"There is no sin to be washed away here. We see each child as a precious gift, filled with a spark of the divine. May we be worthy guardians of each young life, building a community in which each will grow old surrounded by beauty, embraced by love, and cradled in the arms of peace."

Gail Forsyth-Vail, North Parish of North Andover, MA (Compiled from two child dedications)

One of the concerns that was expressed over and over again by the Religious Educators that responded to my survey was what to do when children become so consistently disruptive in the classroom that the RE experience for the other children is jeopardized. This, the second newsletter of the RE Learning Differences Project, will attempt to provide some basic ideas for compassionately working with the consistently disruptive child as well as what helps with general disruptions in the classroom. While I wish that there was some magic cure, we all know that relating to a seriously troubled child or an ADD child or children whose autistic behavior can cause distraction requires a lot of patience in trying many different interventions and teaching styles. There are of course basic techniques that help minimize the occurrence of disruptive behavior among all children, but often what is needed for more difficult children is building a consistent, compassionate relationship through one on one attention. It is a continual process of research, trial and error and requires constant communication and support from parents. But most of all, it requires us to never forget the divine in each child.

The information presented in this newsletter provides a few ideas for working with your more difficult children and also lists some resources for gathering more information. Dr. Abby Crowley's feature article, Discipline in Sunday School: What Would a UU Do?, contains some wonderful practical information for parent/teachers which benefits all children and helps reduce the occurrence of unacceptable behavior. What Works in Other UU Churches also provides a rich source of helpful (at least it worked once somewhere) information. Who Needs to Change, Me or the Child?discusses the advantages of changing one's perceptions and changing the classroom environment.

We believe in the right of every teacher and child to teach and learn in a safe, supportive and (relatively) distraction-free environment, thereby making the Sunday school experience a positive one for all concerned.

What do you get when you put 10 to 15 bright, talkative, enthusiastic and sometimes reluctant kids together in a room with two eager, but not professionally trained teachers for seventy-five minutes on a Sunday morning? Depending on the teachers, the kids, the content, the space and maybe even the weather or what the kids had for breakfast, the result can range from chaos to ecstasy. With training and support from the Religious Educator and the Religious Education Committee, we can increase the chances that the experience will be largely positive and keep teacher frustration and burnout to a minimum. What follows are the seven principles of teaching in a Unitarian Universalist church school that can make classroom management and discipline reflective of our principles and can make it worthwhile to get up for Sunday School.

Principle 1: Prepare, prepare, prepare.
Hopefully those responsible for selecting curriculum have done a good job so that you have a curriculum that is age appropriate, experiential and interesting. Become intimately familiar with your curriculum, perhaps getting it in the spring and having all summer to read it through. Make notes in the margins or with sticky notes of ideas you have, special materials or resources you will need and questions you have. Make adaptations and choices from among recommended activities based on whether your class responded positively or negatively in the past. Each week, come early enough to have everything set up and ready to go for the entire session before the children come in. Confer with your assistant or co-teacher to be clear as to who will do what. If you see in advance that the children may need extra help on a project, line up a few extra warm bodies for the morning. Advance preparation will eliminate many of the behavior problems that occur in a less prepared classroom.

Principle 2: Build Relationships and Community
One teacher I know who works with troubled teens told me that she believes that 90% of discipline is relationship, and in my 25 years of working with kids with emotional and behavioral disorders, I would have to agree. In addition, research has clearly shown that classrooms where a strong sense of community is forged, have the fewest behavior problems. Get to know your kids. Wear name tags every week. Celebrate the diversity that exists in your classroom. Find out what the kids like, what they do outside of church. Sunday mornings can be hectic and rushed, so you might want to take the time and effort to arrange a social gathering of kids and parents early in the church year such as a picnic, sleepover, or bonfire. In addition, help the children form friendships with each other. Ask the Religious Educator if you can get a list of names and phone numbers to distribute to the kids in the class. I have gotten my own reluctant child to attend by having a Sunday school friend sleep over on Saturday night. Once the friendship was formed, my son became eager to go to Sunday school on subsequent Sundays to see his new friend.

