Effective Tips for Amicably Handling Emotional and Behavioral Disorders in the Classroom.

Closely monitoring and supporting our children’s mental health is a primary concern—especially those children with emotional disorders. Anyway, what does the term emotional disorder mean? It is an umbrella term under which several verified and distinct diagnoses such as Anxiety Disorder, Manic-Depressive Disorder Oppositional Defiant Disorder just to mention a few, fall. According to the Individuals with Disability Educational Act (IDEA), Children with emotional Disorders have one or several unique characteristics:

Five Characteristics Exhibited by children with emotional and behavioral disorders

• Inability to build and maintain healthy interpersonal relationships with peers and teachers.
• Difficulty in learning can hardly be explained by intellectual, sensory, or even health factors.
• Queer and inappropriate types of behavior or feelings under normal circumstances.
• An overall pervasive mood of gloom or depression.
• A tendency to develop physical symptoms or nervousness associated with personal or school problems.

Well, students who suffer from emotional and behavioral disorders, hardly find it easy to control their behavior and smoothly focus on their work in the classroom. Besides, they lack impulse control, and as such, emotional balance is a crucial tool to use in handling their social interactions with other students effectively. This can be a hard nut to crack as a teacher, especially in an inclusive classroom where only a fraction of the students suffers from EBD. Luckily, there are effective ways to help all the students in your classroom feel at home, and ready to learn. Effectively and painstakingly moderate EBD behavior by implementing a classroom management plan that is fervently tailored to meet the specific needs of individual learners.

Seven thoroughly analyzed ways to handle Emotional and Behavioral Disorder students in your classroom

1. Ensure class rules/ activities are simple and clear

A long, tedious and complicated list of rules and demands will make both the EBD and more focused students in your class struggle and eventually switch off. Endeavor to keep your classroom principles broad and simple. Let them not be more than 3-5; main rules. Let the children have them at their fingertips on the first day of opening. Have them posted in the classroom as well. A good example should be as shown below:

• Be neat
• Keep time
• Work hard
• Be polite

There is a need for you to put in place, Simple and clear teaching activities too. Using activities that are not too complex for the students gives the EBD children room to effectively and cheerfully interact with the rest of the class. Some of the simplified activities which you should practice incorporating include:

• Guided notes
• Rote counting (choral responding)
• Responsive cards
• Clickers.

By including simple and clear activities in your classroom, your students will readily engage and interact with the lesson plan, ensuring that they conveniently learn alongside other students. Remember you are working towards ensuring that you have provided a positive, conducive, and well-structured environment, which holistically supports growth, enhances esteem, and satisfactorily rewards desirable behavior.

2. Reward moral behaviors

It is pointless to say that at times you won’t have otherwise but to punish children for their uncouth behaviors. However, rewarding positive behaviors is by far more effective in the long run. Almost all EBD students tend to take any discipline as a personal attack and due to this, they scarcely learn anything from it. Form a habit of celebrating their successes more than how you reprimand their mistakes. This will make them see that there is indeed a positive benefit from good behavior. They will in return treat you as one of their ally than their enemy. Besides, they will gain positive motivation to work harder in class.

3. Give them short but countable breaks

Most EBD kids have a very minimal concentration span. This is because they lack the emotional balance and maturity necessary to remain focused on a task for long periods. Where necessary, take time to periodically stop teaching and give students a free moment of catching up if need be. You can as well give them enough time to finish their assignments and let those who have finished, stretch, get out of their seats and stroll a bit. This allows them to burn off excess calories.

4. Treat them equally and Fairly

EBD students hardly respond to situations that aren’t justifiable to them. As a result, if such happens, it can trigger a cascade of unwarranted behavior and negative emotions. To champion equal treatment of them all, never bend your laid down rules for any student. Rightfully exercise and enforce the anticipated consequences every time and with every student. Never give room for any exceptions as they will make them see you as being unfair.

5. Make use of Motivational strategies

Know that you are dealing with students who tend to have had numerous negative experiences in school. They therefore hardly have the desire or confidence to succeed. To avoid repeatedly emerging disruptive or off-task behaviors, dig deeper and come up with better ways to motivate these students. You can for instance offer them incentives in exchange for academic success, be it large or even small. Resiliently celebrate their hard work and give praise for their good efforts.

6. Create an accommodating and supportive Classroom

Begin by providing a calm and conducive environment, and minimizing distractions. You can as well emphasize school routines. Focus more on assisting the students rather than disciplining them. Ensure that you provide a time out/ study area away from the group. Also, give the security of the student priority.

7. Make good use of the School counselor to provide social skills training

The social skills training should be used to: - Model moral and desirable behaviors. You can role-play and the students emulate the observed behaviors. - Make rewarding classmates for good behavior your leading culture - Teach the students how to appropriately handle frustration and disappointment. - Practice and reinforce desired behavior.

Conclusion

While having EBD students in your classroom may seem a force to reckon with, the tips we have covered here are proven and tested ways to help cultivate and enhance the harmonious and reserved spirit of learning. Fortunately, the strategies can be of good use to your non-EBD students alike.