- Okay, let's get started. Hello and welcome. My name is Beth McGregor. I'm a psychologist and I feel very grateful that I have been invited by the Department of Education to present to you today, the final presentation in their annual roadshow on positive behaviour supports. Just a little bit about me is I work as a learning and development consultant. So what that means is I provide training support to people who work in the child welfare and child well-being sector, as well as people who work in the early childhood education sector, such as yourself. Over the last 10 years, I have trained thousands of educators across Australia on a range of things, including trauma, attachment, brain development, which is a big interest of mine, and of course, behaviour. So I've been invited today to talk to you about behaviour supports and I'm excited to be doing that. Let's start with an acknowledgement of country. I want to acknowledge to you that I am coming from Kuring-gai land, which is the Northern part of New South Wales or Northern beaches part of New South Wales. I'll invite you to consider and really think about the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, who have been living on your land where you live for 60,000 years and really invite you to just take a moment to really acknowledge the Aboriginal country that we are on.

- [Narrator] We acknowledge the first Australians as the traditional custodians of the continent, whose culture is the oldest living culture in human history. We pay our respects to elders past, present, and emerging and we respect their cultural heritage, beliefs, and relationship with the land. We extend our respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people here today. They share the memories, traditions, and hopes of the traditional ancestors with the new generations today and in the future. We would also like to thank them for looking after this land for thousands of years.

- Okay, so just a bit of housekeeping before we begin. The microphone, video, and chat functions will be disabled throughout the presentation, however, the Q and A section is open. I am hoping to have some time for questions but it's hard to know exactly, but if you do have questions, please put them on the chat function. There is an upvoting option where you can pick which questions are most important to you and we will do our very best to get those answered for you, if not now, then hopefully after the session. And just to let you know that this session will be recorded. Okay. Let's dive into it. So the aim of today's presentation, I've been asked, I've been given four briefs. So really, what we're going to be looking at is how do we understand the cause of challenging behaviour? Of course, we could talk for days about that, but I'm gonna offer a particular framework for understanding the cause of challenging behaviours. How do you teach children the social skills they need to successfully engage in positive behaviours? So I've got a really exciting strategy to share with you, which is pretty cool, so I hope that you find it helpful. And then the next question is, how do you work together with families and agencies to create the best outcomes for children? So we've got a lot to cover. I just want to let you know that a copy of these slides will be made available to you at the end of the presentation. So there's a lot of information on the slides, lot of tips and techniques, and so don't feel like you have to write everything down in a hurry. A copy of the slides will be made available to you. At the end of these slides, I also have some references in terms of recommended reading, but I also have a range of links that you can click on in the slide pack for additional resources relating to what I'm talking to you about today. So I hope that that is helpful. So our agenda for today is how do we make sense of children's behaviour? The question, million dollar question. How do you support positive behaviour? And what I'm gonna focus on today is by teaching what we might call missing skills or lagging skills. I'm gonna be talking about that. And then how do you talk to parents about challenging behaviours? That's a really tricky one. So what I've got for you today is a few phrases and a few ways of thinking about what is a helpful way of talking to parents about challenging behaviours and also working with other services to support families. So, before we begin, I'm just gonna invite you to breathe with me just so we can get settled and focused. Many of you have probably had a busy day, rushed to get to this session. So let's take a moment to breathe and you can see here, I've got a flower and some candles. This is a breathing technique that you can teach children. So I know you might feel a little bit silly, but just do it with me because it really does help to get ourselves present and focused. So we're going to imagine that we're smelling the flower and blowing out candle. Nice long exhalation. We'll do two more of those. And one more. I don't cover it today, but one of the things that's really, really helpful in helping children manage themselves is teaching breathing deep, slow belly breaths. That really helps children be regulated. So that's why I always do breathing in any presentation that I do. Helps us be regulated, as well. All right. Making sense of children's behaviours. So, first off, the place to begin here is that all behaviour is a form of communication. Now, you will have heard that before. You will have seen something like this before. You will have seen the iceberg where behaviour is the