Sample ELL Plan for Post-Institutionalized, Internationally Adopted Student

I thought it might be helpful to add some tools for parents to use when working with their child's school, youth organization, or health care provider.  I'll work on getting things posted over the next few weeks or so.  For now, here is a sample ELL plan I used last year at the request of our school district's English Language Learner's coordinator to educate ELL teachers about the (VERY SIGNIFICANT) difference between a post-institutionalized, internationally-adopted student and a bi-lingual immigrant student living with their biological family.  These students do not learn English in the same way, or at the same rate.

If you've recently come home with your IA child, or if you're planning to bring your child home soon, you may find this document helpful.

--------------------------------------------------------------

**Example**

ELL Plan for Post-Institutionalized, Internationally Adopted Student

References: 

Kansas State Department of Education, English Proficiency Level Descriptions, Spring 2000. Version 2.5 

United States Department of Justice, Civil Rights Department.  Discrimination Against English Language Learner Students (Settlement with Boston Schools documents)  http://www.justice.gov/crt/edo/ellpage.php

Resources: 

Melanie Manares, ESOL Education Program Consultant, Kansas State Department of Education.  Phone:  (785) 296-7929, Email: mmanares@ksde.org 

Office for Civil Rights, Kansas City Office, U.S. Department of Education - 8930 Ward Parkway, Suite 2037 - Kansas City, MO 64114-3302 - Telephone: (816) 268-0550
Fax: (816) 823-1404 – email:  OCR.KansasCity@ed.gov 

Dr. Boris Gindis, Director, Center for Cognitive Developmental Assessment and Remediation.  150 Airport Executive Park, Suite 152, Nanuet, NY 10954, Tel.: (845)694-8496 – http://www.bgcenter.org

   

FIRST OF ALL – IMPORTANT FACTS

1.   It is against the law to place or hold back a child because of language learner status.  No child, not even an internationally adopted child with little or no prior education, can be legally placed at a grade level below his or her age-level peers without the prior and explicit written request of the parents.  The school may not recommend it, nor require it.  Schools MUST place internationally adopted kids according to the age.  Additionally, the school can NOT hold back a student because she or he is not “up to grade level” with their age peers.  Additionally, placing or holding a child, without parental request, due to a lack of prior education is AGAINST THE LAW!

2.  Nearly 100% of all internationally adopted children under the age of 12 will lose their first language within 6 months of coming home to live with their English-only speaking family.  English will become their new first language.  They will not be 2^nd language learners.  They will be learning an entirely new first language.  Post-institutionalized, internationally adopted (PIAI) students will, for the most part, not have sufficient language skills in their native first language due to institutionalization.  Translating English into their old language to “help them understand” actually hurts their English language acquisition.  More importantly, it is DETREMENTAL to their attachment to their English-only speaking, new families.  Even IF someone can speak to a child in his native language at school, THEY SHOULD NOT DO IT!  The child will learn more quickly – not only English, but all academics – and will attach more quickly to their new family.

Within 4 months of being home, most PIAI kids under 12 are doing quite well in their new classroom setting.  While there are still often challenges to re-learning expected behaviors, catching up developmentally and academically, most teachers see a marked difference after a child has been in their classroom by the fourth month.

3.  Teachers CAN NOT expect a PIAI child to “do the work” of their classmates.  Do not expect a child to be “taught to the test.”  Deal with it.  Your PIAI child WILL MESS UP your state test scores, especially during the first 1-2 years home.  Sorry.  But that’s not your student’s problem.  It’s not their parents’ problem either.  YOU MUST MODIFY work for your PIAI student.  The older the student is when they arrive home, the more modification needed, and the longer it will take for your student to perform at grade level.  For example, a boy home at age 12 and in school three years (now 15) still needs considerable modifications on much of his work.  Yet, when he came home, he could not add two digit numbers together.  Today, he is getting A’s in 8^th grade level math.  He is of average intelligence.  His sister, home at age 9 just skipped from 4^th grade into 6^th grade.  She had no more schooling than the average pre-school child in America when she came home.  She is a now a straight “A” student.  Both students were placed in grade levels requested by the parents.

