Wednesday, January 14, 2015

End Run Around Behaviours

Yesterday I had a conversation with James' adaptive PE teacher. He's been resisting classes and this week he went beyond resistant into very bad behaviour territory. Three Letters of Apology have been written. Talks at Home have been had. No iPad. He's really hated that last one. I even tried asking James why he'd done what he did. His answer "I don't like it."

James is weak from having lost so much weight since August. He also knows how to use distracting behaviours to get out of disliked activities. Gah.

At times like this, it seems more effective to do an end run around the situation, once Consequences are over with. Because let's face it - having once been so effective at getting out of what he didn't want to do, he's likely to try it again. If he does, Consequences (losing iPad privileges, Talks at Home, Letters of Apology). However, I think we would all rather be doing something more positive, and there's more than one way to get something done.

So we are going to try adding music and some dance into his adaptive PE. He is always doing these activities at home and seems to enjoy them. Then slowly he can be doing more work toward his IEP goal of being able to do jump rope. Hopefully it will help James see that his sessions can be fun too, and he will stop trying to fight them.

We are so lucky to have such a great partner with James Adaptive PE teacher. She truly loves what she's doing and cares about the kids. Here's hoping this strategy works.

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