I have a tantrum thrower this year. She likes to be a wet noodle and just fall on the ground, going limp if I try to help her up. We will all be walking out and she's just laying there crying or screaming.
What do you do in this situation? Are you allowed to "help" them up and push/drag/carry them along? Do you call admin to come get them? Leave them? Leave the rest of the class?
*sigh*
ETA (after reading Zia's reply) I do not have an aide. I do have a student with a 1-1 paraeducator, so sometimes she's available. But when she's not...
If it's in the classroom, I ignore it. If we are out and about (on the way to PE or whatever), the class and I carry on (remove the audience) and my aide stays nearby, but filing her nails and ignoring. Once the audience is gone, the kid usually gets up and chills out.
In a sitch with just one teacher, I dunno what I would do!
We would all stand there and not do a thing. Class would be told not to touch the child. I would not touch the child but repeat broken record style " when you are done let us know. " I would find time later to talk to the child,reassure her that I care and encourage her to use her words to express unhappiness. I would keep this speech very brief. During awarded class free time this child would spend it with me so we could "talk." Sometimes I will do an unscheduled free time as an award to the behaving students to make a point to a misbehaving child.
Ignore as much as possible to not feed attention. I rarely have an aid in the classes I've worked in and encountered this behavior. If it is a moment where we need to go somewhere (recess, lunch, specials) and that child will not get off the floor and leave the room, I call admin.
But if it's in the classroom during instruction, I ignore and do the best I can to remove the audience.
Call the office/other adult if it is in the midst of moving from thing to thing or the stand and everyone wait if no other solution. Everyone else ignore the kid. Maybe give a "we are waiting for_____....."
Unscheduled free time (with PITA little ones talking to the teacher) cures a lot of ills if needed!
had a few...removing the audience is good if you can do it. I'd never try to pick up a child. If they get hurt you'll be called on it. If you get hurt you'll have back pain possibly the rest of your life.
I had this in kinder with no aide. Student was later classified ED. Would very frequently cry for hours at a jag. Would daily refuse to leave the room for recess, lunch, or PE.
In the classroom we would ignore it. The other kids would be well rewarded to keep working and ignore.
When we needed to leave I called this office.
We were absolutly never allowed to pick up or even “physically guide them”. We had a 100% hands off policy for behavior for every one but the principal. She would occasionally pick up or guide but she also got kicked and bit for her efforts.
Last edited by Kinderkr4zy; 09-05-2018 at 05:12 AM..
but.. if you are on the way to art and the child won't leave, call the art teacher and ask her/him to either come and get your class or meet your class halfway.
Send small groups of children, every couple of minutes, to the cafeteria so they won't be late for lunch.
And... definitely call admin! You are going to have to work up a plan for this child, at least for the short term.
I am a specialist and my resident wet noodle did her thing yesterday (on the first day of school). Luckily she is now in an integrated class with tons of support, but I did end up being late for my own lunch before she deigned to talk about why she was upset.
My child used to do this (at age 3-4). Gosh, I was so worried about kindergarten!
Is there a classroom close by that you could open a door to where they could see the child while you take your class where they need to go? Can you make your class have a leader and a caboose to take them places on campus? Call where ever they are going for a head's up (and maybe a view to the hall?)
Try surprising the noodle with something unexpected. THey hit the floor and your jump up in surprise and tell the rest of the class, "OMG, I forgot! The most wonderful surprise ever" and take them to the hall and tell them a story or play a fun game. Make it a good one! Or have them all group around you and tell a very quiet knock knock joke. Something out of the ordinary. Something out of the ordinary might jump start the child into participating.
WIth my own dd, I had to ignore it until she wore herself out. Any interaction fed the fit. Are the noodle episodes associated with anything? Child having issues with transitions?
I know professionals who work in special schools with students with severe behavioral problems and they have special training to "help" these students. Without that special training I would not try to physically move her.