5.  You MUST HAVE a written ELL plan for your PIAI student.  Document all progress!  MOST PIAI students will test out of ELL after their third or fourth full year home.  Their English language acquisition is amazing!  The first few months home can be rough.  The first few years of healing from “Lord of the Flies” behaviors learned in order to survive their very tough start in life can be challenging.  However, most teachers will be amazed at how well their PIAI students are doing with language acquisition as compared to their other ELL students.

ELL Plan Suggestions

for

Student Name

Grade __ - School Name

Submitted by Your Name (Your Role), Date 

Qualifying Need	English as (student’s name) new first language, replacing his original first language of (Spanish/Russian/Mandarin/etc).  Residence in the USA since (date) with no prior English language abilities before adoption into an American family. Listening: Speaking: Reading Comprehension: Writing: *See English Language Proficiency Descriptions above.
Language Arts	Modify written assignments to include projects.  Allow for appropriate reading level materials.  Do not expect student to read at levels of age peers.    Correct spelling and sentence structure but avoid substantial grading on these.  Weight any reading logs lower for grading purposes than most other students due to mental energy exerted and stress related to required reading.  Provide support for academic language.  Make sure directions for assignments are understood. Allow for shorter tests and modified assignments.  Possibly allow take-home tests or modified tests.  Provide easy access to a safe person or safe place to which (student) may retreat if feeling stressed.  Provide for teacher's awareness to signs (student) is shutting down or withdrawing. NOTE:  PIAI children go into a “Language Limbo” between losing their first language and gaining English as their new first language.  They are unable to translate “in their heads” like other ELL students from bi-lingual backgrounds.  The way they learn is NOT THE SAME!  See articles by Dr. Boris Gindis – resource website above.
Social Studies	Provide professional or peer guidance for understanding academic language.  Establish take-home academic vocabulary within context of material covered in class. Allow for shorter tests and modified assignments.  Possibly allow take-home tests or modified tests.  Provide easy access to a safe person or safe place to which (student) may retreat if feeling stressed.  Provide for teacher's awareness to signs (student) is shutting down or withdrawing.  Do not take basic world knowledge for granted.  Avoid surprise assignments including out-of-ordinary homework assignments or pop quizzes.  Give clear, simple directions for assignments.  Break directives into simple steps, simply worded.  Encourage shared note-taking.  Substitute or supplement textbook reading assignments and classroom discussions with direct experience through film, CD's, recordings or internet links.
Science	Provide academic vocabulary within context of material covered.  Modify tests to include clear multiple-choice questions.  If fill-in-the blank tests are used, make the blank the size of the correct answer.  Use a word bank. Allow for peer interaction and cooperative learning activities based on kinesthetic techniques.  Allow for modified test arrangements.  Be aware of student’s limited world knowledge and explain concepts in very simple terms, using one or two syllable words.    Encourage shared note-taking.  Substitute or supplement textbook reading assignments and classroom discussions with direct experience and audio/visual materials, CD's, recordings or computer programs/links.  Reinforce verbally anything presented in a traditional format.
Math	Allow extra time for student to work on concepts not previously learned.  Assign student fewer problems for homework – only enough practice to ensure understanding or to assess knowledge (or lack of knowledge).  Allow extended time to complete calculations.  Allow student to “skip” problems she/he is unable to complete within a given time.  Provide adequate examples (for student's sake as well as parents'). Work with student to space problems far enough apart to allow room for calculations and reduce distractions.  Group similar problems.  Consider using graph paper to aid student in lining up place value accurately.  Limit word problems.  Understand student  concepts like the passage of time, charted schedules, etc. are things which student has no prior concept of before coming to America due to institutionalization/orphanage living.  While the student will learn much quickly, he/she will be overwhelmed with information and will not be capable of retaining it all.
Art/Music	View art as therapy for (student).  Place very few, if any requirements on work.  Break instructions down into simple steps, using simple vocabulary.  Ask student to repeat instructions back to teacher or class.
Physical Education/Gym	Present directions in clear, easy-to-understand vocabulary. Allow for rest if student complains of chest pain or a headache.  Be aware of signs of distress and modify activity or allow retrieval to a safe person or safe place if student is feeling inadequate or overwhelmed. BE VERY AWARE of post-institutionalized behavior.  Your student will likely be quite competitive and will even make themselves ill trying to be “first” in any sort of physical contest.
General Academic Considerations for ALL SUBJECTS And ALL Teachers	-IMPORTANT:  -DO NOT EXPECT GRADE LEVEL WORK until the third or fourth year home for students under 8.  (For students between the ages of 8-12+, do not expect grade level work with age peers until even later.) -OMIT ANY BIOGRAPHICAL ASSIGNEMENTS!  Do not even ask.  Do not ask your student about their background.  Period.  (Read Boris Gindis articles for more education on why not.) -Introduce key vocabulary before an assignment. -Give student opportunity to read aloud or verbalize assignments to peers, ELL teacher or a para familiar with the child. -Provide assistance for answering text-based questions. -Provide tests that are typed and neatly printed, clearly legible, with ample space for responses. -Avoid “trick” questions, slang, jargon and idioms. -Allow student break or rest time. -Allow easy access to a safe persons (This might be the ELL teacher or counselor.) -Preview assignments to orient student to a topic. -Develop a study guide or outline for material covered. -Allow student to use graphic aids such as maps, charts, posters, videos, computer, etc. -Allow for open book or take home tests. -Allow for memory aids, cues and references. -Provide opportunity to retest if necessary.  Be aware of the trauma experienced by any sense of failure due to any PIAI child’s past. -Provide experience & discussion before and after reading or introducing new concepts as a frame of reference and reinforcement. -Ask “WHAT” a student understands vs. “IF” they understand.   Have the student tell you specifically what it is they believe the assignment to be. -Directly and specifically point out relationships, as students are often confused about what is “real” and what is “imaginary” or fiction because of limited world knowledge.  (Again, this is true for ANY PIAI child.) -Omit assignments requiring rote copying.  A brain in “language limbo” does not absorb material by copying material.  -Omit scrambled word assignments. -Use demonstration to teach whenever possible. -Provide manipulative objects whenever possible. -Provide self-correcting materials, if available. -Pay special attention to trauma triggers.  ALL PIAI children are traumatized.  Just being adopted and brought to a new country is a significant traumatic experience.  (See more about trauma and attachment in adoption at www.attach.org, http://blogspot.traumamamat.org , and other web sites.)