Another trick that may work for you, especially with preteens and older elementary children who are losing their interest in Sunday school, is getting them involved in service activities in the community and in the church. Do the AIDS Walk as a group. Plant a flower bed in the parking lot. Give them responsibility around the church in areas such as ushering and helping with the younger children. These kinds of activities have the power to transform a reluctant group into a cohesive, involved one.

Principle 3: Create Class Standards
In the first session or two, take time to generate a list of no more than five class standards for behavior. The way I find this most effectively done is to have the kids suggest standards which they write on a large piece of newsprint. All ideas are accepted. After a list has been generated, work with the class to hone the list into a more concise list. For example, if you have "no hitting" and "no teasing" on the first list, ask the children if there is a general rule (i.e. "respect each other") that would encompass both. Make sure that in your final list, all of the rules are stated positively. For example, instead of "don't misuse the materials," suggest "take care of the materials." For older kids, have them look at the UU principles and see if there is anything they would like to include as a standard. Make a final poster of the rules to be posted every week. Send a copy home. When misbehavior occurs, simply ask the child, "Are you breaking a rule? Which one?" When problems occur reflecting behavior that is not addressed in the rules, have a class discussion asking the students if they would like to add a new rule. Overall, make sure that the kids take ownership of the rules and facilitate their encouragement of each other in following them.

Principle 4: Respond clearly, supportively and consistently to misbehavior.
What is the process for responding to misbehavior in your classroom and church school? If you do not have a clear process, work with your teaching team and Religious Educator to develop one. For example, for younger children, we might rely heavily on distraction, redirection and one-on-one support. For older children, chronic misbehavior may have to be referred to the Religious Educator. The Religious Educator can then intervene non-punitively with the child to find out what is at the root of the problem and what can be done to resolve the issues. At times, it will be necessary to bring the parents of the child into the process for additional information and support. For example, in my intervention with a family of a child who had been quite disruptive, I learned that he was not taking his medication on the weekends. We decided (after consulting with his doctor) to try giving his medication to him before Sunday School and to involve him in helping out with snacks (to give him a break from the classroom). Our adjustments made a world of difference! Overall, I urge all of my teachers to let me know about problems while they are still small. It is much harder to resolve these issues when anger and resentment has built up over a number of weeks.

Principle 5: Talk so kids will listen; Listen so kids will talk.
When you think back on the teachers that you have had or observed that were the most effective, you will probably recall their respectful attitude, the positive choices that they constantly gave their students and the active way that they listened to what their students had to say. Effective teachers describe the problem ("there are crayons on the floor") and offer choices ("would you like to pick up the crayons or put away the snack?") instead of making demands ("pick up the crayons"). They give information ("that paint is not the kind that can be washed out of your clothes") instead of giving orders ("put on a smock). They describe how they feel ("I feel frustrated when kids interrupt each other because I want to hear what each one of you has to say") rather than blaming ("you are being very rude"). They involve children in problem solving individually and as a group. Adele Faber's excellent book, How to Talk So Kids Can Learn: At Home and in School describes these techniques clearly for home or classroom use. Put it on your reading list!

Principle 6: Ask questions
Now that should be easy for a UU! When you don't understand, need ideas, or simply need to vent, seek the support of another teacher, your Religious Educator or ask to have a Religious Education Committee member as liaison to your class. Although you are probably very busy, take advantage of any training opportunities that are offered in your church or district. You will gain a great deal of information and have a wonderful opportunity to network with other teachers. Church school is a dynamic process, a true village where we can come together to create wonder and joy with the children. Be part of the village. Don't try to go it alone.

Principle 7: Remember why we are there.
You planned that lesson all week. You spent seven hours cutting out game board pieces and rubber banding them in packets for each student. You went to three libraries before you found the right book about friendship. You invited an origami expert to come and make paper cranes with the children but she decided to give birth to twins last night instead. It is the first day of spring, the birds are singing, and you did not plan time to go outside and play in the creek. What should you do? Change gears. The real value of Sunday morning is the feelings between teachers and kids and the positive memories created. Sure, the curricula are terrific, but you will know when it is time to let go of it because it isn’t working or something else draws the attention and passion of the children. Trust your gut. The more you do, the better you will get at it.

