Meet my new pal, Self Doubt. Yeah, she hangs out with me all the time!

This has been a challenging week in the life of this school psychologist intern and it's only Thursday morning! I have become very uncertain of my counseling abilities... or lack there of. On Monday I found out in the morning I was going to meet with a new kinder boy for individual counseling. I had actually met him the week before for a bit, but that was more for just a getting-to-know you moment. I had been under the impression that we were going to a direct behavior rating program with him so I was surprised to find out that I would be meeting with him one on one. I had heard that his behavior difficulties were surrounded around his hands - hitting kids, writting all over his desk, that sort of thing. So I got online and found a cute counseling lesson that was about Hurting Hands vs. Helping Hands. It was a group curriculum for and older group who were supposed to come up with a list of helping things and a list of hurting things and write them down. Well... I liked the idea, but my kid is coming to me for individual counseling and he is in kinder so he wasn't going to be able to write down a list of things. Now of course, I could write them for him, but I wanted him to be doing the action not me. So I decided to get online and print out a bunch of images - kids fighting, kids helping with the groceries, kids cleaning, kids sleeping in class that sort of thing. Then I got a piece of construction paper, crayons and a glue stick. I cut out all my little pictures and spread them all over our table. At some point in the  morning my supervisor appeared and saw my little art picture but he didn't ask what I was up to and took off. So I crossed my fingers and said a prayer that my little dude would get the point of what I was trying to do and went and pulled him from class. The activity actually went over pretty well. I traced his hands on to the paper with a crayon and explained to him that there were helping things we could do with our hands or hurting things and that I wanted him to go look at every one of my pictures and decide where the picture would fall - helping or hurting. I drew a line between the traced hands and marked one with a smiley face and the other with a sad face and he set to work examining the pictures and explaining to me why it was a good thing or a bad thing to do. It probably took all of 5-7 minutes, which is probably about the right amount of time for a kinder and he was proud of his work. I felt pretty mixed about the activity. I think it has potential, but I am not sure I am satisfied with it or how I executed it.

Yesterday, I met with another kid that I didn't know I would be meeting with regularly. I felt like the meeting was a complete waste of time. The kid has issues with lying, tattling, being a general busy-body, and she apparently kinda freaks out when she gets angry. I looked online hoping to get inspired by something there, but really couldn't find anything that I could make work quickly, then I looked through the one counseling activity book that I have and tried to pull from it. Again, no luck. So I ended up coloring with her. We colored pictures of our families and talked about them. She mentioned a cousin who sometimes picks on her and so we talked about that and I asked her how she would handle certain conflict situations and she gave me pretty good answers back. I don't think it was a remotely theraputic meeting, but I guess there is always next week.

After my poor week of counseling I came home on a mission and got on-line and went shopping. $80 later I am getting 6 books (good deal huh?) So hopefully once they arrive I can arm myself up with some better counseling strategies and I can get rid of my pal Self Doubt, because she is a complete downer.

Blue

I mentioned last week that we are doing "compliance training" with a kinder kid who is having a tough time following directions in class. Well, I can't recall if I mentioned that the kid pretty much refuses to speak - to anyone. Some actually wondered if he was mute or at least a selective mute. Well, last week I met him, and yesterday I attempted to work with him. He pretty much refused to acknowledge me so I kind of just guided him about the room forcing him to do everything he was attempting to escape. He would cover his ears and although he looked in my direction if I was to lock eyes with him he'd quickly look away. Today I seemed to make a lot more progress. I would give directives and then walk away, come back and praise for whatever minute progress he had made or prompt again and then walk away again. He didn't get much of his work done still, and he still ripped apart his workbook, but he stayed in his seat (one of our goals) and did do some of his assignment. The big progress came in working with him one-on-one. He actually came with me today to walk down to our little room to play video games. Sure, he got side tracked a bit, but I didn't have to use any muscle to get him where I needed him to be - so that was a huge improvement. Once we reached out little room I let him pick out a video game and play for 5 minutes. Then I let him know we needed to take a break and do some of the classwork he hadn't got to while we were in class. AND he actually stopped playing the game without tantruming/shutting down on me/acting out agressively and did the work. I, of course, continued to lavish him with praise for every little thing he did. Gotta feed this new it's ok to do my work mentality. My biggest excitment of the day was when I asked him what a color was and he actually replied back,