©Trauma Mama T 2011 – All Rights Reserved

Please contact Trauma Mama T for permission to reprint.

More About Grief & Loss: Dreams

Wow, how about this?!  Two posts in one day from Trauma Mama T.   Seriously, I didn’t think I had it in me.  But really, I struggled with whether or not to post what I’m about to write.  It’s a bit personal.  Still, I think it may be helpful for me to write it down.  Writing helps me to process things.  What I write may also be helpful for some of you, dear readers.

I’ve written about grief and loss in adoption on my blog before.  You can read that post here.  Today, though, I want to talk more about anniversaries.  You see, January is the anniversary of a significant traumatic incident in my kids’ lives – and especially in the life of my youngest son.  He’s 16 now.  He was 6.5 when this very significant trauma happened.  My son’s first father died at his own hand, and my son is the one who found his body.  This may shock some of you.  Others are no longer shockable because they know this or worse.  But this is our life.  This was my kids’ life.  It’s not something anyone “gets over.”

I have two pictures of my youngest children’s birth father (one of their birth mother).  In one photo, my kids’ first father is standing proudly, looking very Eastern European, not smiling, of course, and is behind his sister as they pose for her wedding picture.  He is young and handsome.  His hair is wavy, just like my son’s.  He looks a lot like my son.  In the other picture, his birth mother is also visible (though grainy).  My son is in this picture, as well as many of his birth father’s family.  They are standing around his father’s coffin.  The coffin lid is open and they are saying goodbye before they bury him.  His face is clearly visible.  (My daughter would have been 3.5 at the time.  She did not attend the funeral, according to my son’s paternal grandmother.)

