bad behavior now a disorder

[merchimerch]

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nationworld/bal-te.anger17jul17,0,7903653.story?page=1

This article is especially apt after a day of being a first grade teacher. I had a kid who was a behavior problem much of the day, who broke into tears because he missed his father. I asked if his dad was picking him up and he said "no, I won't be seeing him for a long time." My heart went out to the kid and I tried to deal with him with a combination of compassion and firmness. By the end of the day he was able to transition from a crying spell to calmly coloring at his desk, which I consider a victory.

So how does this fit in with the various disorders described skeptically in the article? I'm not sure how I feel about all of this these labels and especially the drugs that go with them. I think that there are a collection of traits that you can list that deserve the label oppositional defiant disorder. I think it is good to train educators and parents how to deal with students with all of these "disorders," including "mathematics disorder" and the "disorder of written expression." Educators and parents should be given strategies to help our kids of varying abilities and behavioral proclivities succeed. Maybe the labels themselves have utility, but I'm pretty sure that treating many of them with drugs does not.

I keep thinking about the behaviors that could fall under the category of disorder in the students that I teach. Most of the time, they are impovershed and their home life is a wreck. The past 6 months of subbing has convinced me that poverty causes oppositional defiant behavior - or maybe it is a lack of hope and complete disenfranchisement that really brings it to the forefront. Regardless of how we label it, we need to deal with it. I wish that instead of NCLB, that they gave teachers real strategies for dealing with classrooms full of variously disordered children.

And then I have to ask how much of it is cultural - we are an oppositional and defiant culture, by and large. We don't value obedience and quiet time as a society, so how can we expect it of our children?

Comments

[iyindo.livejournal.com]

"mathematics disorder"????

"disorder of written expression"????

what the hell are those? i think anybody who's been IN a classroom knows that such things are not "disorders" they're just differences in aptitudes for various things.

wouldn't it be great if we gave the kid who can't sit in his seat the diagnosis of "kinesthetic aptitude"? i hate the thought of thinking of everyone as disordered. and i certainly DON'T think of MY kids that way.

as for poverty, disenfranchisement, homelife wreck causing oppositional defiant behavior... i don't buy THAT either. 90% of my kids from backgrounds with those issues, and *I* would argue that they are surprisingly well-behaved and respectful in spite of it.

frankly, i think that if most educators knew how to make their students feel truly loved, there would be a lot less oppositional defiant behavior. that's just my 2 cents.

[merchimerch.livejournal.com]

I agree that the mathematics disorder thing is kind of a crock, but if you want to create the semantic framework where everything is a "disorder," then I suppose a lack of mathematics skills would fit. The thing I find REALLY scary about this is that all of these things now have a designer drug that is supposed to "fix" it. If they were suggesting parenting strategies and teaching methods to help these kids it would be one thing, but this seems like a giant excuse to market more drugs to young kids.

And maybe saying that poverty and messed up homelife "causes" oppositional defiant disorder is a little strong, but I do think it increases the risk factor significantly. I've just seen too many kids in a wide variety of age groups and schools that can't deal with school because they can't deal with home and don't have the basics. One of the big problems I perceive is that a lot of teachers seem to make things worse by get authoritarian on these kids and inconsistent in their enforcement and consequences. There is way too little positive reinforcement in most of the classes I've seen.

[meliny.livejournal.com]

We also, as a society, don't want to raise our kids. We want to have them, we're supposed to you know, two cars, a two story house and 2.3 children. But raising them? No, that's work. So many of them are being raised cattle-fashion and parents are too tired to be parents at the end of the day. We've bought, lock, stock and barrel the belief that both parents have to work. My generation proved that latch-key kids grown up to be ok, but in my generation only 1 in 10 kids was home alone. Now 9.5 in 10 kids are.

Regardless of how we label it, we need to deal with it.

I agree, and sadly, I think we won't (deal with it).

[merchimerch.livejournal.com]

I think that the belief that both parents *have* to work stems from economic conditions. The fact that one parent working a regular job really doesn't support a family combined with the idea that more things are *necessities* (iPods, cellphones, highspeed internet, cable, etc) means that if families are going to conform to the image of middle class life, the really do need two working parents. It is sad and one of the primary reasons that both R and I are heading toward careers in education - so we can be home when our kids home.

[sps.livejournal.com]

Right. I was stuck in this school where all the other kids had IQ-under-200 disorder.

I worry that what's really going on is that they are trying to soften us up for a drug-based treatment of the-government-is-evil disorder.

Once there was supposed to be a war on drugs, you remember that? But they didn't mean it.

Gack, today I feel like all the literary dystopias are coming true.