Archive for December, 2007

Fathers & Sons, Vol. III

We ate breakfast this morning at a local deli/diner with my brother- and father-in-law. In between mouthfuls of Mickey Mouse-shaped pancake, my just-shy-of-three-year-old said, “Daddy, I want to tell you a secret.” I obliged by leaning in close, and I heard his breath quicken slightly as he whispered:

“I love you the bestest ever.”

Can you believe there was a time I thought fatherhood wasn’t for me?

Talk about going out on a high note, 2007.  Happy New Year, everybody.

My Behavior Management Plan

A major professional interest of mine is behavior management and support. As a school psychologist (and possible future behavior analyst), I’ll be called upon to figure out why kids engage in certain behaviors and devise behavior management plans for them.

I’m really looking forward to honing my chops in a professional capacity (read: get paid for it), but I’ve already gotten some informal practice in this arena as a teacher and parent. But, at the risk of sounding like a cheesy movie tagline, I’m about to take on my toughest client: myself.

This will shock and amaze people who know me only in a professional capacity, but off the clock, I swear like a sailor. I’m talking straight up blue streak, especially when I drink, drive, and/or get frustrated (but never all three at once; mercy!). Part of me feels like I’m getting too old for this, but a bigger part of me feels awful for my wife, who hates it. My cursing sets her on edge and aggravates her like nothing else I do (and I give her plenty of reasons to be aggravated). I’ve tried to stop, but I give in to old habits too easily. On top of that, my son is getting older, and his vocabulary is growing, mostly via mimicry. I’ve also got a little girl on the way, and neither of them need to hear their dad talking like that. This has got to stop.

I’m trying a real basic token economy approach to this. For each full day (5:30 am – whenever I pass out) I go without cursing, I get to X off a day on our calendar. The deal I struck with my wife (and myself) is this: I hit two straight curseless weeks, I get a major reinforcer, upon which we’ve agreed in advance. I won’t share what that is, but suffice to say it’s something I want badly enough to go two full weeks without swearing (internal monologue notwithstanding). I’m at the end of my first full day; 14 days takes me right up to 2008’s doorstep.

If this seems goofy or stupid to you (really, how hard is it to speak civilly?), think about that one bad habit you have that you just can’t kick: you eat too much junk food and put on too much weight. You procrastinate with your grading. You bite someone else’s your toenails. I enjoy exercise, I’ve been much better about my grading this year, but I can not get this vulgar, profane monkey off my back. I’ve asked teachers to engage in this style of behavior management with students in the past; let me now put my money where my dirty little mouth is and see how well it works for me.

Psychologist, heal thyself.

A Little Help?

As part of my grad school internship, I am working on a wiki for special educators in my district. Editing is currently limited to me, myself, and I, but once I “officially” launch it, I plan on opening that up so all special ed teachers, aides, and CST members in my district can edit (and tracking changes via RSS so I can jump on any vandalism pronto).

It’s a work in progress, so like a bad steak, there are some areas that are more done than others. I’ll be working on this throughout the weekend, but if you have a sec, I’d greatly appreciate any feedback you can offer. Here are my three main goals for this site:

  1. A demystification of some legal and practical information regarding special education in NJ via “plain English” explanations
  2. Empowerment of special ed teachers through information dissemination (specifically w/r/t behavior management and curricular accommodations)
  3. Building of community within the department through invitations to (eventually) collaborate and add to this document

You can leave comments here or hit me up at damian@apaceofchange.com with any constructive feedback – I would appreciate knowing what you think is helpful about the site as well as what you think needs improvement (or what’s missing that you think should be there).

Here’s the address: http://hcspecialservices.wikispaces.com     http://hcss-wiki.wikispaces.com

Thanks, network! Happy December!