Strategies for Changing Behaviour

Overcome challenging behaviour using practical techniques to build positive attitudes to learning

Strategies for Changing Behaviour is a book designed to help you, as an adult who works with children and young people with challenging behaviour, to stop this damaging cycle. The book offers you practical worksheet-based techniques that give you a step-by-step guide to dealing with the underlying issues that cause challenging behaviour and related issues. Working through them with young people will enable you to sort out their negative attitudes and improve their behaviour.

The book is specifically designed to help you to:

• build a relationship with the children and young people you work with, despite their behavioural problems and issues
• understand different approaches to people and their problems and thereby help you to personalise the work that you do with them
• find solutions to particular problems easily – so that you can start tackling difficulties early on
• manage and record the progress that you have made with each individual case
• develop a deeper understanding of children and young people with behavioural problems and how to work through a range of problems with them.

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Save time with the easy-to-use reference tool

The book is sub-divided into nine parts, with each section detailing a particular approach. A simple reference tool allows you to identify a specific problem that you are dealing with and select the appropriate technique to address the situation.

Helping you to find solutions to behavioural problems

Many of the strategies and techniques brought together in this essential resource will be recognised by those familiar with modern psychotherapy, though an understanding of psychotherapy is not required. They are derived from a variety of sources including Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, Neurolinguistic Programming and Gestalt Therapy. A major strength of these therapies is that they focus on solutions rather than causes.

Personalise your approach for each young person

The structure of the book means that it is easy to use as each section is built around working through particular problems with specific techniques. The approach is worksheet based, which means that you have a clear guide through each strategy for when you begin using the book. Once you have become familiar with the techniques there is a great deal of scope for you to use the material in a flexible way, tailoring your approach to each young person that you are helping.

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Introduction

Included are directions on how to use the book effectively, an explanation of how the book is organised and background information about the techniques.

Section 1: 4 figures: How do my actions affect other people?

No amount of scolding, sermonising or lecturing can achieve lasting change. Change comes when an individual recognises that a particular way of doing things is not beneficial and chooses to adjust that behaviour. For this reason the approach of the 4 Figures is indirect. Four differently coloured cartoon figures and guiding worksheets are used to encourage young people to talk about how they see themselves, how they view those around them and whether they see any need for altering their behaviour. Once a need is established, the follow-up worksheets will help to strengthen intentions.

Section 2: Brief Therapy: Overcoming problems

Two people face the same problem. One is overwhelmed by it, whilst the other seems to thrive on the challenge. So why does this happen? The answer is in the way they both perceive and think about the problem. One sees an insurmountable difficulty and can conceive of no way round it. The other seems to b  able to trim down the problem until it becomes manageable and is then able to search for solutions. This is called ‘scaling’. Brief Therapy is about scaling down problems and searching for solutions.

Use this technique to help the young person to:

• build up a rapport with you
• talk frankly about themselves and others
• gain a perspective on problems and difficulties
• accept and plan changes.

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Section 3: ANTs: Blocking ‘Automatic Negative Thoughts’

This section is entitled ANTs, which stands for ‘Automatic Negative Thoughts’. ANTs are the sort of thoughts that go round and round in your head creating gloom, despondency and an inability to solve problems. This section is designed to help people get rid of their ANTs.

Use the techniques outlined here to:

• recognise negative thinking
• challenge pessimism
• view problems as set-backs rather than disasters
• construct optimistic ways of dealing with difficulties.

Section 4: Primed for Action: How to have positive thoughts

‘Primed for Action’ is about training the unconscious mind. It’s actually something we all do naturally. If you say ‘that’s no problem, I’ll sort it’, you won’t just assure others, you’ll also send a confident and assertive message back to yourself. On the other hand if you say, ‘It’s really too difficult. I know I won’t be able to do it because I really find this sort of thing hard’, you’ll do precisely the opposite and overwhelm yourself with the prospect of defeat before you’ve even tried. This sounds rather easy, but experimenters have shown that mind training or ‘priming’ can change thoughts and feelings and hence levels of success. For this reason it’s used extensively in the business world and by sportsmen and women.

Use the techniques outlined in this section to help young people to:

• overcome their fears
• be more confident
• relax
• heighten their mental capacities
• change their feelings
• prepare for a particularly challenging situation.

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Section 5: Time-Lining and Anchoring: Letting go of bad memories and looking to the future

Time-lining is an effective way of revisiting past events. The objective in doing this is two fold: to gain strength from good memories and to release the emotional baggage associated with bad ones. But a time-line is more than a way of just connecting with and revising views of past events. It can also be used to imagine the future and to construct one that is positive, optimistic and also challenging.

Use these techniques to:

• let go of painful past memories
• recollect good experiences and use them to build
• confidence and self-belief
• create a constructive, upbeat vision of the future.

Section 6: Chairs: Seeing other people’s point of view

In this section, we have presented two simple variations of a well-known technique, ‘the empty chair’. Chairs are arranged facing each other, a person then sits on one of the chairs and is asked to imagine that the person with whom they are having problems occupies the chair opposite. They are then encouraged to express their thoughts and feelings both about the other person and the situation in which they find themselves. After that, they switch seats. In doing this they become the other person and try to express things from that person’s point of view. The idea is to see the whole situation not just one side of
it. The process then continues by exploring ways in which changes can be made and problems sorted out.
Use this approach to help to resolve relationship problems.

Section 7: Dealing with anger: How do I calm myself down?

This section looks at the ways in which anger can be moderated. The approaches can be used to:

• understand anger
• teach techniques for reducing and controlling anger
• tone down angry thoughtsprovide a way to deal with rumination.

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Section 8: You Choose: Making good choices

Do we actually choose what happens to us in our lives? For some people the answer seems to be a resounding ‘no’. Individuals who feel this way have become trapped within a belief system in which they see others as powerful and themselves as helpless victims. The aim of this unit is to challenge this type of negative thinking and to establish the fact that, whatever the issue, we actually do make choices. Once this is accepted, it is important to consider the choices available and to make sure that we opt for the best ones.

Use the approach outlined here to:

• challenge ‘victim mentality’ and establish the fact that we can all make choices
• weigh up what makes a good choice
• consider how to make tough choices
• think about the consequences of our choices.

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Section 9: Four Cs: Congruent, Choices, Consequences, Consider

Young people who are beginning to recognise their own capacity for choice, often resent any pressure put on them by adults. So this section suggests an approach that clarifies available choices and their consequences, but avoids confrontation.

Unlike the other units in this book, it is not worksheet based. Its aim is to guide the user through a process. Use it to:

• avoid conflict
• make clear the various options available in a given situation
• explain the possible consequences of various courses of action
• show that you understand that ultimately people make their own choices.