BEHAVIORAL MANAGEMENT
“Responsibility = choices = power.”
Behavior Management Reviewed
How you react, as well as your attitude toward unwanted behaviors, will
have a large impact on their resolution and recurrence. Some goals
that should be kept in mind during all episodes of behavior
management are:
v To react calmly in “uncalm” situations
v To maintain a positive attitude in negative situations
v To keep behaviors from escalating between levels. (Try to
contain them at the lowest level of appearance.)
v To maintain perspective of your own self worth. (You must not
take incidents too personally.)
v To defuse situations whenever possible without confrontation.
v To teach the child to learn to control his/her own behavior.
In summary here are some reminders and some points to remember
about behavior management interventions:
DON’T
• Don’t threaten or attempt to scare
• Don’t lie or trick
• Don’t start “traditions” of predictable consequences
• Don’t argue
• Don’t reject the child, just the behavior
DO
• Do give yourself time to make good judgments
• Do give the child choices
• Do treat everyone with dignity and respect
• Do use the lowest levels of cueing possible, to teach self
control
• Do be consistent and persistent in maintaining behavior
standards
• Do teach that behaviors have consequences
• Do use positive reinforcement
• Do use educational interventions
• Do remember that all behavior is communication
The 5 approaches to counseling
PUNISHMENT GUILT BUDDY MONITOR SUCCESS COUNSELOR
All of these approaches are effective, but effective in different ways
Books have tables of contents, papers have outlines, and elements are categorized in the periodic table. The inherent lesson of these examples is that people learn better and are more able to act on knowledge when they have an organizing scheme. In addition tocommon sense and personal experience, advances in brain imaging and cognitive assessment bear out this intrinsic principle.
Thus, it is essential for counselors to have an organizing framework when learning about and utilizing behavior management (which includes social skills and emotional intelligence development). Armed with this knowledge, they will be better able to understand their own approach, other methods, and the ideal approach. Use of the word ideal may disturb some people, but the practice that is recommended in this article is espoused by developmental psychologists, counseling psychologists, parent effectiveness trainings, school discipline experts, emotional intelligence gurus, and management sages alike.
After witnessing ten orientations at ten different camps and watching their staff every day over the entire summer, it became clear to me that the predominant approaches of new counselors are punishment, guilt, and the buddy method. Because those approaches are not effective in developing children, an essential part of staff training and development should be to provide a clear framework, rationale, and alternatives.
While reading this article, keep in mind these important points.
v Although people often have a preference for a particular style, they sometimes use other approaches, depending on the situation.
v All of the methods are effective at controlling behavior, but only one is effective in developing prosocial, free children.
v Although possible, it is unlikely that children will learn necessary lessons, develop character, and increase their moral reasoning from the four undesirable methods of behavior modification.
v The focus will be on children, but the framework holds true for supervisors working with counselors as well.
P u n i s h m e n t
Anger, criticism, humiliation, and corporal punishment are all included here. Doing pushups, running laps, yelling, and the arbitrary removal of privileges and rewards are common examples. Exasperated staff and those under a time crunch are particularly prone to using this approach. In the short term, it is very effective and fairly easy, however there are serious problems that make this approach
inadvisable.
v The child usually learns only that the behavior resulted in punishment, but not how to change it in order to still meet his or her needs and objectives. Children are not walked through the problem-solving process. Compliance instead of conversion is obtained, which means you’ve got their behavior instead of their hearts and minds.
v Compliance will only happen when there is sufficient strength enforcing it, plus a sufficient number of monitors who are close enough to compel compliance by utilizing their strength/power. When the cat’s away, the mice will play.
v Compliance because of anything external is ultimately ineffective. The individual’s psychological reaction is usually resistance, secret defiance, or surface compliance so that s/he can retain some sense of control and dignity.
v Punishment closes the communication door and makes it difficult for people to take responsibility and be honest.
