I was privileged to speak to a most courageous and loving group of people last month. These people are parents and foster carers of children with complex additional needs. These folk are tireless but must adopt a One Day at a Time philosophy in order to stay sane.
My talk centred on managing challenging behaviour by looking at the function the behaviour serves. Many of the children and young adults are unable to verbally communicate what they want so the behaviour serves as a communication device. This can be so difficult to understand and one way to try to change things is to look at what happened prior to the outburst. Could this be a trigger? If not then it’s worth examining the consequence of the behaviour. Is the consequence something that keeps the behaviour happening again and again?
Behaviour can be habitual so being clear about what is happening and trying to change things can take time but getting too emotional is exhausting and never brings change.
Merry Christmas to these wonderful people.
