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Behavior: management PLUS intervention equals change

Date: November 23rd, 2016
By: Polly Bath

Polly Bath: Management. Behavior management. We send kids to behavior management classes like anger management.

I had a little boy, once. The teacher got upset at him. The teacher said, “That’s it! I am done! I am done teaching you, today!”

The little boy looked him and said, “Sir, perhaps you should take a deep breath and count to 10.”

[laughter]

I said, “That boy really learned that behavior management well.” He’s probably got a little fuzzy thing in his pocket to help him de-escalate, as well.

That’s all good stuff, folks. I’m not saying it’s not good stuff, but there’s a problem when your life is limited to management and not learning skills.

And that’s intervention.

That’s the piece we got to get to, and we got to get to it as soon as possible. The more intervention, the more skills children learn, the more confidence they build, and the less likely they are to take risks that are going to hurt them or someone else.