Good Grades. Bad Behavior.

Dear Parents,

This Q&A was emailed to me by a friend that I'd like to share with you. You might also find this interesting.

QUESTION:

I am a parent of a very bright 13 year old girl. My problem is her behavior at school. She started kindergarten when she was 4 because she was advanced for her age. She is in the gifted program at school and she receives straight A's even though she is a year younger than all the kids in her class, but every year we have dealt with problems because she is to talkative and she can't sit still. We have tried everything including behavior charts she says she tries to be good and she just can't. She isn't disrespectful. She is just disruptive to the other kids because she is done with her work and they are not. It's a struggle for us toknow what to do to help the teachers and her. She is in 7th grade and we really don't want to go through another rollercoaster year like the last three. I was just wondering if you had any advice.- PH

COMMENTS:

Behavior issues at school usually start with a related behavior issue at home.

This is good news because it means that you can do something about it at home instead of only relying on her teacher to figure something out.

Since she's disrupting others when she's done with her work, here's what I'd look into at home:

- Does my daughter complain about being bored?
- Would she rather do things with other people than by herself?
- Does she interrupt us (mom & dad) when we're in the middle of doing other things?
- If she DOES interrupt us, do we stop what we're doing and give her our attention?

Your daughter has a habit of disrupting other people and being talkative at inappropriate times.

Since she's doing it so regularly at school she has clearly learned this and it has been reinforced - probably at home, even if not intentionally.

So your job at home is to uninstall that behavior and replace it with a new one.

Get a free behavior chart from this site:
http://www.freebehaviorcharts.com/charts/#chart
Put at the top of the chart: "Play quietly by yourself."

Let her know that when you see her playing quietly by herself that she will get to mark her chart and work toward a reward that you both agree she'll get when the chart is full.

By doing this, you'll be reinforcing the"good behavior" of being quiet and not disturbing others.
Then make sure that if she interrupts you or your spouse while you're doing something else, ask her to go play quietly by herself (the behavior from her chart) and then return to what you were doing.

Don't let her interrupting take centerstage and dictate your schedule. She needs to learn to be engaged with herself when others around her are busy.

As her parent, you're totally empowered to help her behave better at school.
So start working with these things at home, okay?

Thank you for helping me help your child maximize his/her potential.

Sincerely,

MS. ANGALA

Room 118