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You
are here: Passionate About Prevention
by Morgan Rose
I am a school psychologist. By necessity, I have been on the front lines of providing services for children in need. My training and initial experience was in California, a state with the reputation of being at the forefront of preventative programs for its youth. Research consistently and overwhelmingly supports that interventions targeted at promoting the self-esteem and empowerment of "at risk" children result in positive outcomes. There are multitudes of fiscally-responsible, proactive programs with just such an emphasis.
One of the most successful programs that I was privileged to be involved with was the Primary Intervention Project, which targeted "at risk" kindergarten through third graders. The PIP program was designed to proactively intervene in very positive, rather than punitive, action. Students displaying "at risk" behaviors, such as aggression or emotional withdrawal, were assigned a "special friend" (a paraprofessional trained in positive therapeutic strategies) with whom they met in a well-equipped playroom for thirty to forty-five minutes weekly. For that brief period of time, utilizing the techniques of Play Therapy, the child determined the agenda, developed a trusting relationship, and experienced no interference or judgment from the adult. The positive, documented effects of honoring this child were impressive, often occurring within 3 to 12 weeks of therapy.
Being empowered and honored by an adult who looks, notices, and listens, even in such a minimal period, was such a novel and healing experience that defensive behaviors began to dissipate within the classroom and playground, and often, at home, as well. Although, initially, non-constructive classroom behaviors were the criterion for admittance into the PIP program, as well as later evidence of the intervention's success, they were never used as the focus of the intervention. The sole focus was to provide a consistent adult presence that was caring and honoring of the child just as he was in that moment. This unconditional acceptance on the part of the adult was the key to altering the child's need to act out. In other words, appropriate classroom behaviors were the outcome of targeting the motivation for the initial inappropriate behaviors.
The vast majority of students who graduated from PIP were not ever referred to or labeled by a special education assessment. The results of the program were so profound that such a referral was deemed unnecessary. In comparison to current "behavior management" programs which require ongoing, and often more intensive and expensive services, the PIP program expenditure was minimal. Governor Wilson was so impressed by the financial and educational success of this simple intervention that he chose a PIP playroom as the site of his first official address as Governor of the State of California.
Students in the primary grades are within that "window of opportunity" in which minimal intervention often is highly successful. The reason is that these little ones still have hope. Even if being raised in abusive environments, their minds remain open to believing that adults are trustworthy. If we intercede at this point with positive and honoring responses, research strongly suggests that success is almost insured. However, if our interventions are inappropriate, demeaning, and focused on the behaviors exclusively, rather than understanding the motivation for those behaviors, the child's attempts to heal go unheeded, and we witness the development of ever more severe and "incorrigible" behaviors . . . behaviors which simply reflect the child's growing frustration to be heard.
During middle school, the discouraged child will growing frustration to be heard. During middle school, the discouraged child will transition from hope and trust into questioning and growing disillusionment with authority figures. Watch for "problem" behaviors to continue their escalation. Upon graduation to high school, such disillusionment often evolves into intimidated rage. Depending on temperament, environmental factors, etc., the rage may be smoldering like a time bomb, or "in your face," but, nevertheless, the once whimpering cries of early days have escalated to screams of rage. At such point, might we consider that the child has not failed us? Perhaps we have failed the child.
Programs which raise the self-esteem by providing success, nurturing, empowerment, and unconditional acceptance, which stress possibilities and potential, creativity, and even leadership in areas of strengths, which honor a child's humanity, and give wounded children back their dreams, will have radically different outcomes than many of our current "behavior management programs".
Do we want children happy, or just to behave? I am offering the thought that perhaps, even in our well-intentioned educational model, the exploding drug and gang cultures, the rising population of teen mothers, the burgeoning prison population compel us to consider that our current interventions may not only be ineffective in their shortsightedness, but actually exacerbate the dysfunction by putting children into a double-bind situation. What we label as "problem behaviors" may be a suffering child's only means of crying out for help.
When our sold focus is "modifying the behaviors" in order to gain compliance in a classroom, to the exclusion of honoring this cry for help, and directing our efforts to supporting the motivation to change the behaviors, the outcome is often an acceleration of the targeted behaviors. In other words, the child "screams" louder by increasing the disturbing behaviors, hoping that eventually, we adults will hear them. But so often we don't hear them. We don't even ask them how they need us to help. The scenario usually involves a teacher losing patience, referring the child to Special Education, where a team of professionals observe, quantify, assess, discuss, diagnose, label, and perhaps suggest medication, etc. All too often a child's answer to all this "probing" is to escalate, again, their cry for help. If the escalation becomes severer enough, we wash our hands, label him "incorrigible," and introduce him to our juvenile justice system.