I haven’t been sleeping well lately.  I’m stressed about several things.  Financial stuff, mainly.  It happens.  Anyway, I came out to the sofa two nights ago so I wouldn’t keep my husband awake with my tossing and turning.  At about 4 a.m., my son came out and turned on the computer.  He’s not supposed to be on the computer unsupervised.  (It’s password protected, but he keeps figuring out the password anyway.)  He’s certainly not supposed to be up at 4 a.m., wandering around the house.  He didn’t know I was in the room.  He was very focused, it seemed, on just getting to the computer. 

I asked him (sternly), “What are you doing?”  He replied, “I’m going on the computer.”  I told him to get off the computer and go back to bed.  When we got up to get ready for work/school, he told my husband he’d had a bad dream.  He didn’t remember actually going to the computer, he said.  He just remembers being told by me to get off the computer.  He said he’d had a bad dream about his biological father.  His father was chasing him and trying to hurt him, maybe even trying to kill him (we have no record of his birth father ever trying to harm him other than neglecting him when separated from his mother, though we do know one of the men his mother ran around with was very violent).  He said his father told him he had to get a paper off our computer to prove that his father was really alive.  Our son said he thinks he must have been sleepwalking.  I didn’t believe him, frankly.  I still don’t.  He’s lied so many times to cover his actions.

He didn’t seem “with it” before school and I asked him if he was okay.  He seemed almost ill.  I asked him if he wanted to stay home from school.  He did not.  So he went to school.  Later that evening, when my husband was home from work and dinner was over, the three of us sat down to process the dream.

Our son said he’d been thinking a lot about his birth father lately and sometimes he has a hard time believing the man is really dead.  I asked him if he remembers the funeral and he says he does, but that seems like it was a dream, too.  I asked him if he wanted me to show him the photograph and/or the copy of his birth father’s death certificate.  He did not want to see either.  So we talked. 

I reminded him how we’ve learned in therapy that anniversaries can trigger big feelings even when we’re not aware of them.  I reminded him that January was the anniversary of his father’s death and, just like I had a hard time last December 1^st (the 10^th anniversary of my mother’s death), he was likely having a hard time with the anniversary of his father’s death, too.  It was normal.  It’s what the middle part of brains do when we remember traumatic things.  We told him how sorry we were that he’d had to go through that.  We said no kid should have to go through what you went through and what you still have to go through now.  He’s a big, very strong, 16 year old boy.  But in that moment, as we talked, he was a very sad 6.5 year old again who needed to be held.  I asked him if we could hug him – something he usually resists.  We stood and he melted into my husband’s arms, my arms around the both of them.  He sobbed for a long time.  He did not let go of his Daddy.  It was pretty amazing.

I could have pushed the computer issue.  I could have challenged him and said he was lying about sleep walking.  I do believe he really did want to get on the computer and see if there was some way he could prove whether or not his birth father was alive or dead.  But this wasn't about lying or covering his tracks.  It wasn’t about using the computer at 4 a.m. without supervision.  

It was about grief.

Him.  Holding my husband.  Allowing my husband to hold him.  A.  Long.  Time. 

Wow.

Again, I know this is pretty personal.  One of the reasons I blog anonymously is so that I can help others as I process big things myself.  I trust that those of you who know me (and thus already know the basics of my kids’ stories) will protect us as well.

Dear Teacher: About My Child in Your Classroom

Dear Teacher,

Thank you for your willingness to spend your days inside a classroom with two to three dozen energetic children.  You must certainly be an exceptional person.  While each of your students is exceptional as well, a child who has suffered from significant, complex past traumatic stress (C-PTSD) and reactive attachment disorder issues (RAD) is enrolled in your class this year.  This child is indeed “exceptional.”