"Blue"

After that he even said a couple of short phrases to me! I was shocked and completely tickled pink. He was compliant the rest of the time together, even put away the video games without being asked. We made a deal that he would win a toy if he walked (I specified this meant no running, skipping, or hopping) back to the class with me. He shook my hand in agreement and we had a pleasant walk back to the classroom. Who is this kid? I am amazed. Guess that compliance training stuff actually works.
I've got another behavior modification kid that I just started working with yesterday. We have a Direct Behavior Rating (DBR) sheet that is passed back in forth between the teacher who fills it out and my supervisor and I who talk with the kid. Yesterday I met with this little 2nd grade girl for the first time and explained to her the system. She has 2 goals: stay in her seat AND raise her hand and not call out. I made her say them to me at LEAST 10 times until I knew she had the memorized. Then, we practiced them. I said silly questions that I knew she knew the answer for and she practiced raising her hand and waiting for me to call on her. After all that she got to pick out the prize from the prize wall that she wanted to work towards getting: colored pencils. This morning, on a whim, I decided to go sit in her classroom. She got all wiggly and excited to see me so I squatted down next to her and made her tell me, again, what she was going to be working on. She told me and then I stayed in the classroom and watched her for a half hour. That kid cracked me up. She kept checking back to see if I was watching her and occasionally, when she needed to get out of her chair to throw away a paper or something she would bolt out and bolt back, like if she did it quick enough I wouldn't see her. Too funny. Anyway on my way out I stopped by and told her what an awesome job she had done and that she should keep up her great work so she could get those pencils. She told me her goals one more time and I left. When she came and met with me at the end of the day she had done what was asked of her 2/3's of the day. pretty awesome improvement considering she didn't do it at all the day before! So she won her pencils and we played go fish to reward her for her good behavior. She said to me as she was leaving my little room "this was fantastic!"
Don't tell anybody, but some days, this internship thing is pretty fun.

Today's word is brought to you by the letter: B

Behavior Modification!

Isn't is grand? Today was full of it. I hung out in the kindergarten classroom this morning assisting my supervisor in doing "Compliance Training" with a little dude in there. My sup wore a necklace that had a green smiley face on one side and a red frowny face on the other. When the kid was following directions/staying at his center Mr. H would wear it with the green happy face showing, but if the kid wasn't complying with directions, it was switched to the red sad face. I, doing my best Vanna White impression, kept "score" on a white board that was displayed for the kid to see. Every five minutes I would draw either a happy or sad face, depending on  the kids behavior at the moment. The kid really wanted NOTHING to do with us when we came into the classroom. Mr. H attempted to explain to him what we were doing and the kid covered his face to block him out. But we kept at it. And after an hour and a half the kid was actually looking at both of us. He got lots of happy faces and won his cookie for the day, so he was a happy camper.

I really liked the technique as the kid got constant observable feedback on his behavior. And he got a tangible reward. I asked Mr. H if it was a technique that could be used with older kids and he shot that down pretty quick saying it was really just classroom training. I see his point, but I have also seen some older kids who could still use some classroom training. Maybe, someday, when I am a big bad School Psychologist at a school of my own, I will try it with an older kid and see how it works. :)

After hanging with the kindergartner I met with my other behavior mod kid. She is amazingly ADHD and  has three daily behavior goals (stay near work station, get half of work done, no rolling on the floor) and if she gets one goal met for the day she gets to play video games, two or three goals, she wins a prize. It seems like a pretty effective system for her. Token Economy for the win! She is a silly girl though. Today she popped in at her lunch recess and felt the need to sing for me. So I let her do it and she ate up the attention. Maybe she really doesn't even need the prize, she may do well with just an "atta girl!" here and there.