Help for Billy: A Beyond Consequences Approaching to Helping Challenging Children in the Classroom

by Heather T. Forbes

School environments are designed for children who have their natural love for learning intact and for children whose systems are hardwired to be able to sit in a classroom and stay focused.

To truly understand someone, it takes a willingness to see life from the other person’s perspective; it takes getting outside of ourselves and our familiar reality.

If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail. ~ Abraham Maslow

Feelings are not supposed to be logical. Dangerous is the man who has rationalized his emotions. ~ David Borenstein

One study showed that children exposed to elevated levels of cortisol in the womb may have trouble paying attention or solving problems later in life.

It is the perception and the emotional interpretation of the event that classifies it as trauma or not. It is about the feeling of being safe or not and it is always determined by the child’s perspective—not reality.

An event is not traumatic for a child based on the event itself; it is traumatic based on the response to the event from the caretaker.

Research continues to show that early and prolonged trauma in childhood affects an individual’s ability and capacity to self-regulate.

To compare Billy to Andy or to expect Billy to act like Andy is not only unfair, it is judgmental. Unconditional love is about accepting someone perfectly, completely, and without a different expectation. Unconditional love requires us to accept Billy for exactly who he is. He cannot be different at this present moment. He is perfectly normal based on his history. Billy’s behavioral issues in

Past patterns of chaos are now the current framework for navigating his world; he knows no different.

A child’s window of stress tolerance is defined by his ability to withstand pressure, overwhelm, and fear without becoming dysregulated and without reaching his “breaking point.”

He lives only moments away from his breaking point.

Profound changes and healing can occur when a child is placed in the right environment; when his needs are met; when the relationships in his life offer acceptance, trust, and understanding; and when he is given the chance to have positive repetitious experiences in order to override past negative repetitious experiences.

The threat of having detention at the end of the day has no impact because in this framework of thinking, the end of the day does not and will never exist.

“Was it the technique or the relationship that was the influencing factor?”

The most important point regarding these three responses is that they are all automatic responses; they are not determined by mindful considerations at the level of the neocortex.