result, behaviour is what we can see, the child hitting or snatching or grabbing or whatever they're doing, that's what we can see, but it's always the result of something that's going on underneath. And I just guess I want to explore this with you. What is it that is going on underneath the iceberg? And to do so, I'm gonna ask you a question and obviously I'm not gonna ask you to answer it because there's hundreds of you here with me today, but I'm gonna ask you to think about a time where you acted your worst, so where the tip of the iceberg for you was not the prettiest. You know, I know when I've not been the nicest parent to my children or I've been a bit cranky in the traffic or perhaps I've been a little bit rude somewhere, you know, when you haven't been your best self, when you haven't acted according to your values and the way that you would've hoped you would've acted, you haven't necessarily been kind or considerate, what was going on for you beneath the iceberg? So I just want you to think about this. What was going on for you beneath the iceberg? Now, I actually did this activity with a team a couple of weeks ago and this is literally what they said, what they put into the chat box. People said when they were overwhelmed, when they weren't behaving their best, they were overwhelmed, exhausted, stressed, felt powerless, felt unsupported, felt anxious. They felt pulled in multiple directions. They felt uncertain. They felt worried, pressured, frustrated, isolated, fearful, hurt, unloved, insecure, and angry. That's what people said to me. So it's interesting to think for us that when we're engaging in our worst behaviour, it's because normally we're stressed and struggling. Now, what about for us when we're engaging in our best behaviour? You know, when you can be kind, when you can be patient, when you can be generous, when you can be wise, when you can be calm in the face of frustrations. When you're acting your best, what is going on for you beneath the iceberg? I want you to just really think about that. What's happening for you beneath the iceberg when you're acting your best? So, once again, I asked the same group a few weeks ago that question, a group of educators, and this is what they said to me, that when they're engaging in their best behaviour, they're breathing, they're calm, they're rested, they're connected, they're centred, they're feeling loved. They're feeling confident. They're feeling secure, valued, supported, at peace, not hungry, not hangry. Their physical needs have been met. They feel in control. They feel listened to, prepared, engaged, happy, had time to themselves, appreciated, like their emotional cup is full. So it's true to say that for us as adults, we're on our best behaviour when we feel rested, calm, loved, and connected. So I want you to invite you to consider with me that it's the same for children. If we imagined Carla has just pushed her friend over, what's going on beneath the iceberg for Carla? Yeah. And it's really helpful to think about for these children who are engaging in tricky behaviours is that very often, they're stressed and struggling, just like we are when we're engaging in challenging behaviours. And if we think about when children are engaging in their best behaviour, or let's say Sasha and Johnathon have just been taking turns playing with the dinosaur, yeah, that usually when children are engaging in their best behaviours, they're feeling rested, calm, loved, and connected. They're feeling safe and loved. So that's just a beginning way of thinking about behaviour that I think is incredibly helpful. It helps us view difficult behaviour as a red flag. There's something going on beneath the iceberg. Yeah, I'm stressed and struggling. I'm not feeling rested, calm, loved, and connected. Yeah, I need your help. And that's the beginning point, I think, in helping us be effective in working with challenging behaviours. So we have to see what's beneath the iceberg. If we don't see or at least are curious about what's happening beneath the iceberg, we're not going to be effective with children. So, you know I always say children's behaviour is telling you something. Yeah. And the question is, as early childhood educators, are you willing to listen to what children are saying with their behaviour? Are you willing to listen to a child like Carla saying, I am stressed and I am struggling? So let's think about challenging behaviour, yeah? And let's think about what's beneath the iceberg for these two little girls, Ginger and Nellie. Yeah. Ginger and Nellie are fighting over the same toy. So what's happening beneath the iceberg? Now, there's a range of different ways that we could think about what's happening beneath the iceberg for Ginger and Nellie. We could think they're having big feelings. They're feeling angry and they're feeling frustrated. We could think they've got some need. They really need some assistance because they're still really young. They need some assistance to manage their frustration and solve their problem. They both want the same toy. They've got a problem. Do they have an adult who's there to help them solve that problem? We could also think about what's happening beneath the iceberg in terms of missing skills, that they've got poor frustration tolerance. They can't manage their frustration particularly well. They don't have cognitive flexibility, which I'll talk about a little bit more in a while, but a cognitive flexibility means essentially being able to change direction, that, oh, thought I was going in that direction, but, oh, look, there's another toy