At the beginning of a new school year, kids have to adjust to a lot of changes: different teachers, a new schedule, new friends, a new classroom, and potentially even a new school campus. It can be a big transition for any student, but for our kids with disabilities especially, disruptions in routine can result in behavior challenges.
Whether you’re trying to help a new teacher understand how to support your child, or new concerns are cropping up this year as your child learns and grows, we know it can be tough for parents and teachers alike when our kids’ behavior interrupts with an otherwise fun and regulated school day. Sometimes, even well-meaning education professionals have outdated or stereotype ideas about why kids misbehave and how to correct them. Here are some tips to help everyone on your child’s team understand your child’s behavior so that you can work together to make sure your child gets the support they need for the rest of the school year.
The number one thing for educators to understand about students with disabilities is that a child doesn’t “behave badly” just because they want to make a situation harder for the adults around them. Whether it’s having a tantrum, running away, or calling someone names, a child exhibiting challenging behavior is trying to communicate something, and they might not have the skills yet to do so in another way. For children with communication challenges, their behavior might be their way of trying to let a classmate or a teacher know that they’re uncomfortable, overwhelmed, or scared. As Inclusive Schooling puts it, “Sometimes it’s not misbehavior — it’s stress behavior.”
When school staff members don’t understand a behavior or know how to respond to a child with a disability who has challenging behaviors, that child may be placed in more restrictive settings or be inappropriately disciplined. That makes it critical to look at the why behind a child’s challenging behavior.
Dr. Sarah Pelangka, BCBA-D and non-attorney education advocate, encourages us to “delve deeper.” She says, “Go beyond the surface-level functions. Access — to what? Attention — from whom and why?” If a child is trying to escape, the thing they’re trying to escape from might not be obvious right away. Dr. Pelangka says, “Many students are escaping embarrassment, shame, etc.”
An important note: just because all behavior is communication doesn’t mean that behavior is always a choice. A child may be communicating that they need help regulating because they are scared, but the way they’re reacting could be beyond their control.
The more we try to understand what our kids are saying with their behavior, the better we can support them, instead of leaving them so perpetually frustrated that they have a hard time making it through the school day.
Ross Greene, PhD, clinical psychologist and the author of The Explosive Child, Lost at School, Lost and Found, and Raising Human Beings, says, “Kids do well if they can,” meaning that challenging behaviors are a result of lagging skills rather than lack of motivation to be good.
“Kids who exhibit concerning behaviors are often struggling with some very important skills: flexibility, adaptability, frustration, tolerance, problem solving, and emotion regulation. Many kids with disabilities are more prone to be struggling with those skills and/or also have more expectations that they're having difficulty meeting by virtue of their disability,” he explains. Hear more from Dr. Greene in Undivided Conversations: Reframing Behavior.
David Stein, PsyD, pediatric developmental neuropsychologist, author, and founder and director of New England Neurodevelopment, says that learning about brain science can also help in understanding behavior. One example is kids with ADHD who often struggle with impulse control. “Impulse control is kind of a core feature of ADHD,” explains Dr. Stein, “so I have a lot of parents who tell me, ‘My child with ADHD just doesn't care, and we've told her a thousand times don't hit or don't run into the street, and she just doesn't care and does it anyway.’ What people have a hard time understanding is it's not that the child doesn't care. It's that when that situation arises, if you don't have control of your impulses, even though you know better, you're still going to do the thing that you shouldn't do.” This is why managing behavior has to take into account developmental stages, age, diagnosis, and other factors besides the child’s actions.
A child’s disability can also impact their brain in ways that make it challenging to listen to and follow directions, such as if they have processing issues. Dr. Stein says, “When children misbehave or act out, usually there's been some kind of verbal direction or command, and they're expected to be compliant right in that instant. And neurologically speaking, that's sort of impossible. Then when it doesn't happen quick enough, that person feels stressed and gets upset.” Some students have IEP accommodations that ask teachers to give directions in small steps, with repetition, and with visuals, if possible, to give them the extra processing time their brain needs to follow instructions.
“Kids with disabilities are not a monolith,” says Dr. Greene. A teacher might treat one student with autism a certain way because that was a successful strategy for a previous student with autism, but it’s important to remember what the “I” stands for in Individualized Education Program (IEP).