Children suffering from C-PTSD and RAD, or “RADish” issues, can come from various walks of life and live in different family structures.  My child was adopted in 2007 at the age of 12.  Until his adoption, my son lived in an orphanage for special needs children located in a former Soviet state.  His birth country is now its own independent and proud nation, but its child welfare system is still much as it was decades ago throughout Eastern Europe.  Specific details of my son’s story are private, but in order for you to understand what this child has been through, there are some specific things you need to know.  These things are to be discussed only with me, or with professionals you work with at school, and on a confidential basis only.  These things are never to be discussed in the classroom.  There is never a need to announce to your class that my child was adopted.  (Yes, there are teachers who’ve made that mistake.)  Don’t do it.  Not ever.  It’s common knowledge for many, but it is not a topic for classroom discussion.

In the orphanage, my son slept in a room with a few dozen other boys ages 7 to 16.  He saw things that boys do who are unsupervised during much of their time.  These things would put children into rehab programs for child predators here in the states.  Some of those things he may have seen – he probably did see – they may have happened to him, too.  We will never know the full story.  Our son was abused and neglected by orphanage workers.  He had belongings stolen from him.  He stole (and sometimes still steals) things, too.  He learned to lie and to act as well as any award winning movie actor.  He was beat often by both adults and other children.  The scars you see on his body were not put there because of normal childhood accidents.  Those scars are from things that happened to him both in the orphanage and in his first family, years before we ever knew him.

My son may seem pretty “normal” to you most of the time.  He wants very much to “just be normal.”  The fact is, the trauma of his past and the abuse and neglect he suffered during the first 12 years of his life have altered the way he thinks and the way he functions in the world.  These are not things that are healed with time or love.  C-PTSD and RAD are not curable.  They are not miracles just waiting for God to heal.  They are life-long challenges for which my son needs to learn skills in order to navigate this life and be productive in society.  He has the potential to lead a life far different than the life he knew as a young child, but please understand his brain is FOREVER changed because of those early years.

The Association for Treatment and Training in the Attachment of Children (www.ATTACh.org) defines attachment as a “reciprocal process by which an emotional connection develops between a baby and its parent.”  Attachment influences the child’s physical, neurological, cognitive, and psychological development.  It is the foundation of the development of basic trust and shapes how the child relates to the world, how he learns, and how he forms relationships throughout life.

When a child’s needs are not met, or if his needs are only met on a sporadic basis, his brain is forever changed.  He operates from a systemic need to fight or flee.  Fear and shame are his base emotions.  Survival is his base motivation.  He must gain control.  Otherwise, he feels, quite literally, like he will die.  This is the nuts and bolts of C-PTSD and RAD.

His reactions can appear in several ways.  Unless you know what to look for, you might even miss a reaction to something that has triggered his trauma and caused him to go into that “flight or fight” mode.  Kids who deal with C-PTSD and RAD are often either very inhibited (withdrawn, passive/aggressive, sneaky) or very dis-inhibited (hyper-active, talkative/argumentative, superficially charming).  And sometimes, a kid who is usually inhibited, can display himself as very disinhibited, or visa versa.

You can read about things to look for in traumatized and attachment disordered children at this blog post:  If It Walks Like a Duck

You probably learned in your Child Psychology class in college that babies learn to regulate themselves emotionally and behaviorally in the arms of loving parents.  When a baby cries, the attentive parent soothes the child through rocking, feeding, singing, touching, and lovingly gazing into that baby’s eyes.  This helps the child learn to self-sooth in an emotionally healthy way and to cope with strong emotions such as rage.  Children who are not held or comforted when distressed learn to self-sooth in other ways, some of them very destructive.  Rage is not something that they can cope with easily and for this reason, many children with RAD or C-PTSD have difficulty regulating their emotions and behavior.  They’ve learned to survive.  Some of the behaviors they employ to survive do not serve them well in society or at school.  However, hurt kids are not “bad.”  They are not acting out because they are “spoiled.” 

