Managing Disruptive Behaviours Case Study I

Overview The adolescent in this case is a sixteen year old in year eleven, who is displaying disruptive behaviour in the school setting.

He has previously been a well behaved student who has experienced academic and athletic success. However since his parents divorce eighteen months previously he has begun to act out, and the school does not appear to be having any success in managing his behaviour. The schools behaviour management plan appears to be very weak as discussed in detail below- for numerous reasons including a lack of professionalism by the staff, and a lack of collaboration with the adolescents parents. As the videos are solely school focused, and there is no interaction between the home and school, we have minimal information about his behaviour in the home environment. We do know that the mother has custody, and there is conflict within the home as the adolescents mother asked him to leave and go into foster care suggesting that the father is now completely absent from the adolescents life. I believe that his misbehaviour in school is attributed to interlinked factors; trying to gain control over (even if its in a negative manner) of one aspect of his life, as his parents divorce possibly damaged his internal locus of control, and also taking advantage of the feeble behaviour management plan in place in his school. He has not been diagnosed with a psychopathology, and appears to be on a juvenile episodic delinquency trajectory.

Discussion I do not believe that this adolescent has a psychopathology, but rather is a seeking a reputation a conscious choice and this reputation seeking is being facilitated by the weak behaviour management program implemented at his school. Reputation Enhancement Theory states that adolescents choose a reputation, and then seeks to promote that reputation; in order to do so, they need an audience social visibility and feedback. In summation, in order to feel like they possess a delinquent reputation,

adolescents need to be seen committing delinquent acts. The way behaviour management is conducted at this school provides the adolescent with this social visibility and feedback from the video observations, every instance of behaviour management takes place in a public domain. One such example is the deputy principal confronting the adolescent about his behaviour in a crowded hallway. In this instance, not only does the adolescent have an audience to hear about his previous delinquent behaviour, but the deputy principal makes the mistake of engaging in a power struggle with the adolescent. In this instance, the adolescent wins the power struggle and manages to evade any consequences for his actions. Staff relinquishing power to the adolescent, and allowing him to avoid consequences appears to be recurring themes in this case; and these themes will be examined further later on in this The deputy principals office is another example of reputation seeking adolescents being provided with a public arena to promote their delinquent reputation. Students are sent to the office for misbehaviour in class, which in theory is a good practice as it should allow behaviour management to take place without a peer audience. However, in practice, this particular school has all the misbehaving students in one room, where they can witness the deputy principal reprimand the other students. Additionally, the Theory of Deliberate Choice aspect of the Reputation Enhancing Goals theory states that engagement with like-minded peers will aid and prompt delinquent adolescents to fulfil the reputation enhancing goals theyve created. By placing these students in this setting, where not only are they providing social visibility to other delinquent adolescents, but they are also being provided with opportunity to associate with like-minded peers. If the school does have a structured behavioural management plan in place, its merits are not evident from the video observations and it certainly isnt being enforced effectively as the staff are allowing the adolescent to manipulate it. One of the ways in which the staff are allowing the adolescent to manipulate the schools behavioural management plan is by relinquishing power to him. The staff do this in numerous ways; When viewing his interactions with the deputy principal in the office, the adolescent is clearly in a position of power, based on body language. The deputy principal puts himself in a passive position, sitting down behind a desk, whilst allowing the adolescent to stand and

move around. The deputy principal also addresses the adolescent, plus other students, in a manner which suggests he is their friend, rather than an authority figure to be respected. Another way in which the staff relinquish their power is by making the adolescent explicitly aware that he being given copious second chances that would not be awarded to other students. By making the adolescent continuously aware that he is getting special treatment, he is taking this an open invitation to keep misbehaving as there are no tangible consequences for his actions as the school is altering their policies for him. This ties in with the other issue mentioned previously that the school is allowing the adolescent evade any consequences for his actions. As discussed previously, the school does this by continuously giving the adolescent second chances. Unlike what many schools use for chronically delinquent students, there appears to be no formal written behavioural contract for the student to agree to a weakness in the schools behaviour management plan which the adolescent is able to exploit. But the school also allows him to physically elude situations in which the staff attempt to reprimand him. One such instance has been discussed previously when the deputy principal engaged in a power struggle with the adolescent in the hall way, which ended with the student escaping the situation by walking away without any repercussions. Other similar scenes can also be seen during the video, including a scene in which the adolescent leaves school grounds. Similarly, the school attempts to use class exclusion as a behavioural management method, however when the adolescent leaves the classroom, the staff fail to monitor him. As a result the adolescent is able to wander the school, being rewarded than reprimanded for poor behaviour. During the scenes in which the adolescent is wandering the school corridors, a couple of administration staff members ask why he is not in class and he gives them the excuse that he has permission to be out of class. Instead of checking with his classroom teacher that this is true and then following him back to class, they engage in casual conversation with the adolescent before then letting him continue wander around the school. One point of concern is that from the videos there appears to be no communication between the school and the home. Even when the adolescent is removed from his home and placed in foster care,

there appears to be no direct contact with his parents. This is a key reason for the schools behaviour management plan being ineffective not only is it not being implemented well at school, but it doesnt extend into the home. This is particularly worrying as the adolescents behavioural problems originate from disruption in his home life, and is displaying misbehaviour in that environment as well. Most importantly, parents have a greater impact on the management of their childrens behaviour, compared to the school, so it is vital that they are involved in the behaviour management process at school. Ideally, there should be regular meetings between the parents and the staff, discussing the issues that the adolescent is facing at schools, strategies to deal with these issues and any progress that is being made. Conclusion As stated in the overview, I believe that the divorce of the adolescents parents has been a trigger in this adolescents misbehaviour. However, if the school had a better and more structure behaviour management plan which involved collaboration with the parents, the adolescents behaviour would have not escalated to the level it has. Therefore, I believe these two factors have equal weighting in the current situation, and whilst the former cannot be rectified, the school can improve its behaviour management program or the parents can enrol their child in a school which does have an effective behaviour management program in place.