Essentials
Of
Emotional
Communication
For
Reaching
The
Unreachable
Student
Where Do I Start?
What Do I Say?
How Do I Do It?
Carmen Y. Reyes
The Psycho-Educational Teacher
1
License Notes
This book is intended for professional enrichment. You may reproduce this
book only for classroom management purposes. Duplicating this book for
commercial use is not allowed. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this
author.
Copyright © 2013 by Carmen Y. Reyes
SolidRock Press
Brooklyn, New York
2
Contents
Introduction …..11
Part I: The Basics
Chapter 1: Understanding Emotional Communication- The Magic We Create with the Words We Say …..17
Emotional Language Within the Broader Context of Interpersonal Communication
Interpersonal Communication Principles
The Interaction Between the Verbal and the Nonverbal Messages
Chapter 2: The Role of Feelings in Emotional Communication …..27
Negative Feelings
Positive Feelings
Facts About Feelings
Table 2.1. Feelings List
Chapter 3: The Therapeutic Environment- Principles, Skills, and Steps …..35
Therapeutic Principles
The “Therapeutic Attitude”
The Therapeutic Process: Steps
Part II: Where Do I Start?
Chapter 4: Key Elements of a Therapeutic Interaction …..53
Reaching the Unreachable Child with Rapport
Guidelines to Develop Empathic Understanding and Rapport
Talking with a Distraught Child: Enhanced Interventions that Build On-the-Spot Rapport and Defuse Troubling Feelings
3
Chapter 5: Therapeutic Listening …..67
Listening Levels
Listening Types
Obstacles to Effective Listening
Traveling to the Therapeutic Realm: Listening Skills that Ensure a Swift Journey
Empathy
Acceptance
Immediacy
Sensitivity
Time
Table 5.1. Listening Therapeutically to Children
Chapter 6: The Role of Self in Emotional Communication …..85
Types of Self
Self-Concept
Self-Identity
Self-Esteem
Self-Awareness
Self-Efficacy
Self-Confidence
Revealing Our Human Side: The Importance of Teacher’s Self-Disclosures
A Word of Caution About Self-Disclosure
Part III: What Do I Say?
Chapter 7: Fundamentals of Language- How Messages Work …..99
Actions We Perform with the Words We Say
Kinds of Statements
4
Kinds of Messages
Pure or Contaminated?
The Meaning in the Words We Hear
Linguistic Patterns that Prevent Us to Really Understand Each Other
Language Patterns that Limit the Positive Things Children Can Do
Language Patterns that Distort Reality
The Message Within the Message: Metamessages
Verbal Modifiers
Chapter 8: The Therapeutic Dialogue- Opening the Message …..127
Validating
Normalizing
Externalizing
Acknowledging
More Guidelines
Chapter 9: The Therapeutic Dialogue- Facilitating the Message …..139
Verbalizing
Prompting
Encouraging
Affirmations
Furthering
Supporting
Chapter 10: The Therapeutic Dialogue- Making the Message Clear …..147
Feedforward
Checking Perceptions
Paraphrasing
5
Clarifying
Elaborating
Summarizing
Chapter 11: The Therapeutic Dialogue- Controlling the Message …..157
Returning
Redirecting
Specifying
Focusing
Chapter 12: The Therapeutic Dialogue- Deepening the Message …..163
Furthering
Reflecting
Using Observational Cues
Getting Deeper Meaning
Decoding the Feeling
Reframing
Finding Patterns
Interpreting
Reframing and Interpretations are Two Sides of the Same Coin
Chapter 13: The Therapeutic Dialogue- Going Even Deeper with Transformative Questions …..177
Questioning
Probing Questions: Hargie’s List
Clarification Probes
Justification Probes
Relevance Probes
Exemplification Probes
6
Extension Probes
Open-Ended Probes
Accuracy Probes
Restatement Probes
Echo Probes
Consensus Probes
Clearinghouse Probes
Asking Transformative Questions: Paul’s Taxonomy
Questions of Clarification
Questions that Probe Assumptions
Questions that Probe Reasons and Evidence
Questions About Viewpoints or Perspectives
Questions that Probe Implications and Consequences
Chapter 14: The Therapeutic Dialogue- Resolving Discrepancies …..191
Background
Albert Ellis and the A-B-C Model of Emotions
Prompting
Disputing Irrational Thinking
Debating
Related Techniques
Challenging
Confronting
Chapter 15: The Therapeutic Dialogue- Shifting the Message …..205
Suggestions
Persuasion
Persuasive Techniques
7
Part IV: How Do I Do It?
Chapter 16: Summoning to Action Part 1- Social Problem-Solving …..225
Some Basic Principles
How Social or Interactional Problems Start
What is Social Problem-Solving?
How to Teach Social Problem-Solving
The Social Problem-Solving Model
Tips for Teaching Social Problem-Solving
Chapter 17: Summoning to Action Part 2- The Supportive Style …..243
The Supportive Style: Outlining the Steps
When Teachers and Students Disagree: Keeping Power Struggles Out of the Interaction
Chapter 18: Child Guidance Techniques …..279
Child Guidance Techniques
Taking Responsibility
Using Choice Language
Teaching Relative Reasoning
Making it Solvable
Breaking it Down
Making the New Behavior Relevant
Distancing the Student from the Disruptive Behavior
Externalizing the Behavior
Making the Angry Feeling Identity Incongruent
Making the Angry Feeling Goal Incongruent
Normalizing the Behavior
Minimizing the Problem
8
Using Strategic Language
Using the Language of Change
Using Tentative Language
Reframing the Student’s Perception of the Problem
Empathizing
Role-Playing the Behavior
Paraphrasing
Reflecting on What the Student Says
Translating the Feeling
Labeling
Reversing the Feeling
Developing Hypotheses
Checking Perceptions
Structuring the Student’s Thinking
Challenging the Student
Confronting the Student
Decoding the Behavior
Teaching Self-Decoding
Making the Troubling Feeling Less Intense or Hostile
Increasing the Child’s Ability to Analyze Behavior
Using Self-Disclosures
Eliciting from the Student Ideas and Suggestions for Changing Behavior
Training the Student to Analyze Own Thoughts
Questioning the Student
Teaching Alternative Behaviors
Teaching Students to Talk Descriptively
The Doubling Technique
9
The Solution-Focused Approach
Identifying Exceptions
Trying Something Really Different
Role-Playing New and Improved Behaviors
References …..305
About the Author …..309
CONNECT WITH THE AUTHOR ONLINE …..310
DISCOVER OTHER TITLES BY THIS AUTHOR …..311
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Introduction
The purpose of this book is to familiarize teachers, administrators, and
supportive personnel in schools with the fundamental principles, communicative
skills, and child guidance techniques employed by skilled practitioners helping
troubled and hard to reach children in therapeutic settings. With each passing day,
more and more teachers in both general and special education classrooms are
realizing that the communication skills already known by helping professionals
working in therapeutic settings for troubled students are the same communication
skills that all teachers can apply in our day-to-day interactions with all kinds of
students.
Anyone with the professional responsibility of teaching and helping children
understands well that not everything that we say to children is heard and
experienced by them the same way. Like coming from a sorcerer or magician,
some words we say charm children, empowering them to fly to the realm of goals
and possibilities. Other words seemed to have lost its charming touch, sounding
dull and repetitive. But the worst offenders are those kinds of words that confine
children, grounding them and keeping them in the same path of negative
expectations and dysfunctional behaviors. In children’s hearts and minds most of
these worst offenders sound and feel like judgments and negative criticism, failing
to connect children with all that is good in them, can be better, and will be better
for them. The focus in this book is on those wizardly words and messages that
never doubt if children can fly (we know they can), but create a magic spell that
bridges children with a more optimistic future (with their goals and aspirations),
challenging children to find out how high they can fly. These enchanting messages
11
have been called positive, motivational, encouraging, and/or inspirational by most
of us; in this book, we call them relationship enhancers and they are at the heart of
emotional communication or therapeutic communication. In Essentials of
Emotional Communication for Reaching the Unreachable Student, teachers learn
how to assemble a meaningful therapeutic communication toolkit to challenge
negative thoughts, defuse self-defeating attitudes, soothe angry and/or troubling
feelings, build and/or strengthen coping skills, and elicit positive behavior in a
distraught or hard to reach student.
The guiding principle in this book is that all therapeutic interventions are
essentially verbal interventions; most specifically, carefully crafted ways of talking
to gradually shift the child from a state of agitation and helplessness into a more
resourceful state of resolution. Enhancing the communication pathway between the
teacher or helper and the hard to reach student enables the teacher to deliver “just
the right words” to create the supportive and facilitative atmosphere that the
distraught child needs so badly. Is in the teacher’s ability to articulate a message
that soothes and heals troubling and self-defeating feelings and attitudes that
therapeutic communication thrives.
Basically, on Essentials of Emotional Communication for Reaching the
Unreachable Student, we lay the foundation for a teacher-student therapeutic
interaction, including techniques for learning about the child, building and then
maintaining a supportive and facilitative environment, and engaging the child in
joint problem-solving. As stated in the opening paragraph, the communicative and
therapeutic skills detailed in this book benefit equally general and special
education teachers not only because learning these skills improve our
understanding of children’s feelings, but also because they strengthen our skills in
managing children’s most challenging behaviors. Most importantly, enhanced
12
emotional communication skills equate to an improved ability in promoting self-
awareness, self-determination, and self-efficacy in all of our students, especially, in
that student seated in the back of our classroom that we always believed was so
difficult to reach.
13
Part I
The Basics
14
Chapter 1
Understanding Emotional Communication-
The Magic We Create with the Words We Say
ne day, somehow, our face-to-face interactions with that difficult to
handle student seated in the back of the room lost its magic touch,
being replaced by domineering interactions instead where we, so
focused in trying to get the child to do as directed, recurred mostly to delivering
orders and commands. The more the child refused to do what we wanted him to do,
the louder our voice and the more restrictive our messages. The more restrictions
the child heard, the more antagonistic he acted. And the more antagonistic the child
responded, the more problematic our face-to-face interactions turned. Feeling
discouraged and frustrated, we start doubting our own ability to improve this
strained relationship. Quite the opposite, we feel certain that there is little we can
say or do to “fix” this problematic relationship.
O
Without realizing it, much of what we may be experiencing as an
antagonistic interaction with our hard to handle student relates to a breakdown in
the messaging, most specifically, a collapse in the things we are saying, or the
messages we are sending, to our hard to reach student. Revolving around a self-
perpetuating circle of contemptuous interactions fed by negative messages, our
antagonistic position fuels more negative and pessimistic language, and more
negative and pessimistic language in turn fuels even more antagonistic interactions.
In one sentence, our antagonistic messages to the child give form to our
antagonistic interactions with the child. From a communicative standpoint, “to
bring the magic back,” shifting both teacher and student from an adversarial
15
position to collaborative partners, we first need to “clean” and polish the messages
we are sending to the child. By crafting therapeutic messages delivered within the
context of positive and optimistic expectations, we let children know that we
believe in their ability to feel and to act positively, aligning children with their best
attributes and strengths, and then, using those strengths to build effective coping
skills and to elicit better-adjusted behavior. Simply put, magic (positive feelings
and behavior) is in the words we say and in the messages we convey to children.
