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Paraprofessional Job
Hello! I am 23 and a new hire as a paraprofessional in a school district. My assignment for the year was a nine year old boy, so I am in an elementary school, of course.
This nine year old boy has begun acting out at the end of last year, he did not have a paraprofessional at the time so he was always leaving the class to go sit in the office because the teacher could not deal with him and the class.
Anyway, goals for this year are to keep him in class and make sure he gets his work done (he barely completed any work last year, baffling me as to how he even passed onto fourth grade but that is neither here nor there) but when he needs a break, we can go take a walk or do something the calm him down for five minutes.
Thus far, today was the fifth day of school and he has had one outburst on Monday through Wednesday whereas Thursday was a little more rough and I will touch on why I think that is in a minute. On Thursday, he forgot his assignment book at home so he got angry when another classmate teased him for forgetting it, thus meaning that he had also forgotten his homework for the day. So, he threw his backpack across the room. When I got him out of the room and into the hallway, he banged his head on the wall and started to hit himself in the head repeatedly, threatening his life that he did not "want to be on Earth anymore." Which brings me to today, Tuesday. Today he was SO good! He gets a point chart everyday and today he got 23/24 points and I was majorly impressed!
Now, back to why I think he acted out so much on Thursday. On Monday, he sees an out of school counselor for anger management. I think that helps him immensely because at the beginning of the week, he seems pretty collected but towards the end, Thursday and Friday, he seems to forget what he learned from his counselor and act out again.
I have also noticed that when I take him into the hallways so that he can have a break when needed, sometimes I ask him what made him angry or what it was that upset him and sometimes, more than not, he will tell me that he does not want to talk about it. So, I thought that I had this really great idea to have him write down why he is upset and I will collect his notebook so I know what his thoughts were but he didn't have to talk to me about it - I was so happy, I thought this was a total win/win. However, when I brought it up to him, he told me that the learning support teacher tried that out last year and it just made him more mad because it is combining his anger and feelings with his least liked subject, writing.
So, essentially this whole entire thing was to just ask you if you have any tips, tricks, ideas, anything that could help me figure out another tactic for this. I feel like when I take him in the hallway and he is honest enough to tell me that he does not want to talk about it, either a) because he does not want to get in trouble or get someone else in trouble or generally b) talking about it will get him more mad. I was thinking something along the lines of maybe notecards. Like, I could write on them "I feel" and then write a bunch of emotions and some reasons behind those emotions and make him pick out the cards that is correct for that certain time.
Anyway, thank you for reading that nonsense and my ramblings just for one teensy part to be a question! Anything you say or answer is totally appreciated and I will most likely use any advice given! :)
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My impression is that it may be a couple things and some will likely remain unknown. But anger management as mentioned should be one. Also as mentioned already, it sounds like there could be some Autism too. There is more study and help now for autistics than before. So he should get tested for that as well. My husband is a highly functioning autistic. He learned early on his own to control his own responses and learn how to focus better. If the kid only has slight autism, as a kid that can be a major hurdle. It may not be obvious so it may be that he hasn't been tested for it. My husband also is not obvious, only I really see the moments he is having a temporary meltdown that lasts a minute or two.
This is a 2nd husband for me. He's told me of a story related to his daughter. She won a drawing to be part of a Montessori School. I am not suggesting Montessori for this kid but just one thing the school enforced that made it so the kids did well in their studies.
He told me that the school believed that sugar in a childs diet affected their ability to concentrate, their emotions, and all in all, their behavior. When they toured a classroom of 1st or 2nd graders, they were impressed to see the young children studying and acting more like college students than fidgeting, doing something other than work or causing trouble. The teachers claimed they could tell when a child had sugar the evening before because the next day, they had troubles in class or caused trouble. So my thinking is that it won't solve everything but could make life much easier for the child if perhaps his parents worked hard to change his diet and not give out sugary things. Easiest might be something closer to what a diabetic diet might be. It's the easiest, no cost way to give the kid a fighting chance. He should be able to have more successful with anger training and any other things you are trying to implement if he were off sugar. I may be wrong but as I said, its worth a try to see if he improves a little or not just with that change alone.
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I take it this child is a high level functioning Autistic.
My one thought centers on what you said about his behavior in the beginning of the week as apposed to the end of the week. Your attempt to introduce different methods may be working contrary to what his anger management counselor is doing with him
I would suggest one of two things that might be helpful.
1.THis might require his parents permission. You need to know what happens I counseling so you can reinforce it and keep him on track with it during the week. I would hope the parents would allow you to do this for there son.
2. If that is not possible then it might be necessary that this boy have 2 day of anger management session a week until the boy learns the self-control to last the week.
Whatever you do to try and keep him in the classroom needs to be communicated to his councilor so he or she is aware of what your trying as well as how he is acting in class on a day to day basis.
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