It Takes a Village to Raise a Child:
Raising Resilient Children through
Positive Behavioral Supports
Clayton R. Cook, PhD, LP
Associate Professor
School Psychology
College of Education
Associate Director
School Mental Health Assessment,
Research, and Training (SMART) Center
University of Washington
Big Question?
 What skills are babies
born with?
Gerber Baby
Two Worlds Students Inhabit
• Home
• Parent
Awareness
• School
Expectations
Monitoring
Support
Expectations
Monitoring
Support
ParentTeacher
Contact
Teacher-parent
contact
Tracking
grades,
behavior,
attendance
Behavior,
Homework
patterns, life
stressors
• School
Awareness
What skills enable
children to be
successful later in life?
Resilience Defined
Resilience: the ability to survive and thrive in the face of
life’s daily ups and downs, curve balls, and stressors.
Survival skills (manage stress, bounce back):
 Bounce back after a challenging, adverse situation
 Manage and overcome stressors
 Minimize life suffering
Thriving skills (feeling good & getting the most out of
life):
 Flourishing
 Optimize mental and physical well-being and quality of
life
 Reaching one’s own full potential
All Children Can Develop Resilience
 Resilience does not require something rare or
special—it’s ordinary magic.
Number of Resilience Factors and
Life Satisfaction
SOURCE: http://www.michaelfurlong.info/research/covitality.htmlng
Ingredients to becoming a
resilient person
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Developing helpful and optimistic thinking
Receiving “good” social support
Gratitude practices
Good sleep
Healthy, reasonable, balanced diet
Acts of kindness for others
Manage intense negative emotions
Regular physical activity
Mindfulness-based practices
Problem-solving conflicts with others
Scheduling time for recreation and relaxation
Receiving mentoring
Identifying inspiring role models
Cultivating positive emotions
Goal setting and developing a plan to overcome obstacles
PRACTICE!!!!!
Neurons that fire together
wire together (Hebb’s Rule)
Formation of habits (automatic thoughts, feelings, behaviors)
Child Well-Being
Whole-Person Perspective
 Academic, social-emotional, and physical functioning are
all interconnected (not separate)
PHYSICAL
HEALTH
ACADEMICS
SOCIALEMOTIONAL
Objective and Subjective
Well-Being
Objective Well-being
 Grades
 Attendance
 Participation in
extracurricular activities
Subjective Well-being
 Sense of belonging or
connection
 Joy for Learning
 Educational Purpose
 # of friends
 Self-efficacy
 $$$$
 Life satisfaction
All Humans Thrive within Positive Environments—
Climate
Critical
Attention to negative
Reactive, punitive
Rejecting students
Unstructured
Can’t you do better
Staff not on the same page
“You’re not doing it right!”
“You better or else!”
Compassionate
Attention to positive
Proactive, supportive
Accepting students
Structured, organized
Encouraging
Staff on the same page
“You’re doing great!”
“You’re a great kid!”
ngredients to Promoting and Optimizing
Child Well-Being
1
Ingredients to Promoting Child Social,
Emotional, and Academic Success
 Positive relationships so all students feel sense of
belonging/acceptance, trust, and understanding
 Positive, predictable and structured environments that
enable children to feel a sense of security and
understanding of what is expected of them
 Teaching of skills, habits, and routines that enable
social, emotional, and academic success
 Developing a sense of agency, purpose, and
motivation
 Focus on meeting children’s needs to be successful
(needs-driven focus)
Child-focused
supports
Home-based
supports
School-based
supports
Child
Wellbeing
&
Resilience
Practices that Result
in Resilient Children
Avoiding the Blame Game
Adult Skills and Well-being
 Adults’ skills and their own well-being are
stronger predictors of child success than
is the amount of money the family makes,
the child’s IQ, and quality of academic
curriculum
“First, put your oxygen mask on and
then proceed to assist others.”