(The following information was gathered from Religious Educators' responses to the survey.)

• Many churches have provided a one on one relationship with an adult for autistic, developmentally delayed, or attention deficit hyperactive disorder (ADHD) children. The special needs children join in the classroom activities but have constant supervision and help in order to cope if they become over-stimulated. This also means that they have adult companionship if they need to leave the classroom in order to be more active, go outside to play, etc.
• A few Religious Educators indicated they have a policy that ADD/ADHD children, in order to participate in Sunday School, must receive their medication on Sunday before attending church. Rather than have a written policy, a few churches wait to make the decision to ask parents to also give their child medication on Sunday, based on the situation for each child. (Very often parents will stop giving their ADD/ADHD child medication on the weekends to give their child a break from being constantly medicated.)
• Some Religious Educators report that they have been successful eliminating consistent disruptive behavior by giving the child a special responsibility in the classroom such as helping the teacher set up or assist in teaching class.
• Religious Educators suggested: engage the child or youth who is being disruptive in helping to figure out ways to control his or her inappropriate behavior; write a behavior contract with the child that is simple and has the greatest possible opportunity for success; and provide an area that the child or youth can voluntarily retreat in order to re-gain control of him or herself.
• Sometimes keeping the child who is causing difficulty engaged in other activities of the church community other than Sunday School provides a break from behavior patterns that are triggered by the classroom situation. Examples include: helping to set up for coffee hour or distributing snacks to the RE classrooms, etc.
• Some churches reported wonderful results from letting the more disruptive children help teach younger children. For example: one church's response to a developmentally delayed teenage girl who was disrupting the RE program group because she was emotionally and mentally unable to keep up with her peers, was to place her with her agreement in the kindergarten class to help children with their play activities. The girl was instantly more happy and felt valued while the kindergarten class received some much needed help.
• Churches who reported successes in integrating special needs children stated over and over again how important it was to maintain close communication with the parents. Often there is an assumption that the child is disruptive because of the parents, so that the parents are not consulted when trying to figure out a way to solve inappropriate behavior. Actually, most parents of special needs children are wonderful sources for ideas because they have had to become knowledgeable of their own child's specific disability. For example, one church reported that they could not keep an autistic boy from constantly wandering out of his classroom so they finally asked his mother and she said that at home they put a tape across the doorway and that signaled to the boy not to leave the room. It worked!
• Sometimes you might have to ask a child to leave, but do not give up on him or her. One Religious Educator continued a relationship with a teenage boy and his parents when he became uncontrollable and was asked not to attend Sunday School. She visited the family at home, worked with the boy to come up with what was acceptable behavior that he thought he could work on, kept him informed about what was happening in his RE program until he was ready to come back and try again, but this time with very specific expectations. By the time he was ready to return, the teachers were also better prepared and fully informed of the behavior agreement. Now the boy is participating and doing well and has learned to monitor his own behavior.
• Many churches provide an annual special training for the parents on how to handle disruptive behavior in the RE classroom.

"The key to manage the behavior of children with learning disabilities may lie in changing the environment, not the child!" Richard D. Lavoie

The child who is out of control can be a frightening experience for both the teachers and the other children. As adults it brings out fears that we are failing, that somehow everything will end up in chaos if we do not control the situation. Some volunteer teachers can easily panic because they do not have the training and experience to deal with uncontrollable behavior. Why is it, however, that some people always seem to be able to handle children who are being disruptive? While not discounting experience and adequate preparation, the attitude of the teacher seems to be the critical ingredient for a successful RE classroom. When the teacher is able to empathize with the child who is being disruptive, he or she is better able to look at what changes can be made in the environment and their teaching style in order to change the behavior of the child to be more positive.

