Sticky Note Charts for Behavior Modification...Dealing with Separation Anxiety from Class to Class
You know how you just feel like crying sometimes? I do, too! And sometimes we just can't (unless we're Cameron Diaz in The Holiday). I started with my 2nd and 3rd grade reading groups last week, and have been feeling very un-together lately, but that's a whole 'nother story. Not one thing in particular, just rough, you know what I mean? Anyway, I have 24 2nd graders that come to me for an hour of guided reading and reading workshop/Daily 5ish higher level, cooperative, and technology based literacy centers...and same thing with 3rd grade. I also have some Kindergarten intervention groups and they are Ca.ute! with a capital C! I mean seriously, love them! Anyway, we do a lot of switching around with kids here at the lake, to best meet the needs of all our students...and for most kids, the switching, i.e., transitions, is something that they all get used to...eventually. However, there are always a few that find the transitions difficult and I don't just mean the children that are behavior challenges. This year, I have some students that are otherwise great kids, high flyers, high readers, very responsible, etc, but that have a "stomach ache" accompanied by tears and red faces. When I see them crying for no apparent reason, like no one has hurt them, been mean to them, took something from them, etc., and they are holding their stomach, I know that "something" is bothering them and it's their stomach.
(As a teacher over the years, you become good at diagnosing the common daytime stomach ache...and 99% of the time, I say, "go to the bathroom" because they either have to go #2 (diahrea) or they have to go #2 and can't (constipation)...and a trip to the bathroom usually cures it....and this is why I'm a huge believer in allowing water bottles in the classroom....because most children that are constipated is due to not drinking enough water....which you learn from being a mom, too.)
Behavior charts/contracts are a very common way to modify the undesired behavior of students, and for most students, over time (lots of time)...this strategy works, especially when a desired replacement behavior is also taught along with the use of the contract. I have also learned that they work for students that are goal-oriented and competitive, because they don't want to lose or "fail" at the chart. So after several days of a particular student not making it the full hour in my class, and several face to face and email communications with the homeroom teacher and the parents...we got to the bottom of the "anxiety"...but the crying continued and she couldn't break the cycle. So, I started this daily sticky note chart for her, really easy, nothing time consuming to make on the computer...just a sticky note, a Sharpie, and a few stickers. I made a rectangle with four boxes representing each 15 minute time increment in my class. I started class without the chart, to see how she would do. At 12:05, she began crying and telling me that her stomach hurt again. This time, I reminded her about the conversation we had with Mom and she remembered, so I told her that her stomach ache was related to her worry, not her stomach. I then introduced and gave her the sticky note chart and told her that for every 15 minutes she made it in my class, she could add a sticker in the box. Before we knew it, it was 1:00 and she was still here. Today was the first day she lasted in my class the full hour and she was soooo proud of herself and could not wait to show her teacher and her mom her f-u-l-l sticky chart. It took me two seconds to make the one for tomorrow, and perhaps by this time next week, we won't need to do it all.
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