Emotional Language Within the Broader
Context of Interpersonal Communication
Although interpersonal communication can be approached from different
perspectives, for example, elements (the basic components), processes (how
messages are produced), stages (e.g. the different developmental steps between
initiating an interaction and disengaging from the interaction; also how interactions
evolve from impersonal to close or intimate), contexts or settings (e.g. family or
classroom), and types or channels (e.g. verbal and nonverbal), in this book, we
focus on the perspective of interpersonal communication that is relationship-
centered; more specifically, those messages within the face-to-face interaction that
influence and build the relationship. From this dyadic or relational framework,
interpersonal communication is the communication that takes place between two
individuals who have an established relationship regardless of the direction of that
relationship (negative or positive). From this perspective, interpersonal
communication is more than an exchange of information between those two
individuals. Through face-to-face interactions, individuals negotiate meanings,
identities, and relationships (Braithwaite and Baxter, 2008). As DeVito (2001)
16
states, the two individuals exchanging ideas and/or feelings are in some way
“connected.” This definition includes what is taking place either in a negative
(adversarial) or a positive (collaborative and/or supportive) direction; for example,
between a child and her parent, siblings, friends, coworkers, a teacher and a
student, and so on. From this relationship-centered perspective the basic
characteristics of interpersonal communication are:
1. Communication from one individual to another
2. Face-to-face interaction (no-mediated)
3. Takes place in a dyadic (one-to-one) or in a small group setting
4. Both in form (how we say the words) and in content (the specific
words we use) the communication is shaped by and conveys
something of the personal characteristics of those individuals
interacting as well as their social roles (Hartley, as cited on Hargie,
2011)
According to Hewes (as cited on Hargie, 2011), at the core of the
communicative experience we have:
A. Intersubjectivity, or trying to understand the other person and being
understood by the other person in turn, and,
B. Impact which represents the extent to which the message brings about
change in the other person’s thoughts, feelings, and/or behavior.
Interpersonal Communication Principles
One of the most important principles for teachers to understand is that
interpersonal communication is circular; that is, the first person’s message is the
stimulus for the second individual’s message, which in turn serves as stimulus for
the first person’s message, and so on. This circular interaction ensures that both
17
individuals in the interaction are at the same time the speaker and the listener, or
actor and reactor in the communicative process. As DeVito (2001) states,
interpersonal communication is a mutually interactive process (p. 27). Additional
principles beneficial for teachers to know are (DeVito, 2001; Hargie, 2011):
Interpersonal communication is transactional. This principle
emphasizes the dynamic interplay and changing nature of the
communicative process. The two individuals communicating
continually influence and are in return influenced by each other. This
is what Hargie (2011) calls reciprocal influence.
The elements in interpersonal communication are interdependent.
That is, each element (i.e. source- receiver, encoding or producing the
message and decoding or understanding the message, competence or
each individual’s ability to communicate effectively, messages or
those signals that serve as a stimulus for the receiver, channel or the
medium we use, and purpose, for example, to learn, to persuade, or to
play) in the communicative process is intimately connected to the
other parts (other elements) and to the whole (whole message).
Because of this interdependency, a change in any one of the elements
causes changes in the other elements. For a full list of elements, see
DeVito (2001).
Interpersonal communication is purposeful. We communicate with
some end, or purpose, in mind; in simpler terms, we communicate
because we want to achieve something. Although an interaction
between two individuals may be ineffective (does not communicate in
a clear way what the goal or intention is, and consequently, fails in
achieving the communicative goal), it is never aimless; when two
18
individuals communicate, they are always trying to make something
happen (the communicative goal). When individuals are aware of
what their communicative goals are, they can deliver a better focused
and more effective message, making the skill of goal making crucial
in improving our communicative ability.
Interpersonal communication is either symmetrical or
complementary. In a symmetrical interaction, the two individuals
mirror each other’s feelings and behaviors. For example, if one
individual crosses her arms, the second individual crosses his legs; if
one individual leans against the wall, the second individual leans
against a desk; if one individual yells, the second individual also yells.
Symmetrical interactions minimize the differences between the two
individuals. On the other hand, in a complementary interaction, the
two individuals engage in different, and sometimes opposite,
behaviors. Here, if one individual yells, the second individual speaks
softly; if one individual is aggressive, the second individual is
conciliatory; if one individual walks fast, the second individual walks
slowly. Complementary interactions maximize the differences between
the two individuals. Both symmetrical and complementary
interactions are crucial in creating rapport and in defusing troubling
feelings.
Effective interpersonal communication requires from the two
individuals involved to understand and to share each other’s personal
definitions or symbols. Effective interpersonal communication can
take place only to the extent that the parties involved understand each
other’s system of symbols. The best example is observing how two
individuals from two countries with different languages try to
19
communicate; because the languages (symbols) are different,
communication is hindered. Even when they share one language, not
two individuals share identical symbol systems. For instance, in the
classroom, while the teacher defines a student’s behavior as foolish
and immature, the student is interpreting the same behavior as funny
and “cool.” What the teacher sees as “careless,” the child sees as
“bold.” The communicative difficulty here starts when the teacher and
the child use different vocabulary words to define the same act,
aggravated by the fact that, without realizing it, the teacher and the
student have different meanings, or different symbols, for the same
words (e.g. “careless” or “impulsive” means something different for
each individual). And like two individuals from different countries, as
long as the teacher is not aware of how her/his meanings and the
child’s meanings are different, any attempt of communication with the
child will come to a halt. As DeVito (2001) states, “Part of the art of
interpersonal communication is learning the other person’s signals,
how they are used, and what they mean” (p. 32). In the classroom,
learning about the student’s symbols and their meanings requires both
time and patience, but if we want to understand what the student is
communicating with a specific behavior, we need to understand the
meaning of that behavior for the child. Simply put, we must
understand the behavior from the student’s perspective or point of
view, not ours. Even more, we need to be willing to share our own
system of symbols with children (i.e. our feelings, attitudes, and
expectations), so that children understand us better.
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The Interaction Between the Verbal and the
Nonverbal Messages
A fundamental belief in interpersonal communication is that, in person-to-
person communication, how we deliver the message is as important as what we say
or the specific words we use. The expression on our faces, how long we prolong
our gaze, the gestures we use, our posture, the way we walk, the tone of our voice,
and so forth often tell more to students than the words we say. In our day-to-day
interpersonal exchanges the nonverbal code is crucial in defining and in clarifying
the verbal code; nonverbal behavior “blends” with the verbal message to best
convey meaning, not only our own meaning (what we are trying to communicate),
but what the student means as well (what the child is trying to communicate).
Major ways in which the nonverbal message blends with the verbal message to
convey meaning are (Adapted from DeVito, 2001; Hargie, 2011; Knapp and Hall,
2010):
1. Repeating. Nonverbal communication can simply repeat what was
said verbally. Telling the student to return to her seat and pointing to
the child’s chair is an example of repetition.
2. Complementing. By giving more information, nonverbal behavior
extends and/or elaborates on the verbal message; for example,
drawing a map in the air to describe the location of an object. When
the verbal and the nonverbal codes complement each other the
message is clearer and can be decoded easier and more accurately.
Complementary gestures are also known as illustrators.
3. Substituting. Nonverbal behavior can also be a substitute for the
verbal message. For example, Ms. Vera leaving her classroom at 3:00
21
in the evening with a slouched posture and a facial expression that is a
substitute for the statement, “What a lousy day I just had!”
4. Conflicting. Nonverbal communication can contradict, intentionally or
unintentionally, what was said. For example, Frankie saying to Ms.
Vera, “I feel fine” with a clinched jaw, tightened fists, and an angry
tone of voice, suggesting an internal state of agitation and turmoil. In
a conflicting message, verbal and nonverbal signals are
communicating two incongruent messages. When a conflicting
message takes place the nonverbal code predominates; Ms. Vera will
be able to clarify the true meaning of Frankie’s message to the extent
that she can “read” accurately the child’s nonverbal signals.
5. Accenting. Nonverbal behavior can amplify parts of the verbal
message. Accenting is similar to underlining or italicizing written
words to bring attention to them. In spoken language, by putting more
stress in certain words than in others, we underline the importance of
the stressed words. We frequently use movements of the head and/or
hands to emphasize specific words or a specific message; for example,
banging our fist on the desk to stress that we feel strongly about a
specific issue. Another example of accenting would be Ms. Vera
telling Frankie, “I feel really disappointed with this behavior” while
frowning; frowning accentuates the teacher’s disappointment. An
accenting signal is a kind of complementary signal; for example,
frowning and shaking her head when recounting the issue both
complement and emphasize the teacher’s feelings of disapproval.
6. Attenuating. This is the opposite of accenting; when we attenuate the
verbal message, we tone down parts of the message. For example,
expressing her disappointment with the behavior using a soft tone of
22
voice and exhibiting a relaxed posture. With her mild smile, Ms. Vera
tempered a message sent to reprimand. The negative part of the
message was toned down with more positive and accepting nonverbal
signals. Together, accenting and attenuating gestures are known as
modifiers of the verbal message, because they help us in delivering
either a more or a less extreme message.
7. Regulating. Regulators help us separate and mark speech turns. For
example, to indicate that she finished talking and was expecting for
Frankie to start talking, Ms. Vera increased her eye contact with the
child. When she wanted to talk again, Ms. Vera raised her index
finger.
As we can see, nonverbal signals have a crucial role in any communicative
experience, this being particularly true within the context of emotional or
therapeutic communication. Nonverbal signals are considered more spontaneous,
harder to fake, less likely to be manipulated, and consequently more believable
than any words that the child can say (Knapp and Hall, 2010). For all these
reasons, paying close attention to the nonverbal behavior displayed during the
course of a therapeutic interaction is fundamental for both grasping in-depth
meaning of the child’s message, and from the teacher’s perspective, sending the
nonverbal signals that will elicit the right emotions and will influence the right
state of mind in a distraught child.
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Chapter 2
The Role of Feelings in Emotional
Communication
he internal states known as emotions are considered more comprehensive
and long-term than those internal affairs known as feelings. Our
emotions deliver the message that the world around us is important to us,
helping us in relating with our environment in terms of things that we like (e.g.
love) and do not like (e.g. hate). The same emotion can stay with us for years (e.g.
loving our kitten forever), but our feelings are short-term, sometimes lasting only a
few minutes or even seconds; for example, feeling scared when we lost sight of our
kitten, only to feel relieved once we find her. Our feelings may result from our
emotions, for instance, when we experience the emotion of love, we may also
experience the related feeling of happiness. In addition, feelings can be triggered
by our physical senses; for example, feeling warmth or cold. Emotions, on the
other hand, always come from our mind. Feelings are sometimes called sensations
or attitudes.
T
With our vocabulary of feelings, we label the things that happen to us,
negative or positive, in emotional terms. The more limited our vocabulary of
feelings is, the less precise our emotional experience will be perceived and
recounted. Conversely, the more feeling words we can use to talk about an event,
24
the richer our experience and our understanding of that event will be. This is true
for children as well as for adults. If your students are like mine were, chances are
that they will be recounting their emotional experiences using a limited repertoire
of feeling words, restricting their feelings to being sad, mad, happy, or the all-time
favorite “nice.” Most kids of all ages and backgrounds reveal very limited skills in
acknowledging and in labeling their feelings accurately, not only that, but kids
assume that the way they feel at the moment is the whole experience; for example,
saying, “I hate Linda!” to talk about a temporary misunderstanding with Linda. As
Karns (1994) states, for kids, “Feelings are black and white. Sad is sad. Mad is
mad. Glad is great” (p. 21). Children need to learn the language of feelings. When
adults learn to listen and to validate all feelings, including the ones that we do not
like, we teach children to appreciate and validate their own feelings, including the
ones that they do not like. In addition, when adults listen to children’s feelings, we
open the door that allows children to talk about how they feel without fear of being
ridiculed or their feelings being dismissed. When we communicate to children that
we understand and validate their emotional experience, we start talking the
language of therapeutic communication.
