My son sits next to a boy who has been suspended twice this school year, and it’s only February. Suspended two times — in the fifth grade. Both times were for fighting, once on the school bus and once on the playground. According to my son, his classmate is OK to be around most of the time, but when he gets angry, he lashes out.
I’m not an educator or a counselor, but even I can see that the boy has poor impulse control, and all the suspensions in the world won’t solve that problem. And from what my son says, he is also struggling academically, and days spent away from the classroom certainly isn’t going to make that situation improve.
I thought about this boy when I interviewed author Ross Greene. He says millions of students are suspended every year. “There’s an unbelievable number of detentions and expulsions, all pointing in a clear but sad direction: We don’t understand our kids. We continue to apply interventions that don’t serve them well.”
Greene wrote The Explosive Child about children who, as he says, lack the skills to “behave adaptively.” If they could control their impulses, they would. But they can’t. And our system of rewards and punishments isn’t effective. The threat of punishment or the punishment itself doesn’t work with kids who simply aren’t thinking ahead about the consequences, period.
Greene just published a second book, Lost at School: Why Our Kids with Behavioral Challenges Are Falling Through the Cracks and How We Can Help Them. It is aimed at helping school administrator and teachers deal with hard-to-manage students.
Greene’s answer is a technique called collaborative problem-solving, and it’s being tested in several school districts around the country. It involves having both the child and the adult lay their concerns out and having both sides brainstorm for solutions. It’s not an easy process, Greene says, but it’s certainly preferrable to the cycle of punishment and suspensions that many troubled kids go through.
I wonder how a boy who has been suspended twice in the fifth grade must feel about school and the adults around him. I wonder about his chances making it through to the 12th grade. If we’re serious about keeping students in school, Greene’s ideas deserve a chance.
Read my whole interview with Greene here.
Kathleen Vail, Managing Editor