Another thing to understand as my child’s teacher is this:  I did not cause this hurt for my children.  My children came to me deeply hurt.  I need to parent my hurt children with methods that are very different than the traditional parenting methods I used to raise four healthy, well-adjusted and productive biological sons.  I am not coddling my hurt children.  I am not spoiling them.  They are not “getting away with murder.”  Any behaviors you see or report you may hear (true or false), you would see or hear no matter in what good family my child was placed.  My child is a resilient survivor.  His survivor instinct is well-ingrained into his very psyche and he continues to use strategies that enabled him to cope through multiple traumatic events including his mother’s abuse and prostitution, his father’s neglect and suicide, his parents’ and extended family’s drinking, and his placement into a very corrupt and abusive orphanage system.  There is no glossing over the trauma of his past.  I will not make it “pretty” to protect you because it will serve neither you nor him to do so.  Please don’t pity my child.  Understand he’s been through much more than we will ever fully imagine.  But, his survival strategies are no longer effective.  We are working hard as a family, together with our child’s therapist and other support services, to help our child learn how to have his best life now that he is safe.  We also need your help and cooperation.

I am one of those parents that teachers are always saying they wished there were more of, but then complain about as “helicopter parents” soon after.  It is true that I am intensely involved in my child’s therapy and healing.  My child is not – cannot – be parented by the traditional parenting methods that helped me before I adopted.  I have spent a graduate degree’s worth of time researching, learning, writing about, counseling, teaching, and practicing methods to help my child and other hurt children.  I am not naïve.  I know what you have to deal with in the classroom every single day.  I’ve been there.  I know now, however, I am not meant to be in a classroom every day.  But I also know my child is not your only student.  In fact, I know on average, you have five attachment disordered and traumatized children in your class, though you may not be fully aware of it, as they may be undiagnosed.  Helping a child who has suffered the kind of trauma my child has suffered is hard.  REALLY hard.  It’s hard as his teacher.  It’s many times more hard as his parent.

There are some VERY IMPORTANT things you can remember to do in your classroom in order to help my child:

1.  Remain calm.  Even when you feel like letting my child really have “it,” stay calm.  A child who manages to upset or anger you is in control of the situation.  Model and verbalize desired behaviors:  calm voice, open and relaxed arms and stance, attentive eye contact, friendly face.

2.       Stay in contact with us – the child’s parents/family.  We are excellent sources of information about our children’s strengths and current challenges.  Many of us are very well educated and can provide you with resources that will help you better understand our children, as well as other children with traumatic backgrounds.  And this is really IMPORTANT:  Remember children with RADish issues often attempt to maintain control by creating chaos with triangulation.  “Crazy” is what feels “normal” to them.  Triangulating all individuals – especially the adults – is a favored way to create chaos.  (For example a child trying to triangulate adults may tell his teacher, “My mom said I didn’t need to do my homework at all.” Or “My mom wouldn’t let me study for the test; she was too busy making me clean the bathroom/give her a backrub/cook her dinner/pick up dog poop in the yard.”)  CHECK WITH the child’s parents, other educators, youth ministers, coaches, etc. before believing what a traumatized child says.  Maintain a respectful and professional relationship with the child.  Remember you are not their primary caregiver.  Parents are to be where the child receives hugs, cuddles, food, and treats.  Don’t buy into the “poor me” or “poor orphan” mentality.

3.  Traditional methods of discipline do not work for traumatized children.  Avoid the use of punishment as a negative motivator for the behavior you’d like to see.  It produces resentment, retaliation, or retreat into sneakiness.  A week of missed recess or a missed activity is meaningless in terms of changing behavior.  It will escalate.  Make consequences natural results of choices.  STAY CALM.  Do not raise your voice.  Say, “Oh, how sad for you that you’ve not done your work on time.  You’re lucky to have an awesome teacher who will give you the chance to practice these skills while the rest of the class is doing computer time.”

