Hi Parents,
Now we’re down to the third to last group session for the kids. Next time, we’re going to be doing to a community outing for laser tag and then we have our final meeting in the office, the first week of June. I have to say, once again, your kids really held it together certainly because there was a parent meeting and three different raffles, it was a chaotic evening, but other than some minor problems that were easily resolved by counselors, the evening went smoothly. So first to start with the minor problems. We did have two group members who decided that they thought it would be a good idea to pick a fight with each other and there was a very short amount of light hitting that occurred before it was quickly broken up. I think that each of the group members were surprised that the other person had hit them and it seemed to be very much related to being very impulsive and feeling out of control. The counselors handled it by separating the students and both of them were able to calm down successfully. One of the things that we noticed that happens in general is that when it is a more stressful evening and having the kids barbecue even though that’s a pleasant thing, is a stress. Also, having a parent meeting is a stress. It seems that on these nights, it simply is a more chaotic evening and interfering behaviors are more likely to occur.
Back to the barbecue. We started off going into Gelson’s and the kids really have gotten the idea that they have to occupy one side of the aisle or the other. They’re not as oblivious as they once were about other customers being nearby. They were able to figure out what they wanted and collaborate with one another to make sure that they shared things so we purchased steaks, kosher hot dogs and buns, and an array of sides and some fruit. We also threw in a dessert this time, which we don’t normally do. The kids were well organized, they all carried some of the food back with them, and we barbecued around 5:40 pm just in time for the food to be ready as the parent meeting commenced. The kids sat outside and other than the problems already noted, things went smoothly and there were three raffles. So our blue raffle is where everybody won, in our red ticket raffle, eight prizes were given away, and in our LUNCH points raffle, there were a total of two prizes given away for the three kids who had LUNCH points and were therefore eligible.
The parent meeting was wonderful. We had nearly every parent there and there was just a good amount of discussion. I can’t say we went over critical information, but rather parents simply asked questions about their child’s behaviors, what to do when they have meltdowns, and we addressed these from the perspective of what we do in group. So we talked about things like time away, I talked about positive practice, some of the modeling we do, and making certain that we’re giving them an opportunity to practice more positive behaviors even if it’s for short periods of time. We also talked about something known as habituation where if a child is constantly getting upset at something, you practice it over and over again even encouraging them to get upset and keeping it a little like a social story or scripting. That way by a child doing it repeatedly, they know they’re going to get upset. They tend to learn to have better control over that behavior. And the last thing that I recall we talked about had to do with differential reinforcement. Look this up on the internet and you will find it is a very easy way of reducing unwanted behaviors through reinforcing alternatives.
So as I said, two meetings left, one in the community and then our last session which will occur here around the office. And then we’re done for the year. Thank you very much for being such wonderful participants and I will look forward to seeing you soon.
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