Antisocial behaviors are generated and incubated in a sea of childhood grief. The evidence is rampant in our news today. Children are born needing consistent attention and nurturing. Dr. Berry Brazelton reports that by eight months of age a baby will know if it expects to succeed or fail, depending on parental involvement and reinforcement. When children receive such love they are able to thrive. Nurtured children, in child focused homes, are better able to negotiate the monumental task of developing a cohesive, reliable sense of self. The children prompting this article are often "raised" in environments in which weeds would have difficulty surviving. Often from infancy the primary message the child receives is one of "quiet violence," including dishonor, disinterest, emotional/physical abandonment, rejection, and/or subtle terror. Parenting is often unfocused and unpredictable. These children have known little gentleness. Multitudes of children have never experienced the joy of being read to, or the peace of a lullaby as they are rocked in the arms of someone who truly cherishes them.
Research indicates that the vulnerable child's emotional experiences will likely foster impaired judgment, and often a predisposition to failure resulting from such emotional obliteration. Not surprisingly, their arrival into educational setting signals us that they are struggling in profound ways. Sometimes, within the current educational focus, it would appear that our belief is that we only sit a little brain down at the desk, not the whole child. If our interventions are punitive, rejecting, shame-based, and centered in adult interest for them to just "be good," rather than providing them with what they are in most need of . . . that is someone safe who cares about their pain, . . . then, I believe, we, the professionals, are the problem. These children have already knows, and been damaged by, a world of adults who are frustrated, angry, and blaming. Would not a little tender affirmation grab their interest and motivation?
If such a child has been physically injured we would rush them to intensive care. The focus would be to eliminate physical stress in order to allow healing to occur. All care would be directed towards a positive outcome of healing and health. Ah, but some damage is a little trickier to heal. The traumas of emotional abuse are abuse are most often unseen. Indications of physical trauma are obvious. . . . . bruises, burns, and bleeding. But, aggression, defiance, crying, high anxiety, loss of motivation, and other defended behaviors . . . . . where do we send a child such as this? What is our program? What is our program's purpose? Is there such a thing in our nation's educational agenda as Intensive Care for a child's hidden wounds? Do we fund programs that would legitimately address emotional damage in order to allow healing, and eventually learning, to occur? If such programs were provided, is it not probable that we, in our communities, could reclaim the gifts that each and every child brings to us? If we, as professionals were devoted to the relentless advocacy of every child's birthright, and every American child's civil rights, i.e., safety, honor, and their right to dream their dreams, would we not also enjoy the benefits? Would not a child with passionate hope in his dreams welcome an education, and, conversely, be less likely to abuse drugs, seek nonconstructive attention in the classroom, sabotage his/her future, or initiate violence of any kind?
We cannot continue to incarcerate our way out of this compounding dilemma. The majority of criminals evidence signs of emotional stress within the first 8 years of life. In the US, 42 children out of every thousand are victims of reported abuse, and increased aggression is the hallmark of abused children. Positive intervention in the "window of opportunity" with programs designed to honor their innocence, their fears, and their potential have already been researched and proven to have a profound impact in recapturing their self-worth, and contribution as productive citizens. But, if the child is dishonored by programs designed exclusively to alter behaviors, rather than addressing their critical, legitimate emotional needs to feel safe, valued, and worthy, the progression to more defensive behaviors is almost predictable. I would emphatically state that sometimes a behavior modification plan is often successful, and all that is necessary to put the child on track. However, when we do witness an escalation of nonconstructive behaviors, when our behavioral goals are not being achieved, when an Emotionally Handicapped student's educational file weighs more than the gold at Fort Knox, wouldn't it follow that our interventions are exacerbating, rather than remediating the problem? Would it not make sense to reevaluate our direction? It is critical that the educators have an alternative plan, such as the PIP program, which would address the child's emotional needs, rather than behavior, exclusively.
In his book Emotional Intelligence, Daniel Goleman cites several studies which indicate that early trauma/neglect/non-attachment in infancy and early childhood may actually alter the formation of developing neurological synapses which are required for appropriate emotional and moral behaviors, including empathy, resilience, and patience. Perhaps our current educational paradigm of repressing and disempowering the young victim may also someday be proven to inhibit developmental mental processes and moral acquisition.
James Gilligan, M.D., directed the Center for the Study of Violence at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Gilligan is the former medical director of the Bridgewater State Hospital for the criminally insane, and was director of mental health for the Massachusetts prison system. When he left ten years later, the unusually high suicide and murder rates within those walls had dropped to virtually zero. Dr. Gilligan, in his most powerful and insightful book, Violence, states that understanding the causes of this epidemic is the first step toward stemming it.
Dr. Gilligan writes "I believe. . . . that violence - whatever else it may mean - is the ultimate means of communicating the absence of love by the person inflicting the violence. Even a pet dog knows it is unloved when it is beaten. A child would have to be out of touch with reality (as many do in fact become) not to realize on some level that to be beaten deliberately is to be rejected and unloved. But the self cannot survive without love. The self starved of love dies. That is how violence can cause the death of the self even when it does not kill the body. Children who fail to receive sufficient love from others fail to build those reserves of self-love, and the capacity for self-love, which enable them to survive the inevitable rejections and humiliations which even the most fortunate of people cannot avoid. Without feelings of love, the self feels numb, empty, and dead. . . . the absence or deficiency of self-love is shame; its opposite is pride, by which I mean a healthy sense of self-esteem, self-respect, and self-love. When self-love is sufficiently diminished, one feels shame. . . . and constant shaming leads to a deadening of feeling, an absence of feeling."
