Can you effectively use old interventions to reduce 5 new overactive behaviors in homeschooling classes?
Homeschooling a busy bunch of children can make you crazy. As a mom, you may want to pull your hair out. You probably feel totally overwhelmed most days. You may be experiencing the same behaviors that teachers face. Nonetheless, there is a proven teaching strategy that helps to subdue overactive children. Also, this intervention can help with underactive children. Most importantly, these strategies help moms alleviate situations that also include oppositional children and parent pleasers.
How to effectively use behavior interventions in homeschooling
- Determine the type of behavior you want to reduce
- Use as many interventions as possible that include all of your students
- Figure out how to use interventions that cross younger students with older students
- Use PBIS, LL and Pre-Referral Intervention for better success
- Use Grandparents to provide interventions when possible
First, let’s describe the overactive student. These are the students who complete their assignments in five minutes. The overactive student may or may not be smart enough to get everything correct on their school work. These students have little or no interest in school. Their lack of interest can be due to them not understanding the work. Additionally, their lack of interest can be that the student needs to move around.
If this student is still in elementary school, you may find that allowing them to take a short break each hour will help. In addition, having them stretch and bend or run some errands inside the house will help them move around. Most of the time, these students need to move.
Pre-plan what you will have them do during their breaks. You can use simple things like chores or help with housework. Most importantly, you want something quick and easy. You want something that will take them 10 to 15 minutes to complete without your intense supervision.
Next, let’s review the underactive student. Although, they may seem like they are complete opposites, the over and underactive students have a lot in common. First, they are both resistant to work. They both need to move around and both can complete simple short tasks around the house.
Where the overactive completes work in 5 minutes because they know the work. The underactive may complete the same work in five minutes because they wiz through checking any answer, they need additional help. One teaching strategy that will help both of these students is to have one help the other. When you put two students together to help one another you are using peer tutoring.
The best interventions should include all students
Peer tutoring is a teaching strategy used to help struggling students. Peer tutoring is done by placing two students together to work together. Peer tutoring is a proven teaching strategy that increases student achievement.
Many teachers and parents have seen it in action often used as a shoulder partner. The shoulder partner strategy is often used from kindergarten but may go through high school. It is used for discussions and for one-to-one support in a certain subject area.
Here are a few questions that you can use to help you determine how to best handle this problem.
Ask your child:
- Why don’t you want to work with another child?
- Who do you feel you can be the most successful working or playing with?
- Who would like to be the leader of the group activity?
- In addition to asking the above questions, ask yourself these questions:
- Which of the students have I noticed work or play best together?
- Which of the students is the natural leader of the group?
- What rules do I need to enforce to ensure everyone is successful at least once?
- What simple things can be done to enforce a minimum noise level?
- What are the rewards and consequences?
for best results use interventions that cross younger students with older students
These interventions may work best when one of the students is more advanced than the other. Nonetheless, there may be at least one student who does not want to be with the group. Also, remember that children oppose your requests for different reasons. This may be the student who does best with the cause and effect solution to situations. I named this strategy cause and effect because you may have to use explicit descriptions to help them understand choices.
use PBIS, love & logic and pre-referral intervention for The best success
Positive Behavior Intervention Strategies (PBIS) and Love and Logic are two very successful behavior modification theories. Both of these theories use cause and effect strategies for overactive children. Consequently, their theories are so successful and powerful that they are used schools and districtwide in various school districts.
PBIS is a free resource. Also, it provides a variety of strategies to use. You can view the strategies offered on PBISWorld here. Love and Logic is another resource available to teachers and parents. Although Love and Logic is not a free resource, it is powerful. You can review some of the Love & Logic strategies here.
Covid-19 has illuminated numerous unwanted behaviors in children of homeschooling families. Some parents are not sure how to handle the uncooperative actions in their overactive child. In addition, the behaviors include refusal to comply, learning struggles and a lack of time management skills. However, many grandparents taught their children the importance of following directions. Many grandparents understand the issues surrounding overactive children and have good remedies. They know that these necessary skills were learned by their children through demonstration.
Once again, I believe that students who refuse to comply with class rules do not know how cause and effect works. When a student refuses to follow directions, you should practice the following skills on non-academic tasks first. These interventions are often used in public school districts to support teachers with class and behavior management. You can find them and much more in the Pre-Referral Intervention Manual.
Intervention strategies from the Pre-Referral Manual explore a vast number of interventions. This strategy is stated to help with a few different types of behaviors.
First, establish assignment rules by requiring your student to
- listen to all directions
- wait until all directions are given before moving forward
- ask questions about any mis-understood direction
- begin the assignment when they are certain that they know what to do
- make sure that all necessary material is available
- understand that all assignments must be completed using their best ability
use grandparents to provide interventions as much as possible
As the grandparent, you can practice these strategies at home with chores. Also, you could practice at last one behavior intervention until your student demonstrates it without a problem
Once your student completes these requirements using chores, they are ready to use them academically. Ensure that the teacher uses the above strategies as a part of her class rules. Consequently, maintaining the consistency of these strategies, and instructions will increase compliance in daily routines.
Grandparents know that natural consequences help a lot when a student refuses to complete class or homework. In addition, an overactive child who is bored is really saying teach me something new. In teaching something new, natural consequence introduces them to the realities of life. Natural consequences usually include the loss of an extracurricular activity. Extracurricular activities range from computer time to playing a sport.
Learning struggles and academic success
Some student’s misbehavior is connected to learning difficulties. If the student is acting out because of academic struggles try breaking the assignment into smaller chunks. I speak more about learning using chunking in Homeschooling 101 Virtual Public Schools.
I believe that discussing situations that frustrate them and sharing old school interventions can reduce if not eliminate many unwanted behaviors. In life, we must teach our grandchildren the importance of following directions and listening to their teachers. If you are like me, you know that school introduces children to requirements they will see when they begin to work a job. They must also learn how to control their attitudes.
If a student does not learn how to control their attitude, they will be unhappy because it will always seem like everyone is against them. Then they need to understand cause and effect and that all actions have an effect and that it will them in some way. Finally, the importance of choosing friends wisely and saying please and thank you. Proverbs 13:20 says he who walks with wise men shall become wise, but a companion of fools will be destroyed. These were all part of the golden rules.
Conclusion
We start by introducing some proven strategies that subdue overactive children. These students have little or no interest in school. Next, we show that pre-planning what want them do during their breaks can give you a 15 to 20-minute break. Then we explain how to use peer tutoring as a teaching strategy used to help struggling students.
Peer tutoring can also help the busy student stay occupied for a while. Next, we discuss PBIS and Love and Logic as a resource. In addition, we include some strategies from the Pre-Referral Intervention Manual. After that we pull in grandparents and their expertise in teaching children how to comply with rules. In addition, grandparent expertise includes the use of natural consequences.
You can investigate some of our other homeschool articles. Take a look at Homeschooling 101 with this link.