We can describe emotional communication as ways of talking that facilitate
for children to talk about their troubling experiences, including articulating the
thoughts and processing the feelings that were part of those experiences. In
schools, most attempts to manage conflictive student-to-student and/or teacher-to-
student interactions focus on recollecting facts (what happened), or in
understanding story content. For the most part, little is discussed about the feelings
that run parallel to that experience; that is, little is known and processed about the
context of children’s stories. Within the realm of therapeutic communication, along
with the content, it is essential that we help children recognize and process the
25
specific feelings that put those facts in the right perspective. When we pay
attention to how a distraught child retells the experience emotionally (how the
child is feeling about the experience, for example, “I’m pissed with Linda; she
humiliated me”), we can learn a lot about the context of the experience, that is, we
learn a lot about how the child perceives and feels about the experience. This in
turn helps us understand why the child displays some behaviors but not others.
With the following classification of feelings, we can help children understand the
emotional context in the stories they tell (Adapted from Knapp, 2007):
Negative Feelings
Knapp divides negative feelings in five sub-categories:
1. Frustration. We experience frustration when we are not able to satisfy
something that we want or need.
2. Anger. Feeling angry is a natural emotional reaction to hurt, loss, or
disappointment.
3. Depression. Depression is anger trapped and turned inward. A
depressed individual feels fearful of what might happen if she reveals
her angry feelings to others. As the author states, sadness is not
depression. Sadness is an emotional expression associated with a
recent hurt or loss (e.g. the death of our kitten), whereas depression is
considered an interruption of the flow of feelings.
4. Anxiety. Anxiety is the anticipation of being hurt or of losing
something. Real or imagined, there is a threat looming in the horizon
for the anxious individual.
26
5. Guilt. When we believe that what we think, the way we feel, what we
do (actions or behavior), and/or what we fail to do (inactions) are
unacceptable to others, we experience guilt. Feeling guilty stems
from believing that either we did something wrong or we failed to do
something that we needed to do. Consequently, our feelings of guilt
feed thoughts of being bad and of deserving punishment.
Positive Feelings
Knapp (2007) organizes positive feelings into two main categories:
1. Strength or being sure about oneself; that is, being sure that we have
the skills and abilities to cope effectively with the circumstances
surrounding us.
2. Happiness or the state of personal satisfaction that results from our
emotional and physical needs being met.
Alternatively, the same list of feelings can be presented to children under the
two main categories of unpleasant (negative) and pleasant (positive). It is
important that, when discussing feelings with children, we stay away from
evaluative language such as good/bad or right/wrong, so that we convey the
message that each and every feeling is to be understood and validated because,
even when we experience an unpleasant feeling, all feelings tell us something
about ourselves and about those things that matter to us. On Table 2.1 we compiled
a list of words that relates to emotional states or feelings grouped by similarity; for
example, affective states such as certain, independent, and confident are listed
under the broader category of confidence. Used in partnership with the 18 facts
27
about feelings detailed on the next section, we can use these two resources to help
children understand the instrumental role that feelings play in influencing behavior.
Facts About Feelings
When feelings are both strong and unpleasant or negative, they can disrupt
our behavioral, physiological, and thinking processes (Kassinove and
Sukhodolsky, 1995). Children that exhibit behavior deficits show limited skills in
coping with what they perceive as very strong and very negative feelings, and due
to this limited ability in recognizing, labeling, and processing their feelings; that is,
in talking about their feelings, these children “act out the feeling” instead. Because
children’s behavior problems highly correlate with limited skills in dealing with
strong and unpleasant feelings (e.g. anger, guilt, and embarrassment), it is
important for school personnel to become acquainted with these common affective
states. Is common knowledge in the therapeutic realm that, in order to understand
children’s behavior, we must understand children’s feelings first. Openly and
consistently talking about all kinds of feelings with children is always a good
starting point. Use the following facts to introduce and/or supplement a discussion
of feelings with children:
1. Feelings are normal. We all have feelings.
2. People are capable of many different feelings. We are entitled to all of
them.
3. There are simultaneous feelings; that is, different feelings can exist or
be experienced at the same time. For example, we may feel happy and
28
sad at the same time, or we may feel happy, sad, and surprised
simultaneously.
4. We can group similar feelings together. For example, sad, gloomy,
melancholic, and the blues are similar feelings.
5. Sometimes contradictory feelings coexist. This contradiction can
make us feel confused, and even angry.
6. Some feelings are pleasant and some feelings are unpleasant.
7. Some feelings are stronger than others. Some feelings are very strong.
8. Feelings are temporal; no feeling lasts forever.
9. When one feeling moves away, another feeling replaces it.
10.Feelings are neither good nor bad, right nor wrong, true nor false. We
do not have to judge our feelings.
11.Anger is a normal feeling. We all feel angry at one time or another.
12.Feeling angry at something or with someone is okay. However, what
we do when we are feeling angry can get us into trouble.
13.There is a difference between feeling angry and “doing angry things”
such as hitting, kicking, cursing, punching, screaming, or hurting
others. Anger is just a feeling; acting out our anger is the behavior.
14.We can “feel the feeling” but we do not have to act it out.
15.Feelings are not facts; that is, we cannot verify feelings in an objective
manner. We turn our feelings into facts only if we act them out.
16.Our feelings and our thoughts are just for us; our feelings do not affect
other people. On the other hand, our behavior (actions or what we do)
has an influence on other people.
17.When we feel anger or any other strong feeling, we do not have to act
it out. It is best that we recognize the feeling, and then, we redirect it
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in a more positive way, that is, we redirect our feeling in a way that
does not hurt another person or ourselves.
18.We “feel the feeling” but we choose our behavior.
Table 2.1. Feelings List
Admiration: awe, captivated, delighted, fascinated, reverent
Aggression: aggressive, brawl, hateful, violent
Anger: aggravated, agitated, angered, angry, annoyed, bad, bitter, bothered, bugged, choleric, cranky, discomforted, disturbed, enraged, exasperated, frustrated, furious, grouchy, grumpy, ill-tempered, inconvenienced, indignant, infuriated, irascible, irate , irritated, mad, moody, mortified, outraged, rampaged, resentful, ruffled, shocked, sore, temperamental, testy, uncomfortable, upset, wrathful
Anxiety: agitated, anxious, apprehensive, awful, concerned, discomforted, dismayed, distraught, distressed, dreadful, fussy, impatient, preoccupied, solicitous, tense, troubled, turmoil, uneasy, worried, worrisome
Apathy: apathetic, bored, unenthusiastic, unmotivated
Appreciation: appreciated, appreciative, cared, cherished, esteemed, liked, loved, pleased, prized, respected, treasured, valued
Attention: attentive, curious, interested
Aversion: animosity, aversive, detest, disapproving, disgusted, dislike, grudging, resentful
Bad: cruel, ill-will, malicious, mean, naughty
Betrayal: betrayed, disloyal, resentful, unfaithful
Bravery: audacious, bold, brave, courageous, fearless, gutsy, heroic, intrepid, unafraid, valiant
Calmness: calmed, eased/at ease, free from trouble, lighthearted, patient, peaceful, placid, relaxed, serene, tranquil, undisturbed
Confidence: awesome, certain, confident, independent, secure, self-confident, self-reliant, sure
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Defiance: antagonistic, argumentative, aversive, bravado, defiant, disobedient, hostile, noncompliant, oppositional
Distress: afflicted, agitated, agonizing, anguished, breakdown, burnout, discomforted, distressed, disturbed, exhausted, hurt, miserable, overwhelmed, strained, stressed, tense, troubled, turmoil, unsettled, worried
Embarrassment: abashed, ashamed, blushed, disconcerted, embarrassed, humbled, humiliated, mortified, offended, self-conscious
Enjoyment: enjoyable, joyful, nice, pleasant
Excitement: excited, frenetic, frenzied, impatient
Fear: afraid, alarmed, apprehensive, dismayed, fearful, frantic, frightened, horrified, intimidated, nervous, petrified, scared, shocked, startled, terrified, terrorized
Frustration: demoralized, disappointed, discouraged, disenchanted, disheartened, disillusioned, dispirited, frustrated, overwhelmed
Guilt: blameful, contrived, guilty, remorseful, (feeling) responsible, tortured
Happiness: cheerful, cheery, glad, good spirits, happy, high-spirited, joyful, joyous, jubilant, lighthearted, merry, pleased, sunny
Hurt: afflicted, agonizing, anguished, awful, burdened, desperate, destroyed, devastated, distraught, heart ached, heartbroken, hurt, in pain, miserable, resentful, ruined, tormented, tortured, troubled, unhappy, upset
Indifference: apathetic, detached, indifferent, unemotional, uninterested
Insecurity: agonizing, ambivalent, conflicted, confused, insecure, having mixed feelings, turmoil, unresolved
Love: adore, affection, caring, compassionate, cordial, heartfelt, infatuated, loving, sympathetic, warm
Mixed: bittersweet
Motivation: competitive, curious, challenged, decided, determined, enthusiastic, fired, firm, interested, motivated, passionate, resolute, resolved
Nervousness: agitated, apprehensive, awkward, edgy, excitable, fidgety, fussy, impatient, jittery, jumpy, nervous, restless, tense, uneasy, worried, worrisome
Optimistic: confident, hopeful, positive
Other: envious, jealous, obsessed
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Pessimistic: demoralized, despair, desperate, discouraged, disheartened, dispirited, grave, helpless, hopeless, negative, self-defeating, unworthy
Pride: awesome, boastful, bragging rights, proud
Sadness: anguished, blues, cheerless, depressed, disconsolate, gloomy, grieving, heart ached, heartbroken, inconsolable, in pain, languished, low in spirits, melancholic, miserable, mourning, nostalgic, sad, sorrowful, unhappy
Surprise: amazed, astonished, shocked, surprised, wonder
Vengeance: revengeful, spiteful, vengeful, vindictive
Chapter 3
The Therapeutic Environment-
Principles, Skills, and Steps
ost of us, at one time or another and in a spontaneous manner have
found ourselves giving support, encouragement, and advice to a
child or to children in distress. Even in the best managed
classrooms, with thirty something characters (including the teacher) interacting in a
room that is always too crowded and too clustered, both interpersonal (between
students) and intrapersonal (internal or individual) conflict seems almost
inevitable. For more than six hours a day every day, chances are that we make
several decisions that directly impact students’ affective states; for example,
quickly deciding a fair way to handle a sudden disagreement between Joshua and
Timothy when both children, loudly and angrily, are claiming full rights over the
same library book. Some hurt feelings are easier for us to deal with; other more in-
depth feelings, most of them initially confined to the intrapersonal or single child
M
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experience, but quickly spreading and becoming a more interpersonal event (i.e.
quickly influencing other students and disrupting the overall classroom
atmosphere), are harder to manage. For example, Melanie’s morning tantrums or
Ricky’s angry outbursts that always seem to erupt so unexpectedly and
unprovoked. Typically, our good intentions, common sense, classroom experience,
and a genuine interest in helping children guide our efforts, and these informal and
unstructured guidelines constitute the main framework for our supportive or
guidance interventions. If we truly want to help children in distress, facilitating for
our students to cope with hurt, painful, or unpleasant feelings before those
unresolved feelings start manifesting themselves in disruptive and/or dysfunctional
classroom behaviors, is in our best interest to understand and to learn how to
handle, smoothly and efficiently, those troubling feelings. A therapeutic classroom
is by no means lacking on feelings; quite the opposite, therapeutic teachers provide
an accepting classroom environment where all feelings are validated, facilitating
for children to perceive, process, and express the emotional context embedded in
the troubling or conflictive experience. Fundamental principles of the therapeutic
environment empower children, encouraging children to do as much as they can to
better themselves while strengthening emotional awareness and coping skills. A
structured framework aligned with the supportive principles of the therapeutic
environment follows.
Therapeutic Principles
Easier or harder to manage, intrapersonal or interpersonal, it is important
that teachers realize that from the distressed child’s perspective, all hurt feelings
are equally relevant or important; simply put, the way the child feels about the
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troubling event matters to the child. At the precise moment in which the child’s
feelings are respected, acknowledged, and treated with much care and sensitivity a
therapeutic teacher-student interaction is born. As Knapp (2007) indicates,
“Respect can be thought of as holding another person’s feelings, beliefs, and
thoughts in as high a regard as you hold your own” (p. 17). Respect and sensitivity
for children’s feelings are evident in attitudes and actions such as:
Putting the Focus on the Child (The “It’s All About You” Approach).
