N.B. The main website covers the published books and articles etc. about attention seeking. If you want these, please go back to the home page of this subsidiary website and follow the link to the main site www.nmellor.com
This particular chapter is really a supplement to the manual: Mellor and Harvey “Helping parents deal with attention seeking behaviour” which is available on www.lulu.com
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WARNING
Because of the nature of attention seeking, any discussion with teachers must be handled extremely carefully. The issue becomes very personal for the adult, because the children “home in” on vulnerable spots in order to get maximum attention.
The most caring and concerned teachers are paradoxically those most at risk. Any hint that the problem is somehow the teacher’s “fault” will not be taken kindly – supposedly “helpful” suggestions about making changes in the teacher’s behaviour may be taken as criticism when they are feeling so stressed. Advice needs to be very carefully thought out. One solution is to provide an in-service training course for the whole staff. Or give the individual teacher a hand-out to read in private.
The scenario goes a bit like this (and in this scenario, no disrespect is intended towards teacher colleagues - the best teachers are the most vulnerable):
1. The more caring and concerned the teacher is, the more wide open he is
to attention seeking ploys, because he wants to solve the problem. Then
this conscientious teacher becomes more upset because, despite his best
efforts, he finds his strategies are not working.
2. The pupil who displays attention seeking behaviour has an unerring
instinct for finding what is PERSONALLY most irritating for that teacher.
She finds the teacher’s vulnerable spots. The more stressed the teacher
is, the more the attention seeking child will play on those vulnerable
spots.
3. Having observed the interactions in class, you, as EP, have a brilliant
plan for dealing with the problem. Unfortunately, your plan involves the
teacher in changing what he does.
4. The more stressed and conscientious the teacher is, the more touchy and
sensitive he becomes. ANY SUGGESTION THAT THE TEACHER SHOULD CHANGE WHAT HE IS DOING MAY BE TAKEN AS IMPLIED CRITICISM: “Look, its the child misbehaving, she’s the one causing the problem and you’re sort of implying it’s my fault, it’s due to my poor handling of the situation”.
5. To add to the general confusion, the teacher may believe that the
problem lies within the child in any case, and what is really needed is a
medical solution like Ritalin. The problem has nothing to do with his
approach which has worked perfectly well for many years.
Disaster looms!
Strategies for the teacher to use in class are covered in some detail in Mellor (2008) and are only briefly referred to here. Dealing with other pupils who may provide attention in class is covered in Rogers (2000, 2004) and briefly in Mellor (2008) chapter 5.
It is not necessary to wait for the “obvious” intervention opportunity of a 1:1 interview with the teacher, to intervene! Suggestions for intervention at the early stages of what is nominally “information gathering”, are outlined in the letter in the attachment at the very end of this web page “pre-session change”. This gives opportunity for “pre-session change” to flourish and may, in some less serious cases, lead to problems “spontaneously” settling
When talking to teacher colleagues it is important to be aware of barriers to successful communication and intervention. These barriers are grouped for convenience into five broad categories below. There could, of course, be many others.
Five barriers to successful working:
1. Feelings (e.g. the teacher may be feeling fed up with psychologists, feeling angry with the child, feeling blamed).
2. Understandings (e.g. not appreciating that they are caught up in interactions where there is circular causation i.e. where the adult’s response is part of the cycle).
3. Time (e.g. working most evenings and weekends together with lunch duty and library duty leaves little time for planning extra programmes).
4. Skills (e.g. the need to develop skills of ignoring and using sanctions effectively and rewarding in a large, busy class may not have been addressed).
5. Stress (note the high stress levels caused by constant curriculum change, appraisal, criticism in the press, difficult children and insensitive psychologists).
There is a fair amount of evidence that teachers are under stress (see for instance Dunham 1992).