I agree and have found total ignoring to be helpful in the present and it diminishes the future behavior too.
I think you need to have your administration involved in this. You need direction as to how you should proceed with your handling of this. Not that you can't handle it, but because all your actions should be at the of the administration's required procedure, just in case. This way if there is any question about what you did or did not do, you can go with you were following procedures required by the school. (yup, I live in a place where people complain and sue all the time)
Since you don't have an aide maybe they need to send one to be there when your class is walking to an activity.
My wet noodle was also an admin.'s daughter . I had a wonderful assistant, so I can't imagine how hard it would be without one. I tried my best to ignore it, but it really upset the other kids (this was in pre-k). My admin. would always come in and pick up her darling child and let her play video games in her office . For every other wet noodle, I just ignored it, or offer a prize to every student acting appropriately.
I would be VERY hesitant to use any sort of physical contact.
Have not had an in-person talk with admin yet (they've been out of the office every time I stop by), but have asked three times what should be done with no reply. They've replied to all other parts of the conversation, but not that specific question.
We are only in our 3rd week of school, and I'm in kinder, so can't let the rest of the class go to specials/lunch by themselves yet.
When I was going through this I gave my 2 verbal transition warnings several minutes early (2 minutes until we clean up for lunch, 1 minutes until we clean up for lunch, it is now clean up time lets see if we can be all done by the time the clean up bell rings) , then I would give a whole class explicit description of what I should see (when I clap 3 times I should see everyone standing on their number with their arms crisscrossed and bubbles in their mouth). This would be done with 3-4 minutes to spare so if my tantrum thrower refused to line up for lunch I had advance notice that I would use to call the office. I would explain that little johnny is refusing to leave the room for lunch/recess/pe/specials/whatever again so I would need someone to come down and supervise him while I took my class where they needed to go.
Then we would wait and I would use the time to play a quiet game like asking for a word the rhymes with cat and then picking a stick for a student to answer. Eventually someone would come and hopefully we wouldnt be too late for where we were going.
You have to go, so if your limp noodle wont come you need to call and have admin come down themselves or figure out who to send. You have approached them with the issue, if they dont tell you anything else to do put the issue back in their laps the next time it happens
PO me. I have to remind myself they are not my kid and I did not raise them. That is a typical behavior for a 2 yr old. I have had some over the yrs and have 4 that refuse to budge this yr. Teachers should not have to tolerate this and it is one of my pet peeves that we often do tolerate lately due to lack of consequences and support in the schools..
If the kid is not being overly noisy too, I pull the excited card out like Kalablast says. I find some really fun activity/ game and exclaim loudly ( to cover minor noises) for the kids to come over for something really cool. Giving no attention to the wet noodle. Even though it goes against my beliefs, I have gotten prizes and candy for certain times like this. It is much easier to ignore the wet noodles when the other kids are excited, playing a game, and even have a special prize. Plus, the wet noodle realizes they are not getting what they want. If it is a loud wet noodle, I announce recess, library, PE, line the kids up in the hall (so noodle has no audience), call the office, and take my kids out as soon as some1 shows up. ( We play a hallway game while waiting often.) After wet noodle has been coddled by the office, he returns to where our class has moved. Then I announce immediately, PE is over. ( Then the kid realizes they missed something fun while throwing a tantrum.) If parents and admin do not teach these kids to stop w/ the tantrums, someone has to! I do not tell any1 in the office or else they'd probably say, " Since he is behaving now, give him some extra recess or PE too. Not going to happen! I do not teach the real young ones either. The kids are old enough to know better.
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09-04-2018, 06:44 PM
. I had a wonderful assistant, so I can't imagine how hard it would be without one. I tried my best to ignore it, but it really upset the other kids (this was in pre-k). My admin. would always come in and pick up her darling child and let her play video games in her office 
. For every other wet noodle, I just ignored it, or offer a prize to every student acting appropriately. 
They've replied to all other parts of the conversation, but not that specific question.