Even kids with the same disability will have different ways of communicating or have different behavior interventions that help them best. What worked for one student won’t necessarily work for another, which is why school teams need to cooperate and involve parents, school therapists, medical teams, and other people who are invested in helping each student grow and succeed.
We understand what children are trying to communicate by looking at how they react to a situation, by observing patterns in their behavior over time, and by seeing what leads up to behavior that we find challenging. Schools even have a formal process for doing this: a Functional Behavioral Assessment, which involves sitting down with a behavior professional to discuss what is happening with a behavior and why so that the school can put a behavior support plan in place.
If your child has a behavior support plan in their IEP, make sure it is shared with all the adults on their school team so that everyone is on the same page.
One important aspect of a behavior support plan might be ensuring that the child has a way to communicate other than with their behavior. For example, a school team could bring in assistive technology, pictures, stories, or communication devices and help the child learn how to use them so that they have options for making their needs known.
“When kids don't understand what they're supposed to do, they're going to do something challenging,” says Sally Burton-Hoyle, EdD professor of special education at Eastern Michigan University. “I'm going to guess that 90% of the time, when children are acting up, expectations weren’t made clear to them. A part of positive behavioral support is making sure that people have the expected outcomes ahead of time, and that it isn't a surprise to them.”
Making student expectations clear can look like a school-wide program that rewards kids for good behavior (find out if your school has one!) as well as day-to-day instruction from teachers in the classroom. Typically, a teacher will express expectations verbally, but other methods can be more effective, such as having visual representations or Social Stories™.
By the way: Social Stories shouldn’t tell a child how to behave. They’re meant to provide information that the student might be missing about the social context of the situation, so the student can adjust their behavior once they understand the situation better. Learn more in our article featuring Carol Gray, the creator of evidence-based Social Stories!
When we set behavior expectations for children with disabilities, we need to make sure we’re not so focused on compliance that we miss the big picture of their healthy and safe development. While it’s helpful for a child to learn to follow directions, participate with peers, keep to the schedule, and follow classroom rules, it can sometimes cross the line of being dangerous if a child is being conditioned to comply no matter what while ignoring their own instincts and feelings.
Children who are “misbehaving” to try to communicate that they have a sensory need, didn’t understand expectations, or require more support often get labeled as non-compliant. If we try to silence an unwanted behavior and the underlying need without giving the child a more effective way to communicate what they are trying to say, we are silencing that child’s ability to communicate and receive the care they need.
As adults, we need to teach children self-advocacy skills so that they can help us understand what will meet their needs.
IEP goals can help our children grow in positive ways, but IEP goals should not be about reducing “unwanted” or “bad” behaviors. An IEP is based on the child’s needs, and goals are then based on those needs.
IEP teams should not write goals that are the desirable response, such as “Instead of eloping, Bobby will remain in his seat and do his work.” Instead, IEP goals can provide a support that serves the same function as the behavior the student is currently engaging in; for example, “Bobby will request help when provided with an assignment he perceives to be difficult, as evidenced by Bobby's sighing and putting his head down.” For more examples, see our article Common Behavior Challenges in Children and How to Approach Them.
Dr. Pelangka says that EP goals shouldn’t be aimed at trying to change the person but to support them in what they actually desire for themselves.
IEPs often approach a student’s education from the perspective of their deficits, but at Undivided we always encourage IEP teams to take a strength-based perspective instead. School psychologist Breea Rosas says, “Neurodiversity-affirming IEPs are going to highlight the things that the child can do well and the things that support the child when they need that extra additional support to do well.”
This frame-of-mind shift helps us see our kids’ behavior as communication about their needs, so we can develop school supports to best meet those needs. Rosas suggests, “Instead of saying, ‘The child elopes six times per day,’ you might say, ‘The child is able to meet their sensory needs by taking a break from the classroom six times a day.’ Maybe this kid needs a break from the classroom six times a day, so let's make sure that we can do that in a way that's still safe for them and meets their needs. Or you might say, ‘Hmm, this kid is taking a break from the classroom six times a day, so we need to do something to make that classroom more suitable for them.’ I'm reframing it in a way that doesn't put it as a negative thing that the kid is doing. Those changes in wording really help shift the lens of everyone interacting with them.”
Save your favorite resources and access a custom Roadmap.
Get Started