He blocks me from all the other children. I've tried all sorts of ways of dealing with him and I get nowhere. He absorbs my energy, my attention. I give him so much and he gives nothing back. I start off feeling compassionate, I'd like to spend more time with him, then frustrated, then angry. He drains all the compassion from me. I feel like screaming. I feel like its my fault. I'm just drained at the end of it (art teacher discussing Michael Platt age 13 in high school Mellor 2008 p.8)
I veer between wanting to strangle her and give her a cuddle. She irritates me beyond words, then I get irritated because of that (teacher discussing Debbie age 10 Mellor 2008 p. 10)
Forget all that touchy-feely crap about your first year being a wonderful learning curve. It’s non-stop, character-defying hell (TES 6.7.01)
Teachers may also firmly believe that emotional and behaviour difficulties in school arise from ‘within-child’ or ‘home-based’ explanations” (Peagam 1995 p.37). Peagam also goes on to point out that “suggestions that such difficulties could be largely eliminated by behavioural approaches, and the deployment of appropriate classroom management skills was firmly rejected [by the teachers in many cases]”(p. 37).
Unfortunately, when talking to teachers, we, as practitioners, often focus our intervention on the skill aspect (explaining behavioural approaches etc.) without taking into account these other equally important factors, concerning beliefs and feelings. For instance, here are some of the things teachers may be thinking or saying when we start to talk to them about a child who is misbehaving in class. These are not based on in-depth “research”, but are given as a (semi-serious) reminder of barriers which may need to be overcome (see Gibb 1988).
Some thoughts that may be running through a teacher’s head
* We expect them to behave well, why should she be rewarded?
* It’s unfair - they’ll all want praise.
* I just want him out of this class.
* It’s unfair to reward the naughty ones.
* She’s a problem - why are you asking me to behave differently?
* Fix it quick please!
* We tried that last term and it didn’t work.
* The last psychologist just used to ask us what we knew, then put it in his report and send it back to us.
* The last psychologist used to say “You’re doing a great job” then bugger off and we wouldn’t see her for months.
Such attitudes must be recognised and addressed. We cannot simply assume immediate willingness to follow our plans is there, just because we have a bright idea about what might work. It is important to develop rapport. But this does not simply happen at one point. In trying to create rapport with teachers it is important to consider the long-term. We can examine how we behave over different time scales:
i. Before the interview
ii. During the interview
iii. After the interview
i. Before the interview we can try to create a “halo” effect of positive relationships with the school, trust, credibility (i.e. the strategies we suggest may be reasonably successful), reliability and a general air of confidence.
ii. During the interview in school we need to be sensitive to the teacher’s feelings and demonstrate empathy, warmth, genuineness. We need to be clear that we have something to offer and need to find a quiet space to talk (see Barker 1986 p. 91-95). In any case we have to decide if this is the best time to start a programme – the end of term, or when special activities are due to happen in school, may not be the best points.
iii. After the interview we need to demonstrate commitment and follow-up. It also helps if things work!
The point at issue here is that “[we] cannot not communicate” (Watzlawick et al 1968 p.49 emphasis in original). In other words, whatever we do in a school communicates some message of either respect and value for a teacher’s feelings, or lack of concern.
It is difficult enough finding time to talk to teachers in primary school - trying to get hold of teachers in high school is even more problematic. This is an example where we discussed Dave Caldicott Yr 9 in high school. The structure of the session was designed to obtain rapport (taken from Mellor 2008 p.74):
(a) A general discussion of “complaints”, so staff felt able to express their concerns freely and felt listened to.
(b) A move away from complaints, to what they had been trying to do.
(c) More concrete examples of the problems.
(d) A brief discussion of attention seeking (carefully, but discretely, emphasising “no blame” throughout).
(e) A focus on the positive behaviours that staff wanted.
Seven teachers happily turned up with the head of year, after school. Dave was very attention seeking and had recently been excluded after a fight outside.
The teachers were all concerned but at a bit of a loss how to deal with him. I began with asking them what they had noticed about him in class. Most of them said he had his hand up all the time. He was moving chairs around, couldn’t sit still, interfered with other children, wouldn’t listen and if there was a problem said “It’s not my fault”. In Art he would paint on other children’s work and even though observed, would say he hadn’t done it. Dave also seemed quite bright.
We discussed the strategies the teachers currently used. The humanities teacher said, “Move him near to where you are and he settles down to work by himself”. The rest laughed about having him too close to you, but saw the point. The science teacher said, “Giving him a little bit of attention, e.g. if I’m doing a demonstration, I get him involved”. The music teacher said they had tried ignoring him but “he gets louder and louder”. I pointed out these comments fitted the picture we were getting, from this and other information, of a boy who needed more than his fair share of attention. The observations were common parts of that pattern, seen in other schools. The staff readily agreed.
