. According to data released from the U.S. Department of Education Office of Civil Rights, 107,000 kids were subjected to physical restraint or were confined to seclusion rooms in schools during the years 2011 and 2012.

Some purport that these interventions are necessary and humane, however, evidence increasingly suggests that restraint and seclusion can be physically and psychologically dangerous as well as costly to agencies. A thorough investigation by the Government Accountability Commission in 2009 found hundreds of complaints of abuse and death caused by negligent use of restraint procedures in schools and pediatric residential treatment facilities, suggesting that there are small but grave risks when physical restraints are performed irresponsibly. Additionally, even when restrictive interventions are performed consistent with safety protocols, patients often report that they are psychologically harmful and aversive. This is particularly true for children and adolescents who have experienced prior trauma.

For a long time, restraint and seclusion were considered the only option if a child’s behavior was “out of control.” As eloquently said by Connecticut Child Advocate Sarah Egan, J.D. in this interesting New England Psychologist article, “They had the hammer and nail approach, not because they were evil but those were the tools they had and so that’s what they used.”

There is a lot of buzz about restraint and seclusion in schools these days because Sen. Tom Harkin (D – IA) and Rep. George Miller (D – CA) have introduced the federal Keeping All Students Safe Act (S. 2036/H.R. 1893) that would ban the use of restraints and seclusion in schools except in cases of clear physical danger.

The New England Psychologist article does a nice job of describing one reason why this issue is complicated: Current definitions and reporting practices of schools vary widely between states and between schools and agencies. Enacting federal legislation across such a heterogeneous system is bound to be very messy.
Another complication that we have been talking about at Think:Kids is this one: It can be very destabilizing to take away one tool without giving schools and agencies another tool to use in its place. If we ask a school to stop restraining and secluding children without teaching staff what else they can do to achieve their intended goals, we can expect mayhem. That’s why we suggest that schools begin acting NOW to think about other ways to de-escalate children and regain behavioral control (or even better, prevent escalation from occurring in the first place).

In 2011, DeHert and colleagues published a paper reviewing four interventions that successfully reduced rates of restraint and seclusion in youth settings. These interventions included a model of strength-based care, a behavioral therapy oriented management program, introduction of a padded room (in this case, they replaced restraint with seclusion), and adoption of the Collaborative Problem Solving approach. Averaging across these four interventions, occasions of restraint were reduced 93%, and occasions of seclusion were reduced 75%. As you can see, Collaborative Problem Solving is not the only way, but it is one way. Talk to us if you want more information.

A final note about the fate of the Keeping All Students Safe Act

Both sponsors of the bill, Sen. Harkin and Rep. Miller, are retiring from congress in 2014. In their absence, advocates are concerned that it will likely be difficult to get this legislation introduced and passed in future sessions. Staff members of both the Senate and House committees agree that it’s critical that concerned parents, advocates, educators and the public let their congresspeople know how they feel about the use of restraints and seclusion in schools and the importance of the Keeping All Students Safe Act. Without that groundswell of support, they say, the bill is likely to die. You can find the phone numbers for your senators and representative here.

Here at Think:Kids, we have been an active part of the effort to reduce, if not eliminate, the use of restraint and seclusion in schools and other institutional settings for well over a decade. Our approach, Collaborative Problem Solving, was implemented as the model of care at Cambridge Health Alliance’s child and adolescent inpatient units in 2000, with great success. Since then, it has become a treatment model and a discipline model in a range of child, adolescent, and even adult settings. And we are delighted that there has been particular growth of interest in the model in schools, where children of course, spend the majority of their waking hours!

We, therefore read with great excitement news of changes to the rules that govern restraint and seclusion in Massachusetts schools.

While there is still a long way to go to help schools think differently about students with challenging behavior, this is an important step in the right direction.

For further reading on the subject click here .

 

This NBC News report on calm rooms featuring Dr. Ablon stating that there are “proven alternatives.”

WARNING: This video may be disturbing to some viewers.

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