School-based Behaviors

Behavior Checker has helped parents, grandparents, coaches and educators guide children as they learn to navigate the world.

 

We understand that they are novices, at best apprentices in their travel to adulthood. They have a lot to learn, and that is the core mission of Behavior Checker. We are in the teaching business, that is, helping the adults in a child’s life teach that child the skills needed to be successful.

 

After age five, children spend more time in school than with their parents or caregivers. That gives school a major role in the teaching of a new set of rules, expectations, social skills, and concepts. In order to help adults do that effectively, we have used Mind S.E.T.

 

We start with Mind, for after all, learning is all about the mind.

The S in S.E.T. is for self-talk, those things we say to ourselves when we observe, evaluate, judge, and plan. In order to effectively teach new behavior to anyone, it’s best that we get our self-talk in order. It’s that conversation in our heads that can lead us to anger and frustration or to understanding and planning. Effective teaching requires understanding and planning.

 

Next is empathy, the E in S.E.T. In order to effectively help new learning it is best to understand what is motivating the behavior that we want to change? What is the history behind the behavior? How did the student learn the behavior you would like to replace?

 

Finally, the T is for teaching. What is the new behavior that we would like to teach that replaces the old behavior? We know that in order to teach new behavior it is important for the student to see the behavior, practice the behavior and get some feedback when the new behavior is learned and exhibited.

 

Let’s take an example from what has been called hall behavior, that is, behavior that might occur during passing in the school hallway. Elopement has been a cited as a concern and may be better described as wandering off. If wandering off is a problem, enter that in Behavior Checker search or just tap on Search All Behaviors and scroll to wandering off. It’s important to think of all possible descriptors of a behavior to find the one used in Behavior Checker.

 

Now you have a tried and true strategy for teaching a new behavior to replace wandering off. The teaching process may take some time and require being refreshed from time to time, but that’s the nature of the learning process.