4.      Avoid those behavior management plans that everyone at NEA tells you to use.  They’re based on consistency, and that makes them easy targets for manipulation for kids with C-PTSD and RADish behaviors.  These plans also let students know just how much you value certain behaviors.  My hurt kids love to “question” (a.k.a. ARGUE) and get into useless discussions about valued behaviors and rules.  It’s not that they don’t need to know the rules.  They do!  It’s just that children with RAD have difficulty figuring out cause and effect.  Remember, they need to feel in control in order to feel safe.  The “rewards” of behavior management plans (candy, prizes, etc.) mean little to attachment disordered kids.  In fact, little gifts and prizes that are often part of behavior management plans can set them off into really crazy triggers their parents wind up having to deal with at home later.  You may never see it, but your actions caused it.  So don’t go with this old standard when it comes to hurt kids.  It’s harmful, not helpful.

5.      Provide natural consequences the first time.  Do not give the child a second chance.  Keep consequences as logical outcomes to the behavior, but ensure the child “makes things right” the first time.  Otherwise, you give the message that the behavior is “okay.”  (Also, never say, “It’s okay” when it’s not.)  Attachment disordered children are black and white thinkers.  Second chances and warnings are perceived as threats and will force hurt kids into that fight or flight mode of thinking.

6.      Establish eye contact.  Attachment disordered kids – especially those who display inhibited attachment disorder – dissociate from others and from situations when they feel threatened.  Keep them in the here and now – in the moment.  Remind them they are safe.  Say it out loud to them!  “You are safe.  You are not going to be hurt.  You are in Mrs. Smith’s classroom and we work together here.”  Remember to stay calm.  Be matter-of-fact even as you are firm.

7.      Ask “what” questions such as “What are you feeling?”  or “What happened?”  Avoid “why” questions.  Our hurt children mean it when they say, “I don’t know” in answer to a why question.  Why questions are fruitless.  Ignore obvious lies in the heat of the moment.  Remember the child is in survival mode and confronting the lie will only escalate the situation.  If the child is unable to tell you what happened, give yourself and the child a “time in” where the child stays nearby until he is ready to talk.  Do not shame the child with a “time out.”  This will send him further into withdrawal and reinforce the feelings of neglect and worthlessness so ingrained in him due to early neglect and abuse.

8.      Use actions.  Not so much words.  If a child continually tips his chair, remove it.  Let him sit on the floor.  If a child refuses to wear a jacket, don’t force the issue.  Let them experience the natural consequence of being cold.

9.      Use one-liners when you do need to use words.  They make kids think, instead of tuning you out.  They place responsibility on the child.  They let the child know you will not be provoked and are effective tools for you to use to avoid power struggles and additional trauma triggers.  The fewer the words, the better.  Remember to use a CALM, matter-of-fact voice.  Sarcasm and anger counteract the good one-liner.  Some of my favorites:

a.       “Sucks for you.”  (Probably not appropriate in the classroom, but you can modify it.  Besides, I was going for the laugh.  Did you laugh?)

b.       “Bummer, Dude.”

c.      “What do you think about that?”

d.      “What are you going to do about that?”

e.      “How are you going to handle that?”

f.       “How would you handle that next time?”

g.      “Hmm, and how did that work for you?”

h.      “Thanks for your honesty.”

i.       “I respect you and myself too much to argue with you.”

j.       If he/she whines, “Why?”  Say, “If you don’t figure it out by [time], I’ll explain it to you.”

k.      “I listen to one person at a time. . . Thanks.”

l.       “I’ll be glad to listen when your voice is as soft and as calm as mine.”

m.    When a child tells you that “you never do” or that “you don’t do” like another teacher say, “That’s right!”

n.      When the child tries to argue say, “I know.”  (Student:  Math rots!  Teacher:  I know.)

o.     When a student degrades himself and says, “I can’t do this.” Or “I’m too stupid,” you say, “Aren’t you glad I don’t believe that.”  Then walk away.

For more information about post-institutionalized children, RAD, and C-PTSD visit websites such as www.ATTACh.org, www.bgcenter.com, and www.beyondconsequences.com.

Please feel free to contact me with any questions you may have about older child adoption, international adoption, post-institutionalized children, post traumatic stress disorder or attachment disorder.  I look forward to partnering with you this year so that my child learns all he can in your classroom.

Sincerely,

Your Student’s Parent