Behavior Matters

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aroosi said:
Awful article. Pure victim blaming. What about generational trauma?
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This was a shallow response, like if someone said it was victim blaming for a doctor to use symptoms to determine treatment for a patient.

Trauma Informed Care helps guide appropriate response to a patient, it doesn’t dispute the symptoms exist
 
I would argue that where we fail is in failing to change behavior that we know correlates with undesired outcomes. But this failure in parenting/schooling isn’t a justification to simply ignore behavior that results in suspensions etc etc.
 
Of course people are responsible for their behaviors but there are some environmental factors that could change the long term outcome of the life of individuals with similar temperament and/or behavioral issues. Let’s keep it simple. Imagine a kid with some developmental issues, aggressive and anti-social. If the kid is in the right school district, with the right health insurance and access to care, with early intervention, adeguate psychological and family support etc. he will get all the help he needs to succeed or at list to control his behavioral and developmental challenges. He will still be able to reach a certain degree of independence and personal growth. Imagine the same kid born in a ghetto, with a family with generational history of poverty and social isolation, low level of education, general distrust in the institutions, really modest access to health care and a family with broken relationships. The same kid will probably be labeled very soon as difficult, be suspended from school, most likely will not graduate and will end up living in survival mode or dying for violent crimes or high risk behaviors. Both kids had the same initial diagnosis/developmental delays/behavioral issues but the final outcome is very different.
 
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As someone who works in the public school system and deals with behavior issues on a daily basis, I would say your reasoning is very textbook. Which on one hand is correct. However, you are not correct in thinking the student with all that intervention will improve his independence and growth. Furthermore the student who doesn’t have adequate resources…How did they get the diagnosis then? Because it surely did not come from the school, or they would be footing the bill for his therapy. Therefore, how did the less advantaged student get diagnosed in the first place? Especially if the parents distrust institutions.
 
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I don’t say that the student with more access to resources will be successful but he will certainly have more chances and help to overcome his challenges. Well you have a good point, I suspect that many ‘difficult’ adults may have been kids with undiagnosed conditions that affected their behaviors. I remember several years ago when I was a kid there was a very odd man in my village living in the street; probably now he would have being diagnosed with fetal alcoholic syndrome, the rumor was the mother was always drunk. It is possible even now that certain kids are getting a diagnosis very late or that they may even never get a proper diagnosis.
 
Have you heard of ACEs? It stands for Adverse Childhood Experiances. You may find it correlates for your topic. Scientists are finding a genetic imprint that is passed down to generations from traumatic events.
 
I apologize, I miss quoted you. I fixed it. I also happen to agree that for some economically disadvantaged children, life is more difficult.
 
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What I am saying is that the original article posted sounds a bit too much as a fancy version of ‘if they would just behave differently or if somebody would teach them how to behave properly…’ while we all know that the reality is much more complex with several factors (genetic, economic, cultural etc) playing a role.
 
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aroosi said:
or if somebody would teach them how to behave properly
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Isn’t this fundamentally the goal of intervention?

I certainly agree it’s wrong to blame the child. Much better to identify/create interventions that actually have a positive impact.

Recognizing a history of trauma is helping to develop better interventions (I hope)
 
Theo520 said:
I certainly agree it’s wrong to blame the child. Much better to identify/create interventions that actually have a positive impact.
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Positive intervention is very helpful yes! However, we disservice our children if we don’t hold them responsible for their actions.
 
Kathleen18 said:
Positive intervention is very helpful yes! However, we disservice our children if we don’t hold them responsible for their actions.
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I’m not suggesting otherwise, just bowing my head to the concern that some groups may need additional support or a change in tactics for a change in behavior to occur.
 
OK, this is already off to a bad start. First, they’re blaming small children for their parents’ behavior when vice versa is actually true.
Children who are temperamental, fussy, and aggressive often cause their parents to withdraw affection and to limit supervision, which leads to further bad behavior later on, along with subsequent struggles and frustration.
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The rest of the arguments are hardly original and simply rehash the long-debunked culture-of-poverty myth.
 
blackforest said:
OK, this is already off to a bad start. First, they’re blaming small children for their parents’ behavior when vice versa is actually true.
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You are the only one blaming here.
In your quote I’m reading simple cause and effect. Certainly early parenting might be the first order effect.

FYI, your link was to someone playing with strawmen. She didn’t address the complaints she quoted from the teacher.
“They’re smart. I know they’re smart, but . . .”

And then the deficit floodgates open: “They don’t care about school. They’re unmotivated. And their parents—I’m lucky if two or three of them show up for conferences. No wonder the kids are unprepared to learn.”
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What I can agree with her on is that poverty shouldn’t be used as an excuse to expect less of the students.
 
Oh please. Imagine a student in poverty, not eating well, living in an overcrowded place, maybe even without heat in the winter (I know some cases), and with tension at home. Now imagine a student in a comfortable and stable home, well fed, maybe even with access to tutoring services. Are you surprised if they don’t perform academically at the same level?
 
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blackforest said:
The rest of the arguments are hardly original and simply rehash the long-debunked culture-of-poverty myth.
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Let’s dig into the strawman arguments in your opinion ‘research’
MYTH: Poor people are unmotivated and have weak work ethics.
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Thought we were talking about students being motivated to excel scholastically? The supporting argument doesn’t even touch on comparing student motivation by income levels.
MYTH: Poor parents are uninvolved in their children’s learning, largely because they do not value education.
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It’s not a myth that low income parents are less involved in their child’s learning. The given cause is a strawman though. A far more likely cause might be their parent(s) have less free time to be a ‘tiger mom’ and micromanage their school focus. They also have less money to pay for tutors etc.
MYTH: Poor people are linguistically deficient.
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Yet another strawman. The response focuses on the word “deficient” and ignores the large body of research that shows they are linguistically disadvantaged.
  • In Educating the Other America , Susan Neuman (2008) states that more than 50 years of research indicate that “children who are poor hear a smaller number of words with more limited syntactic complexity and fewer conversation-eliciting questions, making it difficult for them to quickly acquire new words and to discriminate among words” (p. 5). A significant body of literature also points to differences in access to reading materials by students from low-income families in comparison to their more affluent peers (Allington & McGill-Franzen, 2008).
MYTH: Poor people tend to abuse drugs and alcohol.
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This was never explained in terms of student behavior. I certainly agree that wealthy people are equally susceptible to abusing drugs. The difference is probably in the impact of the abuse. A single parent is going to experience more challenges than a couple with insurance to cover multiple visits to a treatment center.
 
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aroosi said:
Oh please. Imagine a student in poverty, not eating well, living in an overcrowded place, maybe even without heat in the winter (I know some cases), and with tension at home. Now imagine a student in a comfortable and stable home, well fed, maybe even with access to tutoring services. Are you surprise if they don’t perform academically at the same level?
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Not sure what points you think you are scoring. Of course a student in poverty has many disadvantages vs more well off students. But that is an argument for appropriate supports rather than ignoring behaviors that correlate with poor life outcomes.
 
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