In the therapeutic interaction, the focal point always remains on the
child (what the child needs and wants); a minute spent on the teacher
(i.e. on what the teacher wants or does not want) is a minute taken
away from the child and the child’s issue. The therapeutic interaction
is always other-centered (DeVito, 2001), that is, always has the
child’s best interests in mind.
Showing Interest in the Child. Quoting Goulston (2010), in a
therapeutic context is important for us to “be more interested than
interesting” (page 55). When our attention is focused on those things
that matter to us, but do not necessarily matter to the child, or we
focus our attention on those “cool” words that we want to say to the
child, we miss the rare and valuable opportunity of truly grasping the
real meaning of what the child is saying and of truly understanding
what the child wants and needs. And when we fail in grasping in-
depth meaning, we are not able to connect with or to reach anyone.
Adapting the author’s thinking to the classroom setting, if we want to
have a therapeutic exchange with the distraught student, first we need
to be interested in the child—his life, his history, his story. Where is
this child coming from? How did this child get to where he is today?
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What does this child know? What this child does not know? (pp. 56-
57) As Goulston states, “By practicing the art of being interested, the
majority of people can become fascinating teachers; nearly everyone
has an interesting story to tell” (p. 57). In a therapeutic classroom, the
teacher makes it her/his mission to discover something interesting,
and better yet, something fascinating, about each and every student in
the class.
Keeping Our Own Opinions and Feelings Under Control. No matter
how strongly we feel about the issue or the child’s behavior, we need
to free ourselves from judgmental attitudes and/or opinions. This does
not mean that we will not have an opinion about the issue; of course
we will have opinions and personal feelings about all issues. What this
means is simply that we remain flexible and open to any new
information that helps us understand the child’s point of view,
especially if the information contradicts and/or challenges our own
preconceptions. In dealing with children’s troubling feelings and
difficult behaviors, a precursory step would be to do a “belief-system
check” in order for us to keep our own opinions, attitudes, and/or
feelings balanced and under control. Only when we are able to put
our own attitudes aside, we will also be able to truly understand the
issue from the child’s point of view or perspective, as opposed to the
limiting perspective of our own pre-conceptions. In addition, under no
circumstances our feelings about the issue or about the child’s
behavior pattern should restrict and determine the way that we are
interacting with the child.
Giving Positive Regard. The principle of positive regard is founded on
Carl Roger’s popular client-centered model (adapted for children as
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the child-centered model). When we give positive regard to children
like Melanie or Ricky, we clearly communicate that, regardless of the
outcome, nothing is more important to us than this child’s value,
worth, and uniqueness. Simply put, this child deserves all the time and
energy that we invest in her or him. All therapeutic challenges
presented to Melanie or to Ricky are framed within a positive and
optimistic context, as opposed to a negative, pessimistic, or punitive
framework. For instance, rather than blaming Ricky for his angry
setback, we give feedback, engaging the child in a constructive
dialogue of what went wrong and of what he can do the next time to
make it better. Most importantly, we keep reminding Ricky and we
keep him focused on those past accomplishments (i.e. of those times
when he succeeded in remaining free from angry outbursts) and
personal strengths (e.g. Ricky’s strong will, his ability to remain on
task, and coping strategies that the child already knows) that
ultimately will be instrumental in reaching the desired outcome or
goal. Our main message to Ricky is that, once he understands what
went wrong (or what is not working for him) he can work in removing
the obstacles that block progress. With this new awareness, Ricky can
discard old, disruptive behaviors and ineffective ways (i.e. angry
outbursts and acting-out) to deal with problem situations, renewing his
effort and trying again; this time, using a more efficient coping
strategy and alternative behaviors. And because we value and cherish
the unique individual that Ricky is, we honestly and genuinely want
him to succeed, building on the child’s confidence that we are going
to work with him and for him from beginning to end. Knapp (2007)
equates giving positive regard with an “I’m on your side attitude” (p.
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19). By supporting Ricky unconditionally (i.e. giving unconditional
acceptance or accepting the child with no preconditions or strings
attached), we are committing ourselves to work hard in helping Ricky
succeed, conveying the positive expectations that we believe in Ricky
and that we believe in the child’s ability to reach his behavior goal.
Building on Strengths. Paying close attention to strengths, identifying
current skills (what children can do) and abilities (what children are
able to do), and then using strengths, current skills, and abilities to
develop better-adjusted coping skills give us the framework for
teaching children how to self-regulate emotions and behavior. In the
therapeutic environment, even what it appears to be a minor strength
or what is perceived as a brief halt in a disruptive behavior pattern is
noted and enhanced by the teacher.
Helping the Child Develop Goals. Instead of doing the work for the
child, the therapeutic teacher reinforces self-determination and
independence by coaching the student to do as much as she can for
herself, collaboratively (i.e. teacher with child) identifying and
developing meaningful goals, giving feedback on progress, and
encouraging the child throughout the process.
Giving Choices to the Child. In a therapeutic verbal exchange, instead
of saying, “No time for drawing. You have to finish your division
worksheet,” we say, “Do you want to finish your division worksheet
now, or in twenty minutes? If you finish now, whatever time is left,
you can use it as drawing time.” This sounds like a very simple verbal
intervention for what sometimes may not be a simple problem (e.g.
the child’s difficulty completing tasks), but, by consistently giving
choices to a child with social (interactional) and/or behavior deficits,
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we are recognizing that decisions about how to handle the relationship
and/or behavior issue belong to the child, not to the teacher. More
than anything, therapeutic language is choice language: the teacher
helps the child understand the consequences for her good and bad
behavior choices; the child makes the choice.
Respecting the Child’s Right to Refuse. As Knapp (2007) states, this is
one of our greatest challenges in a therapeutic interaction: honoring
the child’s right to self-determination even when we may not agree
with the child’s decision, actions, inactions, potential outcomes, and
belief systems. In the therapeutic interaction, we support, facilitate,
and encourage but the child is the primary decision-maker.
The “Therapeutic Attitude”
As indicated by Kottler and Kottler (2000), teachers equipped with basic
helping skills are able to help children gain better clarity of their feelings, better
understanding of their motives, and greater resolve in following through on a plan
to change the behavior. Helping skills allow teachers to create better relationships
with students in a shorter period of time (pp. 3-4). The process of helping children,
the authors continue, comes as an “attitude” or a helping mind-set that keeps the
therapeutic teacher focused and receptive. The following therapeutic mind-set or
helping skills was adapted from both Kottler and Kottler (2000) and Meier and
Davis (1997):
1. Making Personal Contact. The success of any therapeutic
intervention relies heavily on the quality of the interaction between
the teacher and the student. In order to help, the teacher must be able
38
to make contact with the child. Within the therapeutic context, making
contact equates to being with the child, touching the child
emotionally, and communicating with the child at the feelings level.
We are not saying here that the teacher needs an already well-
established relationship to be able to connect and to communicate
with a distraught child. A positive relationship with the student will
speed the emotional connection but the truth is that a moderate
relationship, or even the absence of a previous relationship with the
child, may evolve in an emotional connection if the teacher knows
how to make the distraught child feel listened, understood, and
validated. Spending the first minutes of the interaction on “small
talking” or casual conversation puts the child at ease and helps build
rapport. We chitchat for a minute or two and then we redirect the child
to the issue of concern.
2. Building a Relationship. Paraphrasing Kottler and Kottler (2000), the
emotional connection or therapeutic interaction by itself is
intrinsically healing. It gives comfort and support to the child. It
motivates risk taking. Most importantly, the emotional connection
becomes the core for everything else teachers do in the helping
process. The authors offer some guidelines to build a helping or
therapeutic relationship:
Start with small incremental steps.
Be sensitive to the student’s readiness level.
Communicate your caring and intense interest.
Show warmth and be accessible.
Prove that you hear and understand what the child is saying.
Demonstrate commitment to the student.
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Be consistent.
Model an open and honest communication (p. 17).
3. Developing an Alliance for Change. From the emotional connection
stems what we know in therapeutic settings as the alliance for change
or working alliance. By extending understanding and support, we
invite the student to ally and to collaborate with us, letting the child
know that, as a trusted ally, we are going to put our best effort in
helping him or her succeed: only if the child succeeds, we can
succeed. Our main job here is to engage the student in collaborating to
resolve the issue of concern. Change is not going to happen if we rush
through things and/or if we act carelessly, trying to force the student
to commit or to do something for what the child does not feel ready
yet. Similarly, change is not going to happen if the child lacks
motivation. Therefore, it is always in our best interest to spend ample
time in the crucial steps of building rapport and in allying with the
child. We convey the positive expectation that the child is going to
commit to change or self-improvement, and we show that we believe
in the child’s ability to improve by relating with the student in a
trusting, supportive, accepting, and optimistic way.
4. Listening More and Talking Less. Therapeutic teachers are skilled in
interpersonal communication. A basic interpersonal communication
skill is active listening; in emotional communication, we start with
active listening and we progress to therapeutic listening. On chapter
five we detail all listening skills; here, we introduce the most basic
therapeutic communication rule: regardless of the listening level, the
student is the one who always does most of the talking and the teacher
is the one who needs to do most of the listening. In other words, the
40
teacher should talk less than the child, and when the teacher talks, she
or he must speak briefly, communicating main ideas in no more than
two sentences each. Unfortunately, I have witnessed teachers and
clinicians that, when they intervened with a distraught student, the
teacher was the one who got carried away. My favorite anecdote
happened a few years back when, after ten minutes of continuous
talking, the clinician finally stopped briefly and asked the child, “Do
you have anything to say?” And this wise child complained, “Lady,
you talk too much!” So, our wise child told the well-intended but
clearly unskilled clinician what was missing from the interaction to
make it a helpful intervention (i.e. mouth shut- ears wide opened), but
much to my dismay the clinician, oblivious to the child’s wisdom,
responded with ten additional minutes of uninterrupted talking!
5. Building Awareness of Feelings. In therapeutic or emotional
communication, children’s feelings are always a key indicator of what
is relevant in the area of concern, that is, of what makes an issue
troubling for the child. Many children are unaware of the quality of
their feelings, showing extreme difficulty in describing feelings
accurately. For example:
Mr. Beck: How do you feel about losing the basketball game?
Frankie: Bad. I’m upset.
Describing feelings as bad, good, nice, mad, or upset gives little
detail, failing in specifying either the intensity and/or the direction of
the feeling. For instance, “upset” has one meaning when elaborated as
feeling angry because the coach benched him unfairly and the child
missed the last three minutes of the game, and a very different
meaning when articulated as sadness because not playing those crucial
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three minutes left Frankie feeling that he failed his teammates. In the
first situation we are dealing with anger and resentment; in the second
situation we are dealing with sadness and disappointment. Getting the
distraught child to recognize and to describe how he feels about the
situation are the two primary challenges for both the teacher and the
student. A core belief in emotional communication is that, building
awareness of feelings brings both insight and relief of those troubling
feelings.
6. Helping the Child Articulate the Troubling Situation in a Concrete
Way. Help children describe the issue of concern sensorially; that is,
talking about what they see, hear, and can touch. Most specifically,
help the unsettled child articulate the troubling situation in terms of
actions or behaviors. For example:
Frankie: Anthony is mean to me!
Mr. Beck: How exactly is Anthony mean to you? Give me an
example of something that Anthony does that you do not like.
Frankie: He calls me Pinocchio.
Mr. Beck: How do you feel when Anthony calls you Pinocchio?
Frankie: I feel mad. Everybody laughs.
Mr. Beck: I want to make sure that I understand exactly how
you feel; are you mad in the sense of feeling angry, or are you
feeling embarrassed?
