From A Social Workers Perspective: Is it Really Behavior?

Behavior.

"the way in which one acts or conducts oneself, especially toward others"

Behavior.

"the way in which an animal or person acts in response to a particular situation or stimulus"

Behavior.

"The way in which a natural phenomenon or a machine works or functions."

Behavior.

"The extra training needs to be solely behavior driven"

Let me ask a question.

How many people out there every stole something from the store as a kid?

How many people other ever lied as a kid?

How many people out there in anger punched a hole in the wall as a kid?

How many people would sneak snacks in their room, ESPECIALLY when you were in trouble and you didn't know if your parents would EVER feed you again?

Let me ask another question.

Those who answered yes to any and/or all of these, did your parents require and maybe need a training course for this? Maybe. Maybe not.

Did you turn out alright if they didn't?

Did some of your parents have a support system in place to help them figure it out?

Did some figure it out as they went?

I am just curious, just wanting to know why is it that foster care and adoption are the only areas on this God green earth that has to fix everything with the labeling of a kid who is just reacting to a situation.

Lying, stealing, hoarding are all symptoms of something. If focused on as a behavior, of course it is easy to say Number 1 take away every thing Number 2 put all of the snacks in a locked closet. The truth of the matter is lying, stealing and hoarding are all different for everyone. I lied about my boyfriend coming to pick me up and take me to the movies because my parents didn't approve of him and I technically wasn't allowed to have a boyfriend. Another child may be lying because they observed their parents lie to everyone in their life and they never suffered any consequences and got everything they wanted. Another child might lie because it's a survival response and they are acting out of pure fear. Teaching a class on lying only exacerbates the issues by giving parents a textbook reaction to something that doesn't always require a textbook reaction. Our parents didn't respond to our "behaviors" the same because we were different kids and when they did, guess what they had different reactions.

This is the reason why when I train I specifically tell people, don't take what I am saying as a sure fire way of responding to a young person. They are INDIVIDUALS! Just like any other person. It is only in the education and social services field that we put young people in a box and say, respond this way when they do this, teach them all this way so they can do THIS! NO! Even in the medical field they triage everyone but they ask you when you get there, so what brings you here today? They don't treat everyone in the doctors office for the flu do they? Medical field gets it, why can't we?

I know this blog post seems a little angry, want to know why because I constantly have to close my mouth in the presence of self righteous, ego boosting professionals who think they are right about everything. And you know what you can put me in that category too, except you should know I checked myself before I wrote this post. I went and did some research. I went to Bryan Post's book "From Fear to Love" and I read it over and he confirmed. I went to Gregory Manning's website and he is saying the same thing and so is Sue Bandeu. When I educate social workers and foster parents, I tell them CHECK YOURSELF FIRST! Because honestly we are NOT ALWAYS RIGHT! Our approach, our values, our life experiences all have something to do with how we build relationships with others. Am I saying let kids do what they want to do, destroy everything, heck no, I am saying we have to change our language and viewpoints. If we are running around her saying we need to teach on behaviors instead of we need to teach on relationship and how to individualize your interactions with your kids, COUNT ME OUT.

Drops. mic.