Jayne is a 16 year old female tenth grade student. She currently lives with her paternal grandparents. She has also lived with her father and stepmother, and her mother and the mother's boyfriend during the past two years. Neither of her parents or grandparents have guardianship. Her legal guardian is her social worker. Jayne has attended four different schools in the last two years. Jayne has been diagnosed with Emotional/Behavioral Disorder. She is not currently taking any prescription medications.
Jayne has trouble controlling her temper. When asked to do something she doesn't want to do, she often gets into verbal power struggles with adults and peers. This may happen one to two times daily, and last between three to five minutes at a very intense level. Teachers react to this behavior by stating what is expected of her and leaving her alone to think about it until she regains control, usually five to seven minutes. Consequences for this behavior include loss of privileges, calling her grandmother, or calling the social worker/guardian.
Jayne is confrontational when asked to do academic tasks that she doesn't want to do. The operational definition of confrontational is arguing with teachers/adults and arguing with peers. The function is that she gets into an argument when asked to do academic work and then is asked to leave the room, therefore avoiding the work.
Based on the description it would seem as though Jayne feels she has little to no control over the events of her life. She has been moved from home to home resulting in a low level of stability or predictability and the adults in her life have possibly been unreliable. She needs to feel as though she has a level of control and that the situation is stable and predictable. At 16 years of age, Jayne could effectively track her learning on some kind of a tracking device which would most likely help her to see the end or the goal that she and her teacher had set for her learning. It would also be helpful for her to have a choice when presented with assignments that she often resisted. For example, an oral presentation or a written paper; these 10 problems or these 10 problems. Finally, assuming she would work for rewards, some type of tangible award along the way for positive work could be very encouraging for this young lady.
ReplyDeleteIn addition to the previous comment, Jayne might benefit from anger management training for a coping intervention. This could include relaxation training. Also, social skills training with modeling might be helpful also. With this type of training, she could practice her relaxing techniques and learn to verbally voice what she needs help with when doing her assignments.
ReplyDeleteI honestly feel like in a situation like this she needs to be nutured. Her background doesnt sound very stable and it doesnt sound like she has a lot of support from her family memebers.There is a reason her parents dont have guardenship. I think that a lot of positive and nuturing attitiudes would help this situation. Just to try to have her see that the world is a safe place and that people can be trusted and its ok to show emotions other then anger. She is probally use to showing this emotion the most. I think maybe some kind of anger management and positive reward system would be beneficial as well
ReplyDeleteYes, I agree with Michelle, she needs some one to care about her. Everyone needs someone to make them feel important and special. If she could come to trust one of two adults it could make all the difference, if one adult could find a common interest and try to work with that, it might start as simple as a topic for a research paper or helping her choose a book that might interest her. Giving her choices when possible might also help her keep her interest and keep her on task.
ReplyDeleteYes it does sound like Jayne just wants to be cared for and to feel special. I think it would be cool to do a rewards menu with her. Where she makes a list of things or rewards that she likes, from small things to big things. Then based on how much work she gets done, or for her good behavior, you can reward her points and certain numbers of points can add up to certain things on the menu. For example, if she wants to use her reward point right away for a piece of candy she can, or she can save her points to get up to 10 points for free computer time. Something like that, because then she has some control and she also feels special
ReplyDeleteSounds like positive reinforcement might be really useful here. Praise and tangibles when she complies with a request immediately would be a good idea.
ReplyDeleteAlternately, giving her some instruction on how to handle her anger and then extinguishing the outburst by ignoring them might also work, especially in combination with the positive reinforcement.
For instance, Jayne could be given a two-minute "cool off" break card that allows her to escape from any situation for two minutes. If she has a favorite treat, like a candy or computer time, she could be given a token for that when she returns to work after her two minutes are up.
Hi-p requests might be very effective in avoiding the long confrontation before work.
Is there a reason why she doesn't want to do the work? Is it too hard? Too long? Not hard enough? It would be worth investigating the cause of
the outbursts and doing some antecedent interventions regarding the style or length of her assignments.
Jayne could probably use any positive attentin. It sounds like she doesn't have much stability in her life and could use some re-inforcement. It also sounds like she has learned how to avoid her work or tasks that are not enjoyable by reacting negatively. Jayne needs to learn some copins skills to work on her anger outbursts. I would suggest recognizing when Jayne is being compliant/positive and focus my attention on those situations. Giving Jayne the opportunity to be successful with high p requests would also be beneficial.
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