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Abuse & Neglect - Chapter 4...
I'm Dr. Susan Turben. Welcome to the fourth chapter of our E-Book. This is Chapter 4 of a 5 part series on Neglect and Abuse.
"The Guide Book for Caring Adults Who Work with Issues of Neglect and Abuse"
A chapter book created for professionals and parents who deal with the maltreatment of children in homes, agencies and child care settings
Chapter Four emphasizes a Health and Wellness approach to working with families; the strengths of all families, even resistant parents, are identified and acknowledged. Positive situations and familial traits, rather than problem behaviors, are key intervention strategies. I use this healthy approach daily. I hope you will too.
Introduction: As you learn to focus on strengths, you will "skill-build" your way toward effective interactions with resistant families. The underlying premise of this chapter is that families who overtly or covertly express negative concern about your role as an "intervening" professional are entitled to a relationship that primarily focuses on family priorities. For example, a dad I know makes it clear to me that he will raise his children as he was raised, using a belt as a deterrent to bad behavior. I am then responsible for focusing on that issue, offering him another way, and enabling him to stop hitting his children.
All of us work with families who resist initial suggestions/action planning, but we also have learned from earlier chapters of this E-Book that it is the family's concerns, not yours, that must be your top priority. So, what next? The good news is that you can instantly improve the situation by simply recognizing the dad's "bad attitude" even the dad's abusive hitting, as a "situation" instead of a problem.
Good for you! You depersonalized the problem by calling it a "situation," and you are looking for positive aspects of the father's behavior! Focus your conversations and activities on discovering positive familial traits or healthy habits, or child-centered values that you can convey to dad, thus enhancing his pride in his children. Utilizing the following health and wellness strategies never fails to produce parental pride and a better attitude.
I. Understanding the importance of personality traits: Most people place blame for family problems on someone. This is a big mistake! Now you are learning to depersonalize the problem, calling it a situation. Avoid blaming someone. Don't say "why did…?" Offer no "buts," and no judgments. Using the skills you learned in the previous chapters, find out about the family's life style, their neighborhood, their prejudices, superstitions, habits, and traditions.
It is crucial to the skill-building process that you focus your energy on how personality and temperament are the root, the core, and the essence of building healthy relationships with resistant families. Practice this skill by recalling your own family's last gathering. Concentrate on each of the personalities involved, rather than on the behaviors of family members. Nine traits are described in detail below. First, think about each trait from the point of view of an adult whom you know well, and give each of the nine characteristics a HIGH, MODERATE, or LOW rating. Second, observe the temperament of a familiar child. Do you find the traits as "family friendly" as I do?
In my research and family practice, I use a temperament scale developed by Thomas and Chess (revised, 1987). While many personality scales and assessments exist, this scale for the assessment of temperament does not discriminate "good or bad" traits. The Thomas and Chess scales focus on levels (from high to low.) Take into account the age of the child, but remember that temperament is a statistically proven stable trait that does not vary appreciably from childhood into adulthood.
- Activity level: Activity (energy) level can be assessed by asking parents how much their child moved about as a baby, whether the child was restful or fitful during sleep (i.e., how much in disarray the crib sheets or blankets might have been), and whether the child could be left lying on something momentarily without fear that he/she would move around and fall.
- Rhythmicy: Questions pertaining to regularity and the ease of regulating are involved in determining the rhythm cycle of the child. Does the child have regular bowel movements and go to sleep at predictable times, or is he/she highly variable?
- Adaptability: What is the behavior of the child like when something new occurs
(i.e. when unexpected company arrives, when changes are made in the child's bedroom, or when moving to a new home)? Does the child warm up quickly to new people or foods, or does it take awhile? If it takes awhile, how long?
- Approach-withdrawal: How does the child react to adult control and the introduction of new people or surroundings? Is there likely to be a strong negative reaction, are there mild to moderate behavioral upsets, or does the child easily approach and enjoy new people, places and things?
- Threshold of responsiveness: Is the child sensitive to loud noises, foods, textures of clothing, heat or cold? How responsive is the child to environmental sounds such as the telephone or a siren? Describe any intense like and dislikes the child has.
- Intensity of reaction: Does the child react to pleasure or displeasure in a loud or quiet way (i.e. if she did not want a particular food, how would she behave?)? Does the child cry or protest loudly, smile, or laugh loudly, in reaction to situations, people, and foods?
- Quality of mood: Is the child mostly happy and contented or just the opposite? How do parents know when the child is content or when the child likes or dislikes something?
- Distractibility: If there are environmental stimuli such as noise or people in the vicinity or earshot of the child, does he/she stop talking, moving or performing an activity, or continue in spite of the distraction? Can the child be easily, moderately or not at all distracted when engrossed or involved in activity?
- Persistence and attention span: How long does the adult or child normally stay with activities? If the child drops a toy or object, does he/she persist in trying to retrieve it or give up easily? Is the child's attention span long or short?
(Adapted from Thomas & Chess, 1987)
II. Observing and recording behavior (what you see and hear): Behavior is dramatically affected by temperament, and can be described as what a person does, how a person acts, what he says, his words and his actions. Behavior is observable, measurable and verifiable. Most parents and children are used to the word "behavior" as an analysis or description of their level of competence and capacity. Sometimes behavior is judged as a reflection of personality. Should professionals confuse behavior and personality? A health and wellness approach does not confuse the two. Each is assessed separately, without judgment or criticism.