Child wellbeing begins with parent or caregiver wellbeing
ACHIEVER Practices
Awareness and Empowerment through mindfulness practices
Choosing your attention and Practicing gratitude
Helping and doing good deeds for others
Inner helpful & optimistic thoughts
Establishing good role models and social support
Values clarification and commitment
Exercise, eat well, and engage in good sleep
Reward yourself through relaxation and recreation
Children benefit greatly from growing up in
positive, predictable, and safe environments
 Clear expectations for behavior and
effective limit setting
 Positive relationships characterized
by low conflict
 Higher ratio of positive interactions to
negative interactions
 High levels of respect & support
when the person needs it
 Adults modeling positive attitude &
outlook about life
Scheduling Child Time:
Building Strong Relationships and Secure Attachment
VS.
 Scheduling uninterrupted time to engage in a child selected
activity.
 The child takes the lead & selects activity
 The adult follows the child’s lead and demonstrates interest and
enthusiasm
Catch the child behaving good
 It is human nature to pay more attention to disruptive,
annoying, or irritating behaviors than positive ones
 Purposefully pay close attention to recognize and reinforce
good decisions and behaviors
 5 to 1 ratio is the key!
Establish, teach, model, & reinforce
behavioral expectations
 Establish 3 to 5 expectations
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Stated positively (Dos instead of Don’ts)
Teachable
Memorable
Visible
 Teach the behavioral expectations
 Tell, show, do
 Reinforce the child when he exhibits the behavior
 Precorrection is better than reacting to problem
behavior
Simple Proactive Behavior Management
1. Precorrection
2. Behavioral momentum
3. Self-monitoring
4. Choice-making
Effective Discipline:
Setting Limits and Consistently Enforcing Them
 Yelling, threatening, and physical contact need not apply
 Progressive system of responding to problem behavior
 Developing natural and logical consequences to problem behavior
 Withdrawal or restrict access to certain privileges
 Time-out or Task-based grounding
 Contribution plan
 Collaborative problem solving (Ross Greene)
 Debriefing with the child to figure out how to handle the situation better
next time
 Consistency is the key!
The Foundation:
• Strong Positive Relationships
• Proactive Classroom Management
• Communicating effectively
• Cultural Competence
30
Progressive Response
Proximity control
Redirection strategy
Ongoing Monitoring
Prompt expected behavior
Teaching interaction
#1 warning of consequence with “Think Time’
#2 delivery in-class disciplinary consequence
#3 request for officel support process
Reconnect,
Repair, &
Restore
Relationship
EXTINCTION BURST
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fitxofd7kOA&feature=related
Helping Parents Understand and Deal with
the Extinction Burst
 Extinction burst = The child’s last ditch effort to get the
adult to back down
 Emotional meltdowns vs. manipulative meltdowns
 Emotional meltdowns
 Provide choice (cool down spot or follow instruction)
 “Not now, later” discipline approach
 Prompt “Cool down” strategies
 Manipulative meltdowns
 Validate child’s feelings and calmly deliver disciplinary
consequence and follow through
School-Home Note System
 Intervention designed to improve the communication and
consistency of practices between school and home
environments
 Involves a parent training component to get parents to deliver
consequences at home based on their child’s behavior at
school
 Parent can share information with school about outside
stressors that may be impacting student behavior at school
School-Home Note Decision Tree
COMMUNICATION
BEHAVIORAL GOAL MET
YES - GOAL MET
NO - GOAL UNMET
SCHOOL/PARENT RESPONSE
CELEBRATE CHILD’S SUCCESS
ENCOURAGE CHILD TO HAVE A
BETTER DAY TOMORROW (discipline)
Consequences Delivered
 Celebrating the child’s success (aim is to create positive contrast by
making the child’s life more exciting, pleasurable, and/or fun)
 Access to privileges
 Computer time, video games, talking on the phone, staying up later, hanging
out with friends, TV time
 Reward with item or activity
 Buy-out of chore, money, invite friend over, play outside, after dinner dessert,
playing with toys, etc.
 Praise and positive recognition
 Other
Consequences Delivered
 Encouraging a better day tomorrow (aim is to create negative
contrast by making the child’s life boring, unpleasant, or introducing
nothing)
 Loss of privileges
 Removal of TV time, computer, video games, playing outside, talking on the
phone, or anything else that is considered to be fun
 Task-based grounding
 Have the child perform chores that are outside of typical responsibilities
 Grounded until the chore or chores are completed
 Contribution Plan
36 Thinking About My Inappropriate Behavior
Thank You
Contact info: cook2142@uw.edu