Children. . . imagine children. . . feeling shamed, humiliated, disrespected or ridiculed, disempowered. . . by those they trust to love and protect them. Their "inappropriate behaviors" are often the only way their young minds know to keep their sense of dignity and autonomy, and protest the injustices of which they are the vulnerable, helpless, powerless, and frightened victims. Often, our answer as educators to their protest is to label and restrict them. Dr. Gilligan proposes that "labels. . . may or may not serve a useful function for legal purposes. But if our purpose is to learn about the causes and prevention of violence, then the labels simply enable us to close the door on someone, lock him away and never have to listen to him, understand him, or think further about him. In fact, these labels serve as substitutes for psychological understanding. Bothmoral value judgments and psychiatric diagnoses can serve as excuses with which to justify our unwillingness to listen to, and take seriously on its own terms, what another person says, to think what it means to be that person, and to do the difficult and often emotionally painful work that genuine understanding requires, the overwhelming emphasis needs to be on prevention - which is exactly why nothing is more important than to learn everything we can about why people become violent, toward others or themselves, so that we can be more successful in preventing such destructiveness in the future, before it reaches the point of no return. "
May I suggest that every District/State/Nation adopt a policy of being Passionate about Prevention? May I suggest that those with clout decide to become very serious about addressing, as a national agenda, the emotional needs of our "at risk" children, primarily in grades K through 3rd, with something more honoring and compassionate than a "functional behavioral assessment plan"? Within our borders there is currently not one nationally cohesive program or policy addressing children who are in need of such intervention. Teachers, counselors, principals, psychologists, nurses, speech pathologists, are all sincerely concerned, but overwhelmingly discouraged. Many of us spend precious time begging for funds, writing grants, pleading for additional resources. We reroute qualified children into alternative programs because of the lack of availability for appropriate placements. We do not consistently provide proven therapeutic interventions which address the emotions underlying the nonconstructive behaviors. Despite the best efforts and intentions of teachers, classes for the emotionally handicapped student are often merely "holding tanks" which have little hope of redeeming a child's worth. Is it any wonder that so many of us, who live within the shadow of the "writing on the wall," finish our workdays believing that we had accomplished nothing more than rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic?
We, as educators and legislators, are the Gatekeepers of our nation's future. We are at the headwaters of each child's life. And we, in the educational system, are becoming more and more disillusioned because we live daily with the truth. . . the truth that our children, and those of us called to educate them academically and socially, are pitifully under funded, unsupported, and unappreciated for our efforts, and the children pay the ultimate price. If we were to substitute programs of positive, empowering intervention, which require minimal financial involvement to achieve the desired outcomes when compared to the significant cost of ongoing, and ever more vigilant special education services, which are often counterproductive, and result in increasing disintegration of families and society, and which require billions of dollars of taxes, would we not harvest the benefits? In light of the overwhelming evidence that prevention in the early years is the key component to reversing the trend towards violence in later years, my colleagues and I believe that it is essential to consider our programs and budgets, including assessment of our ever increasing "at risk" population. What is our goal? What is our purpose? Do we desire only the momentary outcomes of "compliance," or is our intent to develop and educate productive citizens?
The International Family Courts have been daring enough, and far-sighted enough to reconsider and change their paradigm. Let us now, as educators and legislators, determine to provide civil rights to our most disenfranchised citizens, the compounding population of abused and powerless children of our nation. I challenge those in power to legislate with empathy and equity, with compassion and vision, as our nation's first leaders believed. . . to choose so wisely our course today as we consider the benefits unto the 7th generation to follow. To do otherwise with continue to promote social disaster.
This is a plea to consider the longitudinal research on punitive versus positive interventions in Educational and Child Development. This is a plea to consider with wisdom our current paradigm, and its obvious, indisputable, disastrous outcomes. This is a plea to take very seriously our responsibility to understand that it does, indeed take a village to raise a child. And, I would add, it takes a safe and free village to raise a safe and free child. To choose otherwise is to abandon the visionary ideals of this nation, whose uncompromising promise, its greatest strength, is the guarantee of freedom and justice for all.
For us to remain blind to the obvious outcomes of our current strategies is not just being shortsighted, it is social suicide and fiscally bankrupt. Who will suffer if the educators and legislators do not become passionately proactive in prevention programs? Who will prosper if we do?
Morgan Rose raised three sons before seriously pursuing her education. She completed her BA in Psychology at age 44, and earned her MS in Counseling and School Psychology at age 46. She became involved with the Primary Intervention Program through Governor Wilson's Office of Education during her first year of her career. She continues to champion children and focuses on assessing the "whole" child, including the social/emotional development. She worked as a school psychologist for seven years but has recently left public education to focus on private practice as a licensed educational psychologist and to complete her master's degree in graphological studies and psychology.
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