Re: Getting parents on board

From: Mary Louise Hemmeter
Email: ml.hemmeter@vanderbilt.edu
Date: May 24, 2006

Comments

Hi Cindy:

Sorry for the confusion. Certainly, the best option is to work collaboratively with families. That is easier to do when they are seeing the behaviors at home and when they are asking for help. If you can get families to work with you, that will always help and will be more likely to result in long term change in the child's behavior. However, I wanted to make the point that even if you can't get the family involved, you can be successful at developing a successful plan for the child at school. He or she might engage in the problem behavior in other settings if the plan is not being carried out in those settings but if you develop a good plan and implement it with a high level of fidelity, you will see changes at school.

Let me know if you want any further clarification or ideas. I know how frustrating this can be, but there simply are no easy answers to challenging behavior. Challenging behavior usually reflects a combination of environmental and child variables and to be effective at reducing the behavior, you have to find the right combination of prevention strategies, new skills to teach the child and consistent ways for adults to respond to the child's behavior. And that is no easy task!!

Good luck.

Mary Louise