Frankie: Yeah, the second one. I told Anthony to stop calling
me that, but he keeps doing it.
Mr. Beck: As I understand this, you are feeling frustrated
because you already asked Anthony to stop calling you names,
but you do not see anything good coming out of your request.
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You also feel embarrassed when you hear other children
laughing. Am I getting this right?
7. Paying Close Attention to What the Child is Saying. Words and the
way the child says them give us important clues about how the child
perceives and interprets the problem situation. Permanent words like
always or never almost invariably reveal a distorted and in many cases
helpless view of the problem situation. For instance, there is a strong
perception of being helpless (of not being in control) coming out of
statements such as, “I always mess up!” and “I will never have
friends.” Similarly, absolute words like everybody (e.g. “Everybody
thinks I’m stupid!”) and nobody (“Nobody wants to be my friend”) are
a contributing factor in children’s low self-confidence and feelings of
inadequacy.
8. Paying Closer Attention to What the Child Skips or Omits. One of my
favorite words of advice to a therapeutic teacher in training is that, to
efficiently manage children’s feelings and beliefs, we pay close
attention to words or what the child is saying, but we pay even closer
attention to what the child is not saying, or the details that the child
skips or omits from his statements. The specific information that
seems to be missing from the child’s pessimistic statements is crucial
in helping the child assess the troubling situation in a more realistic
(less troubling) way. When we identify the information that is missing
or not stated in the child’s self-defeating statement, we help a child
like Frankie substitute an “always-or-never” statement such as “I will
never have friends” with a more accurate and less overwhelming
“sometimes” statement such as, “Anthony does not like me and he is
not particularly interested in being my friend. Oh well, that’s
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Anthony’s problem, not mine. Other kids do like me and I interact
fine with them.”
9. Noticing Nonverbal Behavior. The child’s words will give us mainly
content or facts, but to get emotional context and in-depth meaning,
there is no better way than by keeping record of what the child is
revealing through his body behavior. For instance, even if Frankie
cannot put into words his true feelings about Anthony calling him
names, by being vigilant to body language such as frowning, a
slouched posture, a hesitant tone of voice, and flushed cheeks, Mr.
Beck can get significant clues about the true nature of the child’s
feelings.
10.Pacing, and then Leading the Child. In the therapeutic realm, the
well-known intervention of pacing and leading refers to how much
direction we give at any particular time to the child. Most specifically,
when we pace the child, we follow along in terms of what the child is
saying and the feelings that give context to the child’s statements. For
example:
Frankie: I told Anthony to stop calling me that (Pinocchio), but
he keeps doing it.
Mr. Beck: Anthony keeps calling you names regardless of what
you do.
Here, Mr. Beck paced Frankie by paraphrasing the child’s concern.
Nothing was added or taken away from Frankie’s statement, and Mr.
Beck gave no direction to the child. With pacing, Frankie knows that
Mr. Beck is paying attention and understanding. Restating the child’s
thoughts or content (e.g. “You seem to be saying…”) and reflecting
on the child’s feelings (i.e. recognizing feelings, for example, “You
44
appear to be feeling…”) are two basic interventions to pace the child.
To summarize, with pacing, we build consensus on what the child is
thinking and feeling. Once we move in step with the student, we can
then move ahead, leading the child in a new direction. More
specifically, after giving the child time to tell the story as he sees it, or
pacing, we skillfully move the story ahead by leading the child.
Basically, leading is directing, something we can do by pointing in the
direction of new information (of alternative ways of perceiving the
situation), by helping the child process the new information (insight
building), and by helping the child establish a better-adjusted feelings-
behavior connection. Adapting Knapp’s (2007) definition of leading
to the classroom, effective leading facilitates for the interaction to
evolve in a productive way by eliciting further information and
feelings, bringing focus to what is relevant, and prompting the child to
think about the problem in a different way (p. 106). In one sentence,
leading involves guiding the interaction in a meaningful direction. For
detailed analysis and examples of how to use pacing and leading in
the therapeutic interaction see Chapter 17.
11.Supporting More; Confronting Less. Like any adult, children listen
more when they feel supported than when they feel confronted, so
take advantage of this basic therapeutic skill and have children listen
willingly to what you have to say by supporting and bonding with the
child first. I want to share now one of the most insightful advices that
I received earlier in my career, when I was a therapeutic teacher in
training myself: “Have kids love you; when children care for you,
trust you, and they respect you, they’ll do anything for you, even
learn.” (Adapted from Nicki, my first mentor.) A rule of thumb in the
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therapeutic setting is that we confront as much as we support (Meier
and Davis, 1997, p. 11). Once the trust and respect is there, we can
use a therapeutic confrontation to build self-awareness and to increase
motivation in the child. As a word of caution, a therapeutic
confrontation does not mean opposing the child, but pointing out
discrepancies in the child’s thinking, words, actions, and/or goals.
(See Chapter 14 for more details.)
The Therapeutic Process: Steps
As a problem-solving effort, the child guidance or therapeutic process
follows similar sequential steps. Kottler and Kottler (2000) list these five main
steps:
1. Assessment. For us to be helpful, we first need an idea of what is
going on. Counselors know this step as “the identification of the
presenting complaint” (p. 20), accomplished by helping the child
identify what is bothersome. Our focus here is in understanding how
the child thinks and what the child needs. On this pacing step, we
collect any background information relevant to the child’s concern.
Initial interventions that help in collecting background information are
asking questions, reflecting feelings, and clarifying content.
2. Exploration. The authors describe this second step as digging deeper;
that is, discovering how the issue of concern is relevant and relates to
the child. Here we apply the listening and reflecting techniques
detailed on the coming sections of this book to help the child clarify
thoughts and feelings even further. With sensitivity and understanding
46
of the child’s experience, we start leading the child, helping her
transition into a deeper level of awareness.
3. Understanding. As Kottler and Kottler indicate, “The deeper the
exploration of feelings and thoughts, the more profound the insights”
(p. 22). Building insight revolves around understanding why and how
the problem develops, what the child is doing to sabotage her own
progress, and what themes the child repeats over and over in her
statements and/or behavior. More in-depth techniques such as
challenging, disputing, and therapeutic confrontation start at this
level.
4. Action. As the authors indicate, “Without action to change one’s
behavior, they (understanding and insight) are virtually worthless” (p.
23). In this action step, our efforts are focused in helping the child
translate what she already knows and understands into an action plan
that will get her what she wants. The two most important
interventions in this action step are creating goals and social problem-
solving (detailed on Chapter 16).
5. Evaluation. On this final stage in the therapeutic process, we help the
child assess the extent to which she has reached her social-emotional
goal. Progress should be measured both between steps (using sub-
steps and mini-goals) and at the end of the intervention, so that we fix
errors when they happen and modify the procedure if we need to.
Assessments of progress help children visualize what they have
accomplished as well as what they still need to do.
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Part II
Where Do I Start?
48
Chapter 4
Key Elements of a Therapeutic Interaction
n this chapter, we elaborate on the two pillars that give support and
allow for the therapeutic interaction to evolve successfully: bonding
with the student and the empathic connection.OReaching the Unreachable Child with Rapport
A guiding principle in emotional or therapeutic teaching is that, the way
students feel about us strongly influences how they respond to our directives and
guidance. In plain language, the more children like us and want to please us, the
better job we will do in persuading them to change. To bring change, therapeutic
teachers build on relationships and the existing bond between child and teacher. In
a therapeutic interaction, building rapport with the unsettled student is the cement
that holds together the two columns of bonding and empathy. Establishing rapport
means that we work in connecting with the child rather than controlling the child.
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With well-established rapport, teacher and student can join forces to create a
behavior goal and to develop an action plan. In other words, teacher and student
form an alliance that leads to change. In one sentence, in helping a distraught
and/or oppositional child, first we pace and ally, and only then we try to lead and
change.
To start connecting and bonding with the distraught child it is imperative
that we understand the child from her own point of view and experience; that is,
we need to see things “with the child’s eyes.” In the helping interaction, the ability
to perceive the experience from the child’s perspective, (also known as putting
ourselves in the child’s shoes and walking in the child’s shoes) is at the core of the
empathic connection or empathy (i.e. awareness of others). When we empathize
with the child, we free ourselves from any preconceived notion that may inhibit
our ability to enter the child’s perceptual (what the child sees or hears), cognitive
(her thoughts and beliefs), and emotional (feelings) world. In analyzing the
troubling feeling and/or acting-out behavior, we suspend our judgment and
evaluation of the situation long enough, so that we can assume the child’s internal
frame of reference. The empathic connection builds upon our nonjudgmental
understanding of what the child is experiencing, in particular, what the child wants
or needs and how the child is feeling. Most specifically, an empathic connection
answers questions such as:
What is this child feeling?
What this child needs that may be influencing the way she is
behaving?
What this child believes that might be contributing to this behavior?
What this child expects from this situation that might be contributing
to the feeling or behavior?
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What do I know already about this child (i.e. experience or history)
that can help understand her current behavior?
What social skill deficits might be influencing the behavior? (Adapted
from Davis, Paleg, and Fanning, 2004.)
Using Goulston’s (2010) terms, with an empathic connection, we help the
child “feel felt” (p. 48). When an antagonistic interaction seems to be taking us
nowhere, making the child “feel felt” can bridge communication gaps and repair
feelings of anger and resentment. Equally important, making the child “feel felt”
can be the turning point in the interaction, shifting the child from defensiveness
and opposition to listening and weighing what we have to say. Goulston lists six
steps to making another person “feel felt” that we can easily adapt to children:
1. Attach an emotion to what you think the child is feeling, such as
frustrated, angry, or afraid.
2. Say, “I’m trying to get a sense of what you’re feeling and I think it is
_____.” (Fill-in an emotion.) Continue, “Is that correct? If it’s not,
then what are you feeling?” Wait for the student to agree or correct
you.
3. Then say, “How frustrated (angry, upset, etc.) are you?” Give the
child time to respond, and be prepared for intense feelings. In
addition, the child may have difficulty putting feelings into words, so
help the child articulate feelings as needed. Do not answer back or
judge, just listen and paraphrase.
4. Next, say, “And the reason you’re so frustrated (angry, upset, etc.) is
because…?” Again, let the child vent.
5. Then say, “Tell me—what needs to happen for that feeling to feel
better?”
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6. Next say, “What part can I play in making that happen? What part can
you play in making that happen?” (p. 51)
As a word of caution, empathy, or feeling as the child feels, experiencing
what the child is experiencing from her point of view and without losing our own
identity (adapted from DeVito, 2001) is not the same as sympathy. Sympathy
essentially means to feel for the child, for instance, feeling sorry for the child (e.g.
“Oh you, poor thing…” or “That’s so sad!”). With a sympathetic expression, we
share the same feeling; for instance, both child and teacher are feeling sad or both
child and teacher are feeling happy. With an empathic or empathetic statement
(e.g. “You seem overwhelmed…”), we show the student that we noticed the way
she is feeling without owning her feeling; the child may be overwhelmed, but we
are not. With a sympathetic statement we build rapport fast; with an empathetic
statement, we also build rapport fast and then, we open the door to start dealing
constructively with the troubling issue.
Guidelines to Develop Empathic Understanding
and Rapport
Simple but powerful daily routines such as saying the child’s name, greeting
the child in the mornings, making eye contact with the child, and smiling to the
child more often will do wonders in switching our interactions with the difficult to
handle student from antagonistic to collaborative. More specific things that
teachers can do routinely to create and/or strengthen rapport with a challenging
student are:
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Be flexible. Do not have a rigid, fixed expectation of what should be
normal behavior in the child.
Look for things in the child to cherish and appreciate, not for things to
criticize and judge. Pay attention to and acknowledge the child’s
skills, talents, and abilities.