Children who constantly act out are usually acting in ways that they have learned will preserve their dignity and self-esteem. Even though their coping activities may be destructive, they are still behaving in ways that they think will maintain the last remnants of their self-esteem. Dr. Robert Brooks in his wonderful book The Self-Esteem Teacher recommends that we take risks and try to change our own perceptions of the child and then learn how to change the "negative scripts" that hold these children in patterns of self defeating behavior. By refusing to place blame on the child, we can tap into the child's strengths and use those to change his or her negative behavior. For example, Dr. Brooks worked with a girl with oppositional behavior who refused to do her school work and as a consequence was failing. By looking for her strengths, they discovered that she liked younger children. "Instead of following the more predictable script of insisting in some fashion that she complete all of her homework assignments, we engaged her as a tutor for first and second graders. This strategy was guided by the belief that teaching younger children would help this girl feel more self-assured in the school setting and more willing to face those situations and tasks that made her anxious.....As a consequence, my patient’s self-esteem and productivity improved."

I know that as Religious Educators, we do not have the benefit of working with our children every day. But, creating success for even 45 minutes once a week for a child who has known mostly failure can have positive unforseen consequences. Many of the strategies for working with disruptive children that I listed previously in this newsletter demonstrate that many Religious Educators and parents have learned to look past the disruptive behavior and come up with creative ways to enlist the help of the child and also to change the environment and as a result change the "negative script." Jon Saphier and Robert Gower in their book, The Skillful Teacher, also support the view that changing the environment and the teacher's teaching style can eliminate most inattentive and disruptive behavior. They have developed a list of questions that teachers (also appropriate for RE teachers) can ask themselves to help determine what is causing the disruptive behavior. They also encourage teachers to always be positive about each child, creating an environment of safety and concern and not blaming the child.

Gail Forsyth-Vail, DRE at the North Parish of North Andover, Massachusetts says, "I believe that we are most effective with children with ADD/ADHD when we do not see it as a disorder and them as problems requiring some concrete solutions. We need instead to understand the emotions, the exhaustion, the discord that swirls around children who do not fit a certain mold. It is only when we first try to understand, to make our congregations emotionally safe for children and their families, that we can come up with concrete, practical steps for working with children with ADD/ADHD." Ms. Forsyth-Vail has developed a workshop for training people to work with ADD/ADHD children. In her process-oriented workshop, she creates opportunities for learning to empathize with the disruptive child and then how to develop practical strategies for working with the child in the RE classroom.(For more information you may contact her at: Glfv@aol.com.)

Learning to empathize with a child who is acting out, building on his or her strengths, and then changing teaching styles and the environment in order to change "negative scripts" does not suggest the absence of expectations, rules, and consequences. Dr. Brooks says, "We should never lose sight of the fact that when we discipline, we are involved in a process of education. Our goal is to assist students to become more thoughtful, responsible, and accountable and in the process to foster their self-esteem." Establishing with the children as part of the process clear rules and guidelines and consequences for misbehavior is essential for creating an environment which encourages appropriate behavior. This was emphasized by Dr. Crowley in her article describing practical how to steps and is emphasized as critical by both Dr. Brooks and Drs. Saphier and Gower.

As Unitarian Universalists, we already have a philosophy of making RE classrooms positive and safe places of learning that honors the unique in each child and fosters each one’s creativity. Reminding ourselves over and over again to see the divine in each child will help in following through with some of the advice given in this newsletter.

• LD OnLine is the most comprehensive web site on learning disabilities. It also has links to other web sites for related disabilities. If you are looking for information but are not sure what you are looking for, I highly recommend this site.
• Sopris West has programs, books, resources and materials for people working with children who are at risk for school failure. There is also a link through LD OnLine.

• Brooks, Robert; The Self Esteem Teacher
• Faber, Adele; How to Talk So Kids Can Learn: At Home and in School.
• Faber, Adele and Mazlish, Elaine; How to Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk.
• Saphier, Jon and Gower, Robert; The Skillful Teacher

• Hallowell, Edward M. and Ratey, John J.; Driven to Distraction.
• Vail, Priscilla L.; Emotion: The On Off Switch for Learning.

• Breeding, John; The Wildest Colts Make the Best Horses.
• Goleman, Daniel P.; Emotional Intelligence.
• Greene, Ross W.; The Explosive Child.