Keys to a Good Home School Connection when Dealing with Behaviors: Community, Collaboration and Intervention

        Hey there everyone! This is my first blog post and I am so excited to share some of my experiences as well as any resources or information that I have learned or have been researching with you all. I have 15 years of teaching under my belt, the last four of which have been in special education and have been a mama of a special needs child for almost 9 years. I have three boys altogether and live in sunny central Florida. I am currently completing my graduate degree in special education and have been taking some courses on applied behavior analysis because assisting children with behavior difficulties is definitely where I am wanting my career path to go. I hope this blog helps you or creates a healthy discussion on the topics I discuss. I am a firm believer in collaboration, research and most of all advocacy.

        For my first post I thought it would be fitting to discuss behavior and the importance of interventions on the school front to assist the home front. I for one would be no where with my son who is on the Autism Spectrum if it wasn't for the interventions and parent assistance in his younger years from the school he attended. Having a solid behavior intervention team at school that can then carry though at home is detrimental to a child's overall behavioral growth.  

     Students come with so much baggage and carry so many adult problems on their shoulders. When they enter the classroom they are not wanting to do math and answer comprehension questions and then ad in those with special needs and it is a time bomb waiting to blow. These children are needing an outlet and a way to decompress. Dr. Knoff , and internationally known innovator and hands on practitioner has said that a huge part of mastering self-management "involves students’ ability to use and apply their knowledge and skills more and more independently to new learning situations" (Knoff, 2011, pg. 6). Without being taught these self-management strategies the students lash out and act out in challenging ways. The addition of a problem solving team would be so beneficial to alleviating such outbursts and stresses. Having strategies and interventions put into place would not only assist the students in learning how to control their emotions but will also assist the teachers and help them feel like it is a team building effort rather than a lone-ranger effort. 

              Knowing personally what many of the students at my school deal with on a daily basis just weighs on my heart to work hard in trying to initiate this team. So often at school we say, if students do not come to school with all of the essential needs they will not be their best to learn. The same goes for their emotional needs...we need to be meeting them. We have to get to the root of the behaviors being displayed by students and find out what is triggering them and how we can help the students manage their behaviors.  It is a challenging task, but with training, and support it is possible. The beginning of the journey begins with identification and creating a plan and then we can assist with the overflow into the homes. I am a mom of three boys and my home is not always full of sunshine and roses and well behaved kiddos and having one with special needs in that mix makes things even more challenging. Knowing that my children's teachers and the staff at the school are there to help me carry through what they are learning at school to our home is comforting and if we are able to do that for all parents then the behavior problems and struggles may lessen. Community, collaboration, and intervention are what help curb unwanted behaviors and if teams can work together to get to the root of the problem, discover strategies and walk side by side to assist each other then the focus can move to the academics rather than the disruptive behaviors. 

How does your school help children with behavior challenges? Comment and share with me below!👇

❤Author- Lindsey Cruz- Special Education Mama and Teacher

References:

Knoff, H. M. (2011). Integrating the school prevention, review, and intervention team (SPRINT) and response-to-instruction/intervention (RtI2) process: A model implementation guidebook for schools and districts. Little Rock, AR: Project ACHIEVE Incorporated.