Notice positive behavior. Simply noticing what the child does well
increases those behaviors. Consistently acknowledging positive
behavior improves your relationship with the difficult to handle
student.
Use the 4:1 rule: say four positive things for each negative thing that
you say to the child.
On your daily interactions with the student, make it a habit to use both
praise and encouragement. With praise we focus on our own feelings,
for example, saying, “It makes me happy to see how well you
managed the situation with Andrew;” with encouragement, we focus
on the child’s effort. For example, saying, “It was hard for you when
Andrew took your sharpener without asking you, but you stayed
calm.” Make sure that your feedback to the child is behavior specific;
that is, give feedback that describes what you see and hear. Describe
your observations without judgments or interpretations.
Students with social or behavior deficits mostly expect to receive
criticism or negative feedback from others. Because of this negative
feedback, these children’s self-image is poor. We can build a more
positive self-image, and at the same time develop a more trusting
relationship with the student by doing special talking time with the
child. Weekly, spend ten-to-fifteen minutes talking with the child
about something the child likes, something the child is good at, or
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about any random topic, as long as the child cares for the topic. Make
sure this special talking time belongs exclusively to the child, and
keep your ears wide open; you will be amazed about how many
fascinating things you will discover about this child. When we learn
fascinating things about another person, suddenly that person seems
less aversive and much more interesting to interact with.
Criticize and question the child’s actions or behavior, not the child’s
character or identity. Eliminate from your language any message
directed to the child’s identity, for example, “You have no respect for
anyone!” or “Can’t you do anything right?” By simply changing
negative and pessimistic messages into positive and inspiring ones,
teachers encourage better behavior and increase compliance.
Ask for the child’s advice and/or opinions. For example, you might
say, “I’m thinking on moving the library center to this corner. That
will give us more space to move around the room. What do you think;
where do you like it best?” Alternatively, request for the child to
share his expertise on video games by advising you on which video
game you can buy your eight-year-old for his coming birthday. Make
the child’s advice even more important by making it public,
announcing to the class that you followed the child’s advice.
The disruptive pattern exhibited by children with behavior deficits
and/or troubled students makes an impact on everybody that comes in
close contact with them, including other students in the room and
staff. In interpersonal communication theory, individuals in
interaction are seemed as members of a bigger system (environment)
in which they (individuals) are mutually influencing and reinforcing
each other (i.e. keeping the system or environment as it is). More
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specifically, what one member of the system does (disruptive student
or teacher) influence and reinforce what the other members in the
interaction will do (the classroom environment) and vice versa. It is
also believed that by changing one part of the system we
automatically change the whole system. In classroom terms, either by
changing what the disruptive student does or changing what the
teacher does, we automatically change the classroom atmosphere. The
main implication here is that by working in changing and in
improving our part in a strained system, teachers can pace and then
lead troubled students in changing and improving their part in the
system. To better understand our role in reinforcing and maintaining a
strained system or an antagonistic classroom atmosphere, we can start
by honestly answering self-evaluative questions such as:
a. How am I responding to this child’s behavior?
b. How do I interact with this child when she is angry? How do I
reinforce her troubled feelings?
c. Do I give attention to this child when she acts out, but ignore
her when she is calmed and behaving positively?
d. How am I sustaining the way we relate? Do I mirror her
behavior so that we both end up yelling at each other and
feeling angry?
We can use our knowledge of ourselves (i.e. wants, needs, and
expectations) to develop insight about children’s troubling feelings.
For example:
a. What would I want if I were this child?
b. What would I need if I were this child?
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c. What would I expect from others and from the situation if I
were this child?
Request feedback both from the child and your class about things they
would like to see different. In particular, ask which of your behaviors
they would like to see you change, and then, change those behaviors.
Comply with students’ requests so that they comply with your
requests when is your turn to ask. Always remember that, if the
troubled, anger-prone, and/or acting-out student can change, so can
you.
Talking with a Distraught Child: Enhanced
Interventions that Build On-the-Spot Rapport
and Defuse Troubling Feelings
1. Reframe the conflict as something happening within the child, not
something happening between the child and you or between the child
and another student. For example, saying, “You find yourself in this
predicament because you let your angry feelings dictate your
behavior.”
2. Express the conflict as happening between the child and an
impersonal rule, not between the child and you; for example, “The
rule in this class is no throwing spitballs.”
3. Use reflective and therapeutic listening. Teachers of students with
social and behavior deficits need to practice the skill of therapeutic
listening the same way we practice any other teaching skill. Listen to
the child carefully and without passing judgment, letting go of what is
in your mind at the moment so that you can fully concentrate on what
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the child is saying. While taking notes mentally, do not speculate
about the hidden meaning of the behavior, and do not dispute what the
child is saying. Instead, be curious about what the child says. Acting
out of curiosity, encourage the child to tell you more.
4. Do not be in a hurry to take over, as a rule the teacher should talk less
than the child talks. If you find yourself doing most of the talking, that
is a strong indication that you are not listening therapeutically. Early
in the interaction, let the child lead while you follow. Initial
interventions are mainly about pacing or understanding; to clarify the
issue of concern, focus on asking questions that encourage the student
to expand or to elaborate (e.g. “Can you tell me more?”), or ask
questions to help the child remove any part in the message that is
ambiguous or unclear. In addition, you can rephrase what the student
is saying to make sure that “you got it right,” or you can summarize.
For more on these therapeutic listening techniques, see the next
chapter.
5. Refrain from demanding that the student opens to you before she feels
ready. Use a door opener instead; that is, offer an invitation to talk but
without forcing the child. For example, asking, “Would you like to sit
or to walk with me so that you can tell me more about it?” When you
feel that you have enough information about the problem, challenge
the child by saying, “Are you strong enough to know what is really
happening inside your head?”
6. Say what you believe the child is trying to say but does not know how
to put into words. For example, “Your feelings are hurt, right?”
7. Do not promise the child that you are going to fix the problem for
him. Instead ask, “How can we fix this?” or “What can I do to help
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you fix this?” These two questions convey the message that it is the
child’s responsibility, not the teacher’s job, to solve the problem
situation.
8. Give information (observations about what happened) rather than
giving advice or telling the child what to do. The information that you
provide should guide the child in how to handle the current problem.
Students with social and behavior deficits need to learn how to deal
with conflictive interactions and troubling feelings in a socially
acceptable way.
9. In a therapeutic confrontation, we point out the discrepancy between
what the child wants and needs (e.g. “I want Sharona to play with
me”) and the child’s actions (e.g. “I hear that you want Sharona to
play with you, but you hit and curse her. The way I see this, hitting
and cursing at Sharona is not helping you win her trust, much less
become her friend”). Therapeutic teachers confront troubled and
anger-prone students only as much as we have supported the child;
that is, if we support, we can confront; if we never support, then we
do not confront.
10.Point out the discrepancy between what the child says (e.g. “I feel
fine”) and what the child does, for example, “Throwing your markers
across the room tells me that you feel bothered about something.”
11.Point out the discrepancy between the child’s verbal message (e.g. “I
feel fine”) and the child’s nonverbal behavior (e.g. “You say that you
are fine, but you look and sound upset”).
12.Challenge the child to do the opposite of what others expect her to do;
for example, “I bet you will surprise everybody by finishing the
afternoon without a tantrum.”
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13.Do not counter the child’s self-defeating beliefs (e.g. “I cannot do it!”)
by taking the opposite stance (e.g. “You can do it if you try”). Instead,
approach the negative belief from the empirical point of view
advocated by cognitive psychologists, e.g., “Would you be willing to
test your belief?”
14.Do not join a power struggle; focus on what the student wants and
needs, not on what you want or need.
15.Do not focus in proving to the child that you are in charge. Ask what
it would take for the two of you to solve the problem and offer to do
your part first.
16.If you feel uncomfortable with what the child tells you, share your
feelings but without rejecting the child. For example, if you hear that
another student was attacked by gang members to steal his jacket, do
not label the child or situation negatively (e.g. “That’s terrible! How
could you do something like that?”). Instead, share how you would
feel in a similar situation, for example, saying, “I would be devastated
if someone attacks my child to steal his jacket.” This way, you show
the child the effect of his behavior on others; however, no matter what
happens or what you hear, resist the impulse to react emotionally.
17.When discussing troubling situations such as the one above, focus on
your own feelings, not on the child’s shortcomings. In other words,
say what you like and do not like about the behavior, not what is
wrong or bad with the child.
18.Balance any criticism or negative feedback that you give to the child
with positive remarks; always start the therapeutic interaction by
saying something positive about the child. You can start with a phrase
like, “I like the way that you…”
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19.Acknowledge the child’s feelings, for example, saying, “You look
pissed.”
20.Use sympathy and share your understanding of the child’s feelings.
For example, say, “If that happens to me, I would be upset too.”
21.Defuse the angry feeling by making the feeling less intense or hostile.
Rephrase what the child says, for example:
Christopher: I hate Ms. Johnson!
Ms. Williams: You are not happy with Ms. Johnson.
22.Come to an agreement with the child that change is necessary. The
student must feel motivated to change the problem behavior before he
is willing to work for it.
23.Build on what the student says and look for a common ground; that is,
find something in which both the child and you agree and that you can
accept.
24.Agree to what the child is saying, in whole or in part, and then add
your own redirecting comment or suggestion.
25.Use a self-disclosure by revealing something similar that happened to
you. However, be careful that you listen to the child’s story first and
in full; do not “steal the story” from the child. The focus of a
therapeutic interaction is always on the child, never on the teacher.
26.Use a self-disclosure by revealing your feelings about what the child
is saying, for example, “That makes me feel sad.”
27.Use close proximity. Never reprimand, criticize, or give commands to
a troubled child in front of his peers. Stand next to the child instead
and give directives exclusively to the child, almost whispering and
making sure that only the child can hear you. In like vein, when
praising an older child with social deficits, use whisper praise to avoid
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bringing attention to the child and embarrassing the child. The older
the child is the more whisper praise we use.
28.Monitor your verbal and nonverbal messages to the student; avoid
making faces, rolling your eyes, sighing, or making any other gesture
that reveals frustration and exasperation.
29.Use your body language and tone of voice to project calmness and
being in control, and to remind the child that the two of you are allies
working to achieve the same goal (i.e. to improve the overall
classroom atmosphere by improving the child’s behavior).
30.Create a mood matching. With this sophisticated pacing and leading
technique, we start pacing by harmonizing our “body attitude”
(posture and facial expression), gestures with hands or feet, breathing
(rate and depth), and/or voice (volume, loudness, and speed) with
some of the student’s key gestures. That is, we pair the emotional
energy that the student is displaying in his troubling emotion with the
emotional energy that we display. This does not mean that we mirror
emotions (e.g. both student and teacher acting and talking angrily),
but we approximate the intensity level of the specific emotion; more
specifically, we display our “emotional energy” at a level of intensity
that is slightly below the child’s intensity level. However, instead of
displaying a similar “angry energy,” we display a positive emotion,
for example, high concern or high interest. Gradually, we lower our
emotional level (e.g. lower tone of voice, talking slower, moving
slower, and acting more calm and serene) to lead the child into
matching our calmer state, moving the child away from an “angry
energy” and into a “calmer energy.”
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31.Do not tell an agitated child to calm down; not only this remark
reinforces the perception that the child is already in an agitated state,
but also invalidates the child’s right to feel and to express anger. Is as
if we are telling the child that her feelings are wrong or do not make
sense. The first thing to do then is to validate the feeling by reassuring
the child that based on her unique perspective of the situation the way
she is feeling is understandable. Notice that we are not agreeing with
the feeling; we are simply grasping the meaning of the feeling. Once
we validate the feeling, we tell the child, “I can see how this situation
feels troubling to you. However, I need for you to remain calm, so
that I can hear from you exactly what happened.” The phrase in italics
presupposes that the child is already calmed and will stay that way, a
highly influential persuasive trick. (See Chapter 7 for analysis about
the role of presuppositions in persuading.) In addition, we support or
give external structure to the child (“I need for you to…”), something
reassuring and comforting to a child that is struggling to regain self-
control.
