How to cope with disruptive peers in school lessons

[Ste83ph]

Hi all,

I work with teenagers with Aspergers. I come on here from time to time for advice from you guys.

So, I'm working with a guy (I'll call him Tim), he's doing his GCSEs, he's pretty independent and has good friends. The difficulty he's having is with coping with school peers who disrupt lessons. He is very very motivated to learn. There are one or two other boys in his class who will call out or say silly things. Tim thinks they do this because they're bored and trying to get a reaction from others. Tim says the other kids in the class are able to ignore this and carry on with work but Tim finds that near impossible. I should say, all the kids are Aspies. He's struggling to cope with the disruption.

My thoughts are that being able to tolerate annoying people is a pretty helpful life skill. So I guess my question is, have other people experienced this? Is there anything that helped you cope better with irritating people in lessons? Any other thoughts welcome... Maybe he should be expected to put up with it at all?

Thanks,
Steph

 

[paloftoon]

Well, if Tim had a choice, he deserves to be able to be in cyber school where the quality of his education should not be distracted. I think he has a right to address the issue independently, and it needs to be dealt with swiftly. As they say, "nip it in the bud" before it becomes a problem. Since someone's quality of education is being affected, staff need to deal with this situation now. If you allow the two others to disrupt or "fake disrupt" (which really becomes a real disruption because it is meant to cause unnecessary commotion), you are allowing the behavior to occur without attempting to address it. While Tim is in a certain state, you can offer him an option to work in another room for a few minutes if possible (he doesn't get in trouble, he gets permission to take himself out of an environment he can't learn in.) It sounds like this is a problem beyond nonverbal cues and 1-1 verbal cues with the students.

If you haven't done those things, do those things first even if it means just "going through the motions." When you have to be able to escalate the issue, you have to judge if you tried other things to minimize the disruption for the remainder of the year. Maybe consider intrinsic rewards and praise where you address who is doing a great job and doing what they are supposed to be doing. If you haven't called parents yet, consider that, but don't jump to that first. Work with the people annoying Tim first and let them know that they can be moved to another room and/or that their parents can be phone or e-mailed if they continue the behavior. If they continue after that constantly, the issue needs to be addressed sooner than if all else tried and trued is not working out.

Well, do all these things as much as possible, moderately and when appropriate, and do your best to judge when it is best to do what you need to do. It is your job and all the staff in that room to moderate the behavior. It's not easy that is for sure. I hope it goes well for you and Tim.

 

[Ste83ph]

Hi,

Thanks for that, that's helpful. I should have explained, I don't actually work in the school, I work at home with Tim for an hour a week, generally on anxiety management and social skills. I was coming at things from that perspective of helping him to cope with the disruption. I totally agree with you that the school should be doing all those things to help the disruptive kid to control his behaviour better though. I know they are working on that side of things as well so hopefully the disruption should decline. I also totally agree that Tim should be allowed to work without being distracted. My thoughts were that there has always been at least one disruptive kid in the classes he's been in and that that might continue to be the case - so maybe I could help Tim to cope with those kinds of kids that he might continue to meet. If that makes sense.

Thanks for replying,

Steph

 

[paloftoon]

Tim and you both need to reach out to the staff to see what options Tim has in that case. I would also consider cyber school for Tim, because well motivated students tend to do well in that kind of environment. The material and quality is all there. Socializing can be done outside of school learning. It's not like it ever goes away, even though it is a lot harder in a cyber school. The quality of Tim's education does not need to be denigrated due to others' immaturity and stupidity getting in the way.

 

[midlife aspie]

The real problem with dealing with these disruptive kids is that they have the same rights as Tim. These kids also have parents who may not look upon interventions on behalf of Tim in a favorable way. Also, schools have limited resources and are vulnerable to such things as lawsuits. These things also make dealing effectively with bullies very difficult, because it is not practical to expel all 'bad' kids and it is unreasonable to sequester any child. These issues can be mitigated with difficulty, but it is impossible to eliminate them.

 

[paloftoon]

Something Tim could consider is to document, in specific detail, outside of school, who is doing what when. We don't want the students to know he is writing that, although he would know best if they would be able to figure him out or not if he did such a thing. Building up documentation and if enough people are affected, a few individuals can be eliminated that way if the behavior gets to the point that keeping the students is actually more of a liability than sending them off after so many efforts. I wish I had a better answer than that. At least Tim has cyber school as a possible option, whereas I didn't, and I'm so glad I thought of possibly moving to another room temporarily if that can be made as an option too. Staff would need to be contacted first about the situation, and get his parent(s)/guardian(s) involved too.

 

[Ste83ph]

The real problem with dealing with these disruptive kids is that they have the same rights as Tim.

I couldn't agree more. I happen to work with Tim at home, but the school has people supporting the other kid too and they need to help him too. I wouldn't want Tim to have to isolate himself to get away from this kid, and I wouldn't want the kid to have to be sent out either.

Tim is trying a few things the school have put in place which he says are helping him. He's got a positive book where he's writing all the good stuff that happens in the day so he doesn't feel like school is all bad. He's got a note pad on his desk where he can write down stuff the kid does that annoys him, which he says helps him to get his frustration out a bit. And he's got some headphones that he can wear when it gets too loud in the class.

So far things seem good but it's early days so we'll see