I then asked for further details of particular problems in class. The art teacher said he would hum and talk and had a nasty nasal cough “which I can’t tolerate”. Someone else pointed out that he was constantly shouting out, moving around and interfering with other children.
We spent some time talking about the attention seeking explanation then went on to list all the negative behaviours he displayed. Staff, as usual, found this quite an easy, liberating activity. The teachers were then asked as a group to change these negative statements into positive statements, in order to help create targets for them to observe and note and praise. This activity was much more difficult.
We selected a few of these new, positive targets to put on Dave’s report such as “hands up when asking a question”, “listens while teacher talks”, “stays on seat”.
The teachers willingly gave their time and spent about 1½ hours discussing Dave. Staying concrete with clear examples and sharing their concerns, also their ideas about how to handle Dave, seemed to help keep the meeting positively focused.
(4) KEEPING SCHOOLS INFORMED
It is particularly important for schools to realise that change may take some time and that parents need encouragement during this period. Teachers also need to be prepared for behaviour to deteriorate in some cases while parents adopt a new approach. They may initially see the immediate effects of parents beginning to ignore effectively, but not increasing praise at a suitable rate (see Montgomery 1989 p.93 for a school perspective on this). The letter in the attachment at the very end of this web page may be useful here (“temporary deterioration”). It can be amended or extended as seems appropriate.
Most of the discussion in these materials and the manual focuses on the individual child and his or her teacher and parents. Children, however, are part of many systems. One such is the extended family, and some comments, for instance regarding working with grandparents, are included in the manual and “The good the bad and the irritating” (Mellor 2000). However, a very important wider system is the whole school. Here the pupil may interact with several class or subject teachers, pastoral staff, heads of department, heads of year and the head teacher as well as many non-teaching staff – secretaries, dinner supervisors, the caretaker etc. All of these may inadvertently become sucked into an attention seeking cycle and no single person may have oversight of these complex, far reaching interactions. Classic examples are where the head teacher is called on to “discipline” a child, thereby increasing the seriousness of the situation, and increasing the attention received astronomically; or where dinner supervisors (often poorly trained) overreact in ways guaranteed to reinforce rather than reduce attention seeking.
Whole school approaches are often required and my own authority had many in-service training days for schools, bringing in both teaching and non-teaching staff. Attention seeking provides an excellent, practical focus for such events, and provides the whole school with a shared vocabulary and a shared understanding. On a simple practical level, for example, it is helpful to illustrate how attempts to arrange “time out” in a corridor can be the source of endless entertainment and attention for some children (see Mellor 2008 p.55).
Also encouraging staff to see the head as a potential source of powerful rewards rather than simply a vehicle for punishment can be very effective. A survey some colleagues carried out several years ago, in high school, found that the most valued reward would be a letter from the head teacher to parents. And, sadly, it almost never occurred (interestingly, the most feared punishment was also a letter home from the head – but worded rather differently one would imagine!).
Mellor (2008 p.38) reports how one school carried out a survey of the most valued rewards as seen by the pupils. The book also, in many sections, highlights the need for staff to work as a team and how facilitating (sometimes difficult) discussions between staff can reap dividends in sharing ideas on approaches, bringing out different perceptions of the pupil and enhancing consistency (see for example Dave Caldicott earlier).
Even generally effective whole school approaches such as “Assertive Discipline” can founder when a pupil who is displaying extreme attention seeking behaviour stumbles over the annoyance value of rejecting the available rewards and actually welcoming sanctions! The value of whole school thinking can not be too highly stressed.
Dunham J (1992) Stress in Teaching. (3rd edition) London: Routledge
Gibb, C (1988) See you Jimmy …. A search for an Educational Psychologist’s Stereotype. Educational Psychology in Practice, January, 47-50
Montgomery, D. (1989) Managing Behaviour Problems. London: Hodder and Stoughton.
Peagam E ( 1995) Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties: The Primary School Experience In: Farrell P (Ed) Children with Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties: Strategies for Assessment and Intervention. London: The Falmer Press
Watzlawick, P., Beavin, J.H. and Jackson, D.D. (1968) Pragmatics of Human Communication. New York: Norton.