32.Although subjective, all feelings are perceived as facts to the person
experiencing them. The child’s feelings of anger are real and they
matter to her; therefore, do not waste precious time minimizing or
denying the way the child is feeling. Calmly acknowledge and accept
the troubling feeling and then help the child see how angry behaviors
such as yelling, cursing, threatening, hitting, and/or kicking stand in
the way of both getting her point across and of getting what she wants
or needs. That is, lead the child in establishing a more realistic
behavior-consequence connection.
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Chapter 5
Therapeutic Listening
nterpersonal or face-to-face communication begins when two or more
individuals share some kind of information, this information being in the
form of concepts, beliefs, values, opinions and/or feelings. However,
interpersonal communication falters when we do not listen to each other; simply
put, very little can be shared or communicated without listening first. If we do not
listen carefully, we miss relevant information. For this reason, listening is regarded
as a prerequisite skill upon which all other interpersonal communication skills are
predicated (Hargie, 2011). From a teacher’s perspective, a constructive teacher-to-
student exchange can only take place when we pay attention to the student, so that
we link our responses to the child’s message. Narrowing our classroom perspective
to the context of emotional communication, teachers’ therapeutic listening skills
rank first in helping an unsettled child deal with conflicted feelings; we are not
going to be able to pass on important information to the child if we are not fully
I
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committed to listen to the student. The soothing and supportive value of listening
therapeutically goes way beyond trying to understand fully what the child is
saying. When our primary focus is on listening, we give a high compliment to the
child by communicating, “I care about you, and nothing matters more than what
you are saying. What you say is important to me.” The stronger our therapeutic
listening skills, the better we understand those issues that matter to children and the
more effective we can be in helping children change. From Hargie (2011), we get
the following list of communicative goals, or what the author calls purposes of
listening, served by the skill of listening (adapted for children):
1. To focus specifically upon the message that the child is
communicating.
2. To gain a full, accurate insight into the child’s communication.
3. To critically evaluate what the child is saying.
4. To monitor the nonverbal signals accompanying the child’s verbal
message.
5. To convey interest, concern, and attention.
6. To encourage full, open, and honest expression.
7. To develop a child-centered approach during the interaction.
8. To reach a shared and agreed understanding and acceptance with the
child about both sides’ (teacher and student) goals and priorities (p.
182).
Good listening or attending skills are for the benefit of children too. Starting
on the next chapter, we elaborate on how to get children to pay attention to our
therapeutic message, but here, we focus on how teachers can display good
attending behaviors or listening skills so that we know how to recognize the cues
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that the child is sending, and learn to use those cues to grasp in-depth meaning in
the emotional message.
Listening Levels
We can categorize the skill of listening by levels, depending on how deeply
we are paying attention. In therapeutic communication, most related levels are:
Beginning Listening. We hear the first few words and then we start
thinking about something else or about what we want to say in return.
Partial Listening. We start listening with the best of our intentions,
but at some point become distracted by our own thoughts, something
that the student says, or events taking place around us.
Selective Listening. This level involves listening for specific
information while ignoring or filtering the other parts. We hear what
we want to hear and pay little attention or distort the extraneous
information or information in which we have no interest. In any of
these three levels of interrupted listening (beginning, partial, and
selective), our thoughts may start wandering anywhere else and then
we start dreaming.
Full Listening. When we are paying close attention to what the child
is saying, committed in checking for understanding and in
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summarizing, we are in a full listening mode. Active listening starts at
this level.
Deep Listening. At this most intense level, we apply full listening
skills so that we truly understand the child as an individual with
unique wants, needs, and feelings. Deep listening enables us to listen
“between the lines;” we hear the emotion, watch body language, and
identify what the child wants and/or needs (the child’s communicative
goal).
Listening Types
We can also categorize the skill of listening by types, starting with a basic
discrimination of sounds and ending with deep listening. Discriminative listening,
the most basic type, gives us the ability to identify differences between sounds. At
the discriminative listening level, our goal is simply to scan and monitor auditory
and/or visual stimuli, for example, listening to hear if a baby is crying. Next, we
make sense of those sounds by listening for comprehension; this is known as the
comprehension listening type. In comprehending, our vocabulary knowledge as
well as the language rules of grammar and syntax come into play. The ability to
extract key facts from the longer strings of information enhances our
understanding. At the comprehending level, our emphasis is upon listening for
central facts, main ideas, and relevant themes so as to fully understand the
message. This type of listening is also known as content listening and
informational listening. Among those listening types most relevant to listening
therapeutically, we find:
Evaluative Listening. This listening type is also known as judgmental,
critical, or interpretive listening. If our evaluative listening is biased
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or one-sided, we are making judgments about what the child is saying,
seeking to assess the veracity of what we hear. We adjudicate
truthfulness according to our own beliefs and values, evaluating the
message in terms of goodness or badness, worthiness or unworthiness.
In the two-sided subtype, we take into consideration all sides of the
argument or issue; our emphasis now is in listening for the main
arguments in order to establish the strengths and weaknesses of each.
Sympathetic Listening. In sympathetic listening, we connect with both
the topic and the child emotionally, showing that we care by paying
close attention to the child and by sharing feelings. If the child
expresses sadness, we show sadness; if the child expresses happiness,
we show happiness.
Active Listening. This is a structured way of listening and responding
to the message. During active listening, we listen for meaning, giving
our undivided attention to the child. Because we are in a full listening
mode, we halt both our personal frame of reference and evaluative
judgments. That is, we make no judgments or pass along no opinions;
neither we give a solution to the problem. In an emotionally charged
communication, an active listener listens for feelings, acknowledging
the emotional content that the child is expressing. For example,
saying, “You sound upset that…” or “You seem to feel frustrated
by…” This is not the same as agreeing with the child; it is simply us
stating that we understand what the child is communicating.
Empathetic Listening. On this listening type we go beyond feeling
sorry or happy for the child, looking for a deeper connection and
fuller understanding of the child’s feelings. Here, we show
commitment in attending to and in trying to understand the thoughts,
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beliefs, and feelings of the child. During empathetic listening, we pay
close attention to the emotional signals that the child is sending us.
The most important empathetic listening technique is putting
ourselves in the child’s shoes, or experiencing the events the same
way that the child is experiencing them. When we are truly
empathetic, we put aside our own need to be heard or to take turns
talking; instead, we focus on understanding, supporting, and
motivating the child. The next two listening types, therapeutic
listening and reflective listening are more sophisticated forms of the
empathetic listening type.
Therapeutic Listening. To reach this skilled level of listening, we
empathize with the child first, and then we use our empathic
connection to help the child understand, develop, or change in some
way. We use therapeutic listening in those situations where we are
trying to help the child deal constructively with troubling feelings
and/or with troublesome situations.
Reflective Listening. Branching from Carl Roger’s client-centered
model, this is a high-level empathetic listening type. Reflective
listening is founded on the belief that the capacity for insight,
problem-solving, and growth lies primarily in the child’s ability to
understand the situation, to identify solutions, to select the most
appropriate solution, and to responsibly implement the solution
selected. During reflective listening, our guiding question is not “How
can I help this child?” but “What can I do to help this child help
herself?”
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Obstacles to Effective Listening
As Van Slyke states (as cited on Hargie, 2011), a recurring problem in
listening is that “We often listen with the goal of responding rather than listening
with the goal of understanding” (p. 182). In other words, our main concern is with
what we want to say and own point of view rather than with gaining a deeper
insight into the child’s experience and perspective. From years of research in the
field of therapeutic listening, we compiled a list of blocks to listening that inhibit
teachers’ ability in listening therapeutically to children:
1. Drifting in concentration, paying attention to other things, ideas, or
people.
2. Filtering or listening selectively; that is, we listen only to what
supports and reinforces our belief system.
3. Taking charge of the topic, ignoring what the child says.
4. Shifting or changing the topic when we do not feel comfortable with
the message. This listening block is also called derailing.
5. Correcting the child, for example, saying, “That’s not what I heard
happened” or “But you were the one who…”
6. Explaining it away or interpreting the message for the student (as
opposed as with the student). For example, saying, “You got mad
because…” or “You did this because…”
7. Jumping to conclusions to fill in any missing pieces in the message
based on conclusions rooted on our past experiences with the child.
As McKay, Davis, and Fanning (2009) state, “You tend to perceive
what you are in the habit of perceiving” (p. 192).
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8. Prejudging the child based on little or ambiguous information; we
infer a lot and make a quick evaluation. Our evaluation then
influences how we listen and how we respond to the message.
9. Evaluating and or judging the message based on who is speaking
rather than on what is said. For instance, because I negatively label
William as a troublemaker, I am predisposed to blame William for
pushing in line. What William has to say in his defense is not worth
hearing or I will listen to it only to confirm my opinion.
10.Blaming and/or finding fault in the child.
11.Antagonizing with the child, for example, “I don’t care if Sammy was
pushing in line too; do you always follow what Sammy does?”
12.Searching for the weak point in the message, so that we can prove that
we are right and the child is wrong. Our focus here is in us being
right, and we will walk a great length to avoid losing the argument or
to avoid being wrong.
13.Being too quick to disagree with the child. If we listen mainly to find
something to disagree with and then defend and maintain our own
position regardless of what the child says, we are sparring. This
listening block keeps us busy arguing and debating with the child, one
of the fastest routes to a power struggle. We never hear what the
student says because we are too focused on finding things to disagree
with him. The child’s arguments are dismissed and even invalidated
with angry put-downs (e.g. “You are such a troublemaker!” and “You
have a potty mouth!”), a popular sparring technique. Without realizing
it, chances are that we are mirroring the child in both attitude and
behavior, with both of us yelling and taking strong stands in defending
our opinions and preferences.
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14.Defending either our own position, or someone else’s position.
15.Giving our own opinion and point of view, in particular, when we
convey the message that our own opinions and points of view are
more important than the child’s are.
16.Using the child’s actions (behavior) to state what we want (as opposed
to what the child wants or needs). For instance, saying, “You are
always messing up for the other students! You better start fixing your
act.”
17.Minimizing or discounting the child’s feelings. For example, saying
things like “Cheer up. There is no need to be upset,” “You will feel
better as soon as you stop feeling sorry for yourself,” “Don’t worry,
these things happen,” “So, he called you Pinocchio. Big deal!” or
“Stop overreacting!” Another way of minimizing feelings is by
placating or agreeing with everything the child says. Our focus in
placating is not directed at listening but at avoiding conflict.
18.Denying the child’s feelings, for example, saying, “Oh, you don’t
really feel that way.”
19.Reading the child’s mind (e.g. “I know what you’re thinking”),
guessing a hidden meaning (e.g. “I know why you’re doing this”), or
guessing a hidden motivation (e.g. “I know what you want”).
20.Leading or directing the child to talk only about the things that we
want to talk about.
21.Pondering in something that already happened or in something the
child said (focusing in the past) at the expense of listening to what the
child is saying in the present (focusing in the present).
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22.Keeping our focus in how to manage what is going to happen next
(focusing in the future) rather than in listening to what the child is
currently saying, or listening in the present.
23.Rehearsing, or mentally planning our response while the student is
still talking.
24.Trying to fix things. A similar listening block would be rescuing or
taking responsibility in solving the problem for the child.
25.Giving advice that tells the child what to do next. For example, “Now
go and apologize to Lucy,” “Go and tell Lucy how you feel,” “Ask
Lucy to come over here to share the book with you,” or “Just ignore
her!” A therapeutic intervention would be asking the child, “What do
you think you can do to settle this argument with Lucy?” Although
advice has a role in therapeutic communication, when we deliver it
too early in the interaction we defeat the main purpose of any
therapeutic intervention: teaching children to find their own solutions
to their social problems. Jumping with advice, or to rescue the child,
can entrap us into missing what is more important in the therapeutic
interaction: listening to feelings, both explicit and implied.
