“When anxiety is fueling the behavior, it’s the most confusing and complicated to figure out,” Minahan said. However, she says after teachers learn more about why kids are behaving badly there are some simple strategies to approach defiant behavior like avoiding work, fighting, and causing problems during transitions with more empathy.Īnxiety is a huge barrier to learning and very difficult for educators to identify. She finds that often teachers are trying typical behavioral strategies for a group of kids for whom those strategies don't work. Minahan is usually called into schools to help with the most challenging behavior. She spoke to educators gathered at a Learning and the Brain conference about strategies that work with oppositional students. “So basically we have this gap in teacher education,” said Jessica Minahan, a certified behavior analyst, special educator, and co-author of The Behavior Code: A Practical Guide to Understanding and Teaching the Most Challenging Students. 'We are 50% of every interaction with a child, so we have a lot of control over that interaction.' Nine percent of 13-18 year-olds have been diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) (although the number one misdiagnoses of anxiety is ADHD), and 11.2 percent suffer from depression. Additionally between eight and 15 percent of the school-aged population has learning disabilities (there is a range because there's no standard definition of what constitutes a learning disability). No one knows how many more haven’t been diagnosed. Teacher training programs mostly assume that kids in public schools will be “typical,” but that assumption can handicap teachers when they get into real classrooms.Ī National Institute of Health study found that 25.1 percent of kids 13-18 in the US have been diagnosed with anxiety disorders. On average, teacher training programs mandate zero to one classes on behavior and zero to one courses on mental health. But even if there was time and space to do so, most teachers receive very little training in behavior during their credentialing programs. There are many reasons kids might be acting out, which makes it difficult for a teacher in a crowded classroom to figure out the root cause. Students’ behavior is a form of communication and when it’s negative it almost always stems from an underlying cause.
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