G u i l t
Inducing guilt can take many forms. Silence with a look of disapproval, a sigh, and a slow shaking of the head are nonverbal methods. Common phrases may include “You know better” and “I’m really disappointed in you.” The dreaded lecture or moralizing are more verbose methods. Guilt is often deadly effective. It can be more effective than punishment, because the authority preventing the action rests in oneself instead of some external power. In essence, guilt is instilled, internalized punishment. Both the counselor and the camper know which rule or social norm has been violated, as well as what the acceptable behavior is. Guilt is the reference to the rule or norm and the implied or stated fact that the child is bad for not adhering to it. While a child may feel guilty in any case, the choices are to accept that s/he is really bad, to reject the norm and try not to get caught the next time or, ideally, to make some restitution and learn how to behave differently in the future. As with punishment, guilt does not teach the child how to replace the behavior that resulted in guilt, while still having his or her needs and objectives met. A type of internal conversion can be obtained, but it is an unhealthy one.
The Monitor Approach
In essence, this is the use of natural and logical consequences. There are three important distinctions to make when speaking of consequences.
v A natural consequence is one that arises as a result of the behavior without any outside intervention. For example, if a child is rough with a toy and it breaks, one hopes that the child learns not to be so rough with his or her toys.
v A logical consequence is related to the behavior, but it is imposed by someone with power. For example, if a child wrote graffiti on the wall, s/he must get it off and restore the surface to its original condition.
v Artificial consequences are unrelated to the behavior issue/problem. For example, because a child did not make the bed, s/he can’t have desert at dinner. This is not the monitor approach; it is punishment.
Although the monitor approach is effective and offers restitution, there are several significant problems and pitfalls.
v Primarily, children may accept logical consequences, but these usually induce them to offer compliance only, and not their hearts and minds. The monitor approach is a form of coercion, which does not inspire children to make permanent changes in behavior. For that to occur, a conversion is necessary.
v Consequences can be taken too far and turn into punishment.
v Frequently, consequences are left to stand on their own without a mentor offering the child needed guidance. Children need help processing through their behavior and emotions and arriving at better means of achieving their needs and goals. A camper may not be willing to work with the counselor; nevertheless, a little gentle lecture from the standpoint of genuine concern and care is far better than just letting the consequences do the teaching.
Behavior is adjusted because of rules and limits imposed and monitored by an authoritative power. Societally, this is the role police have. When children are unwilling to work on their behavior, the monitor approach is the preferable fallback method, but staff should always use the success counselor method (see below) first. Of course, if the counselor starts the monitor approach and the camper decides that s/he would prefer the success counselor method of accepting responsibility and working on self-control, that door should be left open.
The Success Counselor
Okay, so what the heck is the preferred method? Specialists in child and human development understand that self-control through internalized values and morality is both preferable and ultimately more effective than methods which involve external control. All the other methods described focus on changing behavior and hoping that a change in mind will ensue. The aim of a success counselor is just the opposite: to change campers’ minds, which will change their behavior. The central premise is that people use behaviors to help them get what they want and need. At their core, those needs are: power/control, affection/love/attention, self-respect/worth/esteem, fun, belonging/connection to others, and safety and survival. All behavior occurs for one of those reasons. All behavior is code telling us which need someone was trying to meet. There is no discipline system that will work well if it is geared toward getting people to do what you want, without also helping them to meet their needs. Deep down, children want the same things we all do, but sometimes they just go about it in ways that they need to learn don’t
ultimately work as well as others. In essence, the counselor tries to help the child understand the need behind his or her behavior and figure out a more prosocial way to meet that need. Children are walked through the problem-solving process so that they understand how their emotions, needs, and behavior are all linked to the present outcome, as well as a more desirable one. The goal of counselors should not be to solve campers’ problems, but rather to give them information and support to create themselves as their own solutions. In other words, we
want to teach children to fish instead of just giving them a fish. In practice, the success counselor uses a Socratic process to help the child analyze his or her behavior. It really isn’t a lecture, because the child does the talking, while the success counselor asks pointed, guiding questions. The questions might look something like the
following. What happened? How did that make you feel? What did you want? What did you do to get it? How did that work? What were/are some other choices you could have made? What is the best choice? That sounds like a good plan, so let’s check back with each other to see how it works, okay? When the child has come this far and accepted their responsibility, a conversation about appropriate restitution usually follows easily.
As Gossen aptly states, “When [campers] understand that the goal of discipline is to strengthen them and to teach them, they will no longer be afraid to face their mistakes. They will begin to view a problem as an opportunity for learning a better way.” When campers take responsibility, they become the ones deciding when freedom is withdrawn and when privileges will be restored.