26.Lecturing and educating the child; for example, telling Lucy, “The
problem with you is that you don’t share. If you were friendlier, you
will be able to enjoy the company of other kids.”
27.“Stealing” the story by giving ourselves the role of the main character
and making the story all about us, most specifically, what we want or
need. Because we are such an interesting character our attention is on
crafting the main character (“wonderful me”); that is, our focus is on
telling about us, not on learning about the child.
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28.Identifying with the story (another way in which “wonderful me” can
steal the story). Whatever we hear the child saying triggers our
memories of our own similar experiences and endlessly, we start
sharing our “it happened to me too” experiences before the child had
the chance to finish her story.
29.Feeling sorry for the child; also known as pitying. For instance,
saying, “Oh you, poor thing…” or “I’m sorry to hear that you’re in
such a mess.”
30.Consoling and/or making excuses for the child, for example, “Don’t
worry about this. This was Sammy’s fault, not yours.”
31.Asking the child, “Why do you always do that?” Chances are that the
child is not going to be able to explain his behavior.
Traveling to the Therapeutic Realm: Listening
Skills that Ensure a Swift Journey
Empathy
As introduced on chapter four, empathy is the essence of therapeutic
communication, having a fundamental role in listening for healing or listening
therapeutically. Empathy can be a powerful soothing tool for both the student and
the teacher. A short, supportive phrase accompanied with a gesture of empathy
(e.g. saying “I hear you” while touching the child on the shoulder) will take us only
a moment but will walk a mile in creating rapport and in improving a challenging
relationship with a hard to handle student. When we create an empathic connection
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with the unsettled child, we show that we understand what the child means from
his point of view or frame of reference, not ours. By walking in the child’s shoes,
we are in a better position to understand what the child is thinking (cognitive
empathy) and feeling (feelings empathy).
Empathy is frequently confused with, but is not the same as, sympathy. A
feeling of sympathy is mainly a feeling of compassion or concern; for example,
feeling sorry for the child because her kitten died. With sympathy, the feeling (e.g.
grief, anger, embarrassment, or happiness) is shared as if it belongs to both child
and teacher. Examples of sympathy statements would be, “I’m sorry to hear that
your kitten died” and “I would feel angry too if that happens to me.” With
empathy, on the other hand, we “borrow” the child’s feelings to observe and to
understand them, but without adopting any of those feelings as our own. As an
empathetic listener, we remain detached from the problem situation, a skill also
known in clinical settings as engaged detachment and participant observer. By
becoming a participant observer, the therapeutic teacher responds to the child’s
emotional experience without taking ownership of the child’s troubling and/or
angry feelings. In other words, by keeping an appropriate emotional distance the
participant observer remains objective in order to maintain a clearer view of the
issue. In our helping capacity, teachers and school staff have the valuable
opportunity of presenting an alternative perspective to the problem situation
helping the distraught child answer: “What might this problem look like with the
emotions subtracted?” (Adapted from Knapp, 2007.) The author continues,
“Hence, your objective perspective may enable the opportunity to view and present
problems with and without the emotions in place, which may provide alternative
routes to the problem-solving pathway” (p. 10). Empathetic or empathic
statements are of the kind:
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You must be upset…
I can see that you were angry because…
I imagine that you must feel…
At this moment you feel…
I understand that you’re feeling…
I hear that you feel…
We can express empathy both verbally (e.g. “Uh-huh…” “I see…” “I follow
you…”) and nonverbally (e.g. nodding, a relaxed facial expression, or putting our
arm on the child’s shoulder).
Acceptance
During our therapeutic journey, the skill of acceptance walks hand-in-hand
with the skill of empathy. When we are listening empathetically, we both show
respect and accept the student’s rights to his own experience and feelings. We
suspend our own frame of reference, entering the child’s private perceptual world,
and accepting without judgment the child’s perception of the problem. We show a
willingness to hear and to understand what the child has to say without negative
criticism and without any preconditions. Acceptance basically means staying as
neutral as we can; our own perspective is not part of our responses, even if we
disagree with the child’s interpretation of the problem or with the child’s
behaviors. We give our undivided attention to what the child is saying, so that the
child feels heard in a nonjudgmental way. Strongly related to the skill of
acceptance is the ability to listen with an open mind or listening with openness. To
keep an open mind, McKay, Davis, and Fanning (2009) share the following piece
of advice: “The most important rule for listening with openness is to hear the
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whole statement, the entire communication, before judging. Premature evaluations
don’t make sense because you don’t have all the information” (p. 21).
Accepting the student’s perception of the problem is different from
accepting the problem itself. We are accepting what the child is saying and feeling,
not agreeing with it. At this entry level, the therapeutic listener avoids expressing
any kind of agreement or disagreement with the issue discussed. Another way of
showing acceptance is by communicating to the child that we believe in his ability
to solve his own social problems.
Immediacy
DeVito (2001) defines immediacy as “The joining of the speaker and
listener, the creation of a sense of togetherness, of oneness” (p. 145). Therapeutic
listeners demonstrate immediacy by conveying a sense of interest and attention, a
liking for the child. As the author states, immediacy joins us; nonimmediacy
separates us. The skill of immediacy is also known as nonverbal attending (Knapp,
2007) and attending behavior (Morse and Ivey, 1996). Most closely related to the
skill of immediacy would be the therapeutic skills of rapport (detailed on chapter
four) and pacing (detailed on chapter three). From the literature in interpersonal
communication, we get some pointers for communicating immediacy both
nonverbally and verbally:
Maintaining physical closeness and arranging our body to exclude
third parties.
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Maintaining appropriate eye contact and limiting looking around at
others.
Keeping a relaxed, inviting, and open posture; avoiding crossing arms
and/or legs.
Smiling to the child and looking pleasant (relaxed facial muscles).
Reflecting the child’s facial expressions to show sympathy and
empathy with the emotional story that the child is telling.
Leaning forward occasionally.
Communicating warmth, interest, and confidence with our voice.
Expressing concern for the child (e.g. “I’m concerned about…”).
Using the child’s name, for example, saying, “Sammy, what do you
think?” or “What do you think, Sammy?”
Staying on topic, which is the child’s topic.
Using self-references (i.e. what we think and/or believe) in our
evaluative statements, for example, “I think your idea shows insight”
rather than “Your idea shows insight.”
Focusing on the child’s remarks; making the child feel that we are
listening by referencing his previous remark (e.g. “So, you think our
classroom is too crowded”).
Focusing on the child’s remarks by giving feedback that relates to
what the child said (e.g. “I think that your opinion shows insight”).
Alternatively, we can ask for clarification (e.g. “What do you mean
by crowded?”) or elaboration (e.g. “Can you tell me more?”).
Giving a compliment to the child. For example, saying, “I like your
new sneakers” or “I admire your sense of humor.” However, keep in
mind that to be effective your compliment must be sincere.
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Sensitivity
Listening with sensitivity is being aware of the emotional content of the
message, in particular, the feelings expressed explicitly and implicitly. The child’s
feelings are never questioned or diminished, but echoed either in a sympathetic or
an empathetic voice. From Nichols (1995), we adapted ways in which teachers can
show sensitivity when listening to children’s troubling feelings:
Paying attention to what the child is saying
Acknowledging the child’s feelings
Listening without giving our opinion
Listening without offering advice
Listening without immediately agreeing or disagreeing
Noticing how the student appears to be feeling, and then asking the
child
Respecting the student’s need for quiet times
Respecting the student’s need to address the problem
Not pushing too hard for feelings
Time
In order to truly listen to a troubled or angry child, we must set aside ample
time to do it. When we give children the precious gift of our time, we are letting
them know that we care and that we are interested in what they have to say. As a
first step, invite the child to sit; this way, you communicate without words your
willingness to listen and to take the time to do it. If you do not have enough time to
listen, just be honest and tell the child, this is always better than rushing through
things. However, make sure that you schedule a meeting with the child for a more
appropriate occasion, for instance, saying “I really can’t concentrate on what
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you’re saying right now. Can you come to see me after dismissal?” or “I’m really
interested in what you have to say, but I would like to wait until I can give you my
full attention. How do you feel about continuing this conversation at lunch time?”
Table 5.1. Listening Therapeutically to Children
_____________________________________________________________
1. Listen to the child with respect, as you would do with a friend.
2. Maintain the confidentiality and keep it private.
3. Set aside enough time to listen.
4. Give the child your undivided attention.
5. Keep an open mind and do not evaluate or judge.
6. As a first step, help the student feel comfortable and build trust.
7. Show genuine interest and be curious. Show interest by making supportive comments
like, “That’s interesting…” and “Tell me more.”
8. Instead of agreeing or disagreeing with the child, invite him to tell you more. Tell the
child that you want to know more.
9. Say nothing. Just by listening and communicating acceptance with connecting
gestures such as nodding, touching the child on the shoulder, and/or a tender smile,
we support and encourage the child.
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10. Use minimal encouragers or short phrases such as “I see,” “Yes,” “Uh-huh,” and
“I’m listening.”
11. Resist the impulse to switch the focus to you and to what is in your mind.
12. Do not be in a hurry to takeover.
13. If you truly want to know how the child is feeling, just ask her; and then listen.
14. Give the child time to express freely what she thinks and feels.
15. Give the child ample time to complete her thoughts. Do not interrupt after the first
pause; speak only after the child is finished.
16. Give the student the opportunity to make his point, acknowledge it, and only then say
your part.
17. Resist the impulse to react emotionally to what you hear.
18. Try to understand the feelings that the child is expressing explicitly and implicitly,
not just facts or ideas.
19. Respond to feelings, not just content.
Chapter 6
The Role of Self in Emotional Communication
n any interpersonal exchange there are at least two selves in interaction: your-
self (other or child) and my-self (I or me). In a therapeutic interaction, most
specifically, we build emotional self-awareness by helping the distraught
child connect with him-self or her-self. However, our positive influence shrinks if
we, the teacher or helper, have limited ability in connecting with our most
accessible self in the interaction: my-self. Simply put, if I have difficulty
connecting with my emotional self, then, how can I help the child, any child,
understand and connect with his or her emotional self? With this question in mind,
I
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we prepare for our helping role by removing the veil that is keeping the self hidden
from our view.
Types of Self
According to Hargie (2011), the self can take many forms and can be
analyzed from different perspectives. The author lists the following sides or types
of self:
I really am- True Self
I would really like to be- Ideal Self
I want others to think I am- Social Self
I used to be- Past Self
A new person- Reconstructed Self
***END OF THIS EXCERPT***
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Carmen Y. Reyes, The Psycho-Educational Teacher, has 20+ years of
experience as a self-contained special education teacher, resource room teacher,
and educational diagnostician. In the classroom, Carmen has taught at all grade
levels, from kindergarten to post-secondary. Carmen is an expert in the application
of behavior management strategies and in teaching students with learning or
behavior problems. Her classroom background, in New York City and in her native
Puerto Rico, includes 10 years teaching students labeled as emotionally disturbed,
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and four years teaching children with a learning disability or low cognitive
functioning. Carmen has a bachelor’s degree in psychology (University of Puerto
Rico) and a master’s degree in special education with a specialization in emotional
disorders (Long Island University, Brooklyn: NY). She also has extensive graduate
training in psychology (30+ credits). Currently, Carmen is a full-time writer. She
authors 70+ books and articles in child guidance and in alternative teaching
techniques for students struggling academically. All her publications are available
on her blog, The Psycho-Educational Teacher.
CONNECT WITH THE AUTHOR ONLINE
Blog
http://thepsychoeducationalteacher.blogspot.com/
http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Psycho-Educational-Teacher/
168256836524091
http://twitter.com/psychoeducation
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