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Community Corner

Using Behavior Charts in the Classroom

What do you think should be used to motivate children to display good behavior?

My children are well behaved, but I don’t notice it as often as I should.

L had years of public meltdowns; the meltdowns of a child on the Autism Spectrum are nothing like a meltdown of a nuerotypical child. Trust me on this one.

He no longer lies motionless, completely dead weight in the middle of the supermarket aisle. He no longer kicks, arching his back and screaming while trying to put him in the car seat, every single time that we have to go somewhere.

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Thankfully we have moved past that phase. He’s no angel, and like anyone he has his moments, but with maturity they have become more reserved. He’s become embarrassed by the public attention that a meltdown attracts.

His teacher last year said she could have written his name in permanent marker on the top on the behavior chart hanging in her classroom, because he was so well behaved. He never moved from the top spot all year.

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Enter son No. 2. I knew from the get-go we would have issues with a classroom behavior chart.

It’s not that Z’s an ill-behaved child. He’s wiggly. He likes to talk, all the time. He questions almost everything; he’s the type of person who is always looking for another way to do something. Whether it is to save time, or to be more creative, or to include other people. He thinks outside of the box. And I adore this quality in him, mostly because he’s just like me. I was the kid who, at the bottom of her report card it read, “Gretchen talks too much in class.”

Z recently came home and told me that he fell off the highest level on his classroom behavior chart, because he wasn’t sitting neatly, he reported. He demonstrated to me how he was sitting, and I agree with his teacher that lounging on the carpet during story time is not a good idea.

But I worry about the rest of the year and where he will fall on this chart. The next step down is having five minutes of recess taken away, and then 10 minutes … when the children in his school only get 20 minutes of recess a day I find this outlandish punishment. Give my kid more homework to do but don’t take away the only time of day when he is allowed to be wiggly and talk and dance and be himself. Don’t take that away from my child or any child! How does that seem like a good idea? Wouldn’t the teacher be shooting herself in the foot, so to speak? Boys especially need recess to get their wiggles out — it’s a proven fact.

I want to be armed and ready for when the note comes home from the teacher. What would you suggest to be a better punishment for inappropriate classroom behavior?

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