"He deserves to have a good life. My little boy deserves to have a good life, but he's in pain. He eats alone. He leans his chair back and picks his nose because he has nothing else to do. No one will play with him. He gets in fights. He was expelled from school in kindergarten, for God's sake! He doesn't have Asperger's or autism or anything like that. He wants to interact with other kids but nobody wants to play with him because of the way he behaves. And I can't blame them, I really can't blame them. I am hoping with all the resources in the special education program he will finally get some help, because I'm telling you, I just can't do it alone."
The words above are the impassioned plea of a mother of a child with an emotional disorder.
Successful friendships require communication and a specific set of social skills. These include who to initiate an interactions with another child, how to maintain relationships and how to solve conflicts. I have seen the little boy mentioned above walk up to other children on the playground and punch them on the arm as a way of initiating an interaction. If they try to punch him back, he runs and is happy because someone else is 'playing' with him. If they don't chase him, he hits them harder and the other children either cry or tell the teacher.
While we must admit having teased our friends who are preschool teachers and are constantly saying, "Use your words," until they sound like a very polite parrot, those teachers are correct. Students also need to be taught the correct words to say. This is one reason that mainstreaming with children without disabilities can be so crucial. When another child comes up and says, "Do you want to play tag? You're it!" then tags the child and runs away, it gives a concrete demonstration of how to initiate an interaction.
Click here to read a special issue of our newsletter, Miniwakan Waonspekiye, on young children with behavior disorders. Maintaining a friendship requires certain skills and knowledge as well. A child who only plays with a neighbor when no one else is around, or when the neighbor child has a new toy will find that he is not invited over to play after a while. It is also necessary to learn when certain kinds of behavior are not appropriate. When you are nine years old, you can climb up on your mother's lap , asking to be rocked and told a story (in most families), while it is not considered appropriate to do the same with your teacher and certainly not with another child of your own age.
Children with emotional disorders will swear on the playground or speak to other children about their 'private parts' or other bodily functions. It might be said that that these children are exposed to inappropriate modeling in the home. However, it is certainly not only children with emotional disturbance who ever heard a parent swear or tell an adult joke. Yet, some children have an understanding of what is not a fit subject for discussion and words you do not repeat, while others need to be told.
Direct teaching includes correcting, "No, Jason, we do not say bad words on the playground" and modeling appropriate behavior. "Jason, say, 'I want to go down the slide next. ' Then wait your turn."
Teachers can help children with emotional and behavioral problems by arranging classroom activities that use small groups or toys or activities that require more than one child, such as puppets. Particularly for elementary school age and older, use of cooperative learning or peer tutoring activities can increase interactions with peers and help children learn appropriate behavior.
Family members and friends can also increase the opportunity for positive social skills by arranging "play dates". In doing so, keep in mind the personality of the other child. A child who is smaller or timid might be easily bullied by a child with an emotional disorder. Another child who also has behavioral problems would just reinforce existing behavior problems, or teach new ones!
NEXT: Arranging Friends for Your Child