Challenging Behavior In The Special Education Classroom

Behavior Challenges in the Special Education Classroom

This year I have had more challenging behaviors than I can remember. I am utilizing lots of different strategies to help my students cope with big feelings. I have seen an increase in the past few years with children quickly getting angry and displaying emotional outbursts that last a long time. I am fearing this will be an ongoing trend due to the iPad craze that young children are exposed to. These emotional outbursts include; screaming/yelling, throwing objects, showing aggression towards others (hitting, kicking, pushing), running away, destroying materials, etc.. It can be very challenging to have student’s in your classroom with these types of behaviors.

Utilizing Calm Down strategies in the classroom:

Name the feeling

Have a feelings choice board posted in different areas around the room. As soon as your child starts to get frustrated, bring the child to the choice board or bring it to the child and help them point to the feeling that best describes them.

Go to calm down area

If behavior continues, direct the child to the calm down area in the room. This should be a quiet area with a limited amount of things. Preferable this area would contain soft pillows or bean bags, feeling stories, fidgets, soft stuffed animals, etc.

Choose an alternate activity

In the calm down area, provide a choice board of alternate activities that the student could engage in. This could be squeezing a fidget, holding a stuffed animal, looking at book, going for a walk, getting a drink of water, whatever the child chooses that you feel is appropriate for that time.

Name the feeling once the child is calm

Go back to the feelings chart. How is the child feeling now? Are they calm and happy? Then they are ready to return to the group. If not, they may need to stay in the calm down area longer and pick another activity.

Ways to Teach Calm Down Strategies in the classroom

I like to have all the visuals needed in a binder. We keep the binder in the calm down area in the classroom and have another one available near our group time activities. Whenever I start to see children starting to have difficulties, I will bring the binder over and start with the feelings page. Sometimes this is all they need to prevent further behaviors, other times we need to model taking a break. These strategies can be taught as a whole group or individually and practiced with the class when they are calm. Here are some resources that I use in my special education and general education classrooms to help teach young children coping skills.