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A God-send!

     

Dr. Greene's books The Explosive Child and especially Lost At at School have been a God-send to us with our first-grade son. For the past year and a half of school he has been getting into more and more trouble. In the beginning, last year, he had a teacher that, though never talked about the CPS model or Plan B, had a pretty good grasp of the same principals Dr. Greene teaches. He started off the year in Kindergarten with a few explosions but she was able to comunicate very effectively with him and help him deal with his issues (key word HIS issues, not necessarily the issues that seemed obvious to the teacher). He did pretty well through-out Kindergarten.

This year his teacher didn't understand how to problem solve with children as well. When he first had a blow-up, he was punished. When he blew up the second time, more punishment. As the year progressed, the punishments continued to progress. More and more and more punishments. More serious consequences. More talks about rules. More admonitions. But no one ever got to the root of what was causing the explosions. No one even tried. They all, and I don't blame them because they just have not had the proper training, ASSUMED that they knew what the issue was, so IT DID NOT MATTER what he told them. They ALREADY HAD THE ANSWER regardless of what he would say. His perspective on what precipitated a blow-up was dismissed outright. He was told to control himself, reminded about the school rules, right and wrong, acceptable and unacceptable behavior, AS IF HE DID NOT KNOW. But he DID know. By the end of the first semester, he could practically recite passages from the school code book. He AGREED with the rules. He WANTED to follow the rules. He MOSTLY did follow the rules. But events would TRIGGER behavioral responses in him that caused him to lose control of his emotional reasoning abilities and become a rule-breaker once again.

Finally we changed teachers because his current teacher didn't seem to have any other methods other than either rewards or punishments (which were only making matters worse and worse). Looking back, this was probably a mistake. This was BEFORE we found Dr. Greene's materials on CPS. Our son's new teacher was EVEN MORE of a Plan A adult. Plan A is essentially, "I know what your issue is without asking, so now you do it my way or hit the highway!" Only, she DID NOT really know. She saw the RESULT, but not all of the events that precipitated many explosions. And without CPS she had no clue what was going on in my son's head that lead him down the path towards explosion. In her class his behavior took a SERIOUS turn for the worse. She practically begged for help understanding him by the 3rd week.

Now we have the right TOOLS to help our son. We have had one meeting with the Principal, school counselor, the In School Suspension Teacher, and the school district psychologist. The psychologist had never heard of Dr. Greene or CPS, but, thank God, she agreed with my own assesment of our son's condition. We were able to begin to shed light on the WHY of what is causing him to act out as he does. She agreed that ramping up more and more severe consequences, punishments, wouldn't work with him... since he knew the rules AND AGREED WITH THEM. She also agreed that a rewards system, for proper behavior, probably wouldn't work because he wasn't CHOOSING to misbehave. He lacked the proper skills.

After this meeting we began to create a plan to address his blow-ups. I know that they only have a very simplistic grasp on how CPS works (the In School Suspension teacher, after agreeing with us and the counselor earlier in the meeting, offered a reward program directly to our son right at the end of the meeting if he could "string together several good days in a row." She understood for a brief moment, but then reverted to the standard formula she has been using for so long). So I ordered several copies of Lost at School and everyone involved with our son has either received a copy, or will soon. On Dr. Greene's website you can order a "Care Package" that provides a lot of additional motivational information for school administrators to at least give his program a try. I ordered a Care Package to be sent to the principal.

I'm not sure how all this is going to turn out for our son. BUT for the first time, I feel empowered instead of completely powerless. I hope that this school will stick with us and work on implementing the CPS model not just for our son, but for ALL kids with the same developmental delay. Regardless, NOW that I understand the problem, I KNOW HOW TO HELP HIM. I've begun at home and I can SEE that it works. He still resists, we just started, because he thinks when I ask questions I'm just using more of the same old Plan A on him, only sneaky, but in time I believe he will grow to trust me more and more, that I'm collaborating with him, beside him, on his side, not just trying to impose rules on him that he already knows, agrees with, yet can't seem to obey sometimes.

Next step is to find a psychologist locally that uses Dr. Greene's CPS model and get him into a meeting with the school personnel. We haven't solved the problem, but WE CAN SEE THE SOLUTION FROM OUR PORCH to paraphrase a popular political figure of our time.

If the school resists trying something new and insists on sticking with their failing rewards and punishments system, I now have the CONFIDENCE to move him from that environment to a school that will use the right tools for the job. It won't be a shot in the dark, just hoping for a better outcome at a new school. We WILL have in in a school that us a CPS school, either the current school, or one we move him to. Thank-you Dr. Greene for giving us that confidence!

So, after all that, I Give these podcasts all 5 stars. I give Dr. Green a million stars! I thank God I found him. Someday I hope to introduce my son to him and say, "That's the guy!"