It's easier to observe physical actions than words, and harder than it seems to do either one without judging. But accurate observing is a required technical skill. It allows the professional to describe individual personality and behavioral strengths as well as positive attitudes of family members.
The ability to observe behavior accurately and objectively is an essential skill for working with resistive parents. Practice objective observing and recording by completing the following exercise. Watch TV or a video of children at different ages. In a list called "actions," write only present tense verbs, so you are observing and recording only what you see. Write, for example, "Jumps, yells, turns around and runs back to mom." Now, do the same exercise, writing down only what you hear. Make a list called "actual words." If you record a child, write "Dad, you can't make me." Or, in the case of an infant, "aghee, ma, ma, ma." Write down exactly what you hear, and don't worry if you only get parts of the conversation. What you do write will trigger your memory. Sharing your reliable observations with parents gives them a good picture of their children's strengths and abilities, and they become more willing to identify and pinpoint problems in their own behavior, or in their children's actions.
Through observing children, we also identify and actually count behaviors and temperamental traits. These help professionals find practical options to offer parents. When we observe, record and verify positive and healthy traits, as well as situations that need to change, non-judgmental observations make all the difference:
- Observations are usable when recorded as what is seen and heard.
- Observations take the form of actual counts of situations, words, and actions.
- Counting is gathering baseline information that tells us where the child or adult is now with regard to changing a situation or behavior.
- Counting helps parents know where, what, when, why and with whom to focus.
- Counting gives us information for such realistic planning.
- Counting is one way of reinforcing the child's progress and performance.
Counting provides feedback on how well our teaching plan is working.
(Adapted from People Places, 1987.)
III. Positive scanning: Observations require that parents and professionals learn to pay attention to good behavior and acknowledge what adults and children do that is good. This is called "positive scanning" (People Places, 1987). Knowledge of child development is a big part of positive scanning. Practice what you know by playing the "At What Age" game.
At what age (by months)
Do children lie?
Do children pretend?
Do children substitute one real object for a pretend one?
Do children have imaginative friends?
Do children steal?
Do children imitate a "bad" or "good" behavior?
Do children "model"?
Do children nod and agree?
Do children shake their heads and disagree?
Do children discriminate more than focus on similarities?
Now you realize that children's behavior differs at specific ages. Professionals often find themselves dealing with resistant families who are stuck in a frame of mind in which everything seems wrong or bad. It is impossible, of course, that any adult or child is "bad" all the time. In their parent training program, People Places (1987) makes this statement: "What happens is that parents get stuck in a negative mode, one in which their internal child-sensing 'radar' 'blips' when our children or other adults do something irritating or upsetting. When a 'blip' appears on our radar, it activates a negative response like yelling, nagging or lecturing." If a person then stops "being bad" momentarily, our negative response is still working. We are unable to see that bad activity has ceased. We just keep on criticizing and nagging. As the rate of criticism escalates, and the rate of encouragement and praise decreases, we confirm the image that person has of him/her self as "bad." The message is all wrong. As professionals, we must reverse the radar "blips" and start "positive scanning." In simple terms, positive scanning means catching people being good and telling them.
Positive scan can be a powerful tool for teaching adults and children desirable and successful behavior. When a blip appears on the positive scan screen, parents can be encouraged by professionals to respond with encouragement and praise, a hug, a smile or a statement that goes far beyond the standard "good job." When parents learn to attend to children more frequently for positive behavior than negative behavior, they are practicing positive scanning.
IV. Child development knowledge and learning how to talk to children: It matters how different age children think, so here are a few clues to child development at different ages. There is no quicker way to build confident and self-assured parents and children than by knowing what children think at different ages and how to talk and play.
How to:
Talk and Play with 0-3 year olds:
Use household play objects; talk to babies.
Use present tense, "here and now" words.
Use spatial words and change baby's position often.
Talk about what you see and hear-colors, sizes, shapes.
Play who, what, where, when and what if games.
Avoid questions. Imitation is the child's way of choosing what to do.
Take turns talking and listening. Demonstrate and tell children what you expect.
Play hide-find and pass-receive games.
Use a toy telephone to have conversations.
Use puppets, dolls and toy animals to pretend play.
Read picture books.
How to:
Talk and Play with 3-4 year olds:
Use objects tied to action and words.
Use matching, grouping, sorting, configuring games.
Say "talk to me - tell me what you see."
Use visual estimation and visual regard.
Be aware of over learning.
Teach children lotto games.
Encourage substitutions/ social pretend play.
Encourage social sharing/social contact
Talk about containment, gravity, height, weight, substance.
Use miniature people to pretend and "play."
Read picture books.
How to:
Talk and Play with 4-6 year olds:
Use words that express feelings.
Play discrimination (what's different?) games.
Read pictures.
Point and talk.
Tell children what you know.
Talk about counting and measuring.
How to Talk and Play with 6-8 year olds:
Help child develop a plan when there is a problem situation.
Next month we will complete the set of skills that promote changes in behavior, and the health and well being of personality and academic success. These skills include easy listening, setting adult-change and child-change goals, praising vs. encouraging changes in behavior, and writing and explaining a teaching goals program.
Until next time,
Susan
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