over there. I'll have that toy instead. Are they missing verbal expression skills? Are they unable to express their needs in words? And so then they are then resorting to physical expression and who knows, right? But there are a lot of different ways to think about what's happening beneath the iceberg, but any way we think about it, we can recognise that Ginger and Nellie are stressed and they're struggling. Now, what about Harley? Oops-a-daisy. Missed Harley there. Yeah. Harley pushes Mandy when Mandy walks near him. Okay. So that's the behaviour. That's what we can see. What's beneath the iceberg? Is Harley feeling annoyed because Mandy has entered his space? Is Harley feeling worried that Mandy's gonna take his toy? Is his need more physical space? He needs some space around him. Or is he missing a skill of being able to verbally express his needs? We don't know, but we've got to get curious. What's beneath the iceberg with children? Any which way, he is stressed and struggling. So what I've just done there is really just introduced an initial way of thinking about behaviour. Behaviour is a form of communication and it's our job as the adults, as the bigger, stronger, wiser, kind adults to listen and attempt to make sense of the behaviour. It's not always easy to make sense of, but we have to attempt to make sense of the behaviour. Now, what I want to do with you is explore this concept a little bit more about skill, missing skills. So that's what I want to do for the rest of this particular session and I'm gonna propose to you that a really helpful way of thinking about children and behaviours is that children who are struggling behaviourally, it's not that they won't behave well. It's that in that moment, Nellie and Ginger and Harley can't behave well. So this is a different way of thinking about behaviour. But if they are struggling with skills like verbal expression skills, frustration tolerance, cognitive flexibility, if those social and emotional skills they're really struggling with, then in that particular moment, then they're not going to be able to behave well in that moment. Now, what I'm gonna do is I'm going to show you a small portion, a five-minute portion of a TED Talk from a leading theorist in this area, Stuart Ablon. In your references that you'll get in your PowerPoint slide handout at the end of this programme, I've got a link to this TED Talk if you want to view the full TED Talk, but for the moment, I'm just gonna show you five minutes to unpack this concept in a bit more detail.

- And I feel like I have learned a tremendous amount over the last 25 years from and with these children, their families, their caretakers, their helpers, and what's interesting is most of what I've learned during this time completely flies in the face of conventional wisdom, completely. And that's what I want to talk to you all about. And the reality is that most of what I've learned that flies in the face of conventional wisdom can be summed up in a pretty simple phrase, and this is it. Kids do well if they can, which has become the guiding philosophy of our work, the foundation of our work. And when you look at it up here, you'd probably say to yourself, what's so earth-shattering about that? And on its own, it may not seem particularly earth-shattering, but it actually is, and I want to explain why. See, what kids do well if they can suggests is that if a kid could do well, he would do well. If she could do well, she would do well. And if she's not doing well, well, something must be standing in her way. And if something's standing in her way, then we all, as the helpers in her life, we need to figure out what's standing in her way so we can help. And I'm sure that sounds like perfect common sense to everybody because it is, and yet it flies in the face of conventional wisdom because the more conventional way of thinking when it comes to challenging behaviour is not kids do well if they can. It sounds a lot more like kids do well if they want to. And you see, if you believe kids do well if they want to and a kid's not doing well, so for instance, they're not behaving well, you believe kids do well if they want to, they're not behaving well, well then you're gonna assume the reason he's not behaving well is because he doesn't want to. And if he doesn't want to, then what's all of our jobs? To try to make him want to do well. And while that probably seems like a very narrow, unpleasant, probably pretty ineffective role to play in the lives of these kids, the interesting thing about it is when you think about traditional discipline in our homes, traditional school discipline, discipline in society, it is all oriented around trying to make kids want to do well. Rewards, punishments, time-outs, detentions, suspensions, expulsions, you name it, they're all aimed at trying to motivate people to do better, safe in the assumption that they're not doing well because they don't want to. Well, you know what? I don't buy it. What I've learned is it doesn't make any sense. What I've learned is kids do well if they can. I believe kids do well if they can. I believe if a kid could do well, he would do well and if he's not doing well, you know what? Something has got to be standing in his way and it cannot be as simple as he just doesn't want to. I also believe that it's high time we learn from more than 50 years of research in the neurosciences that has shown beyond a shadow of a doubt that conventional wisdom is wrong. Now, there are countless examples in our history of where conventional wisdom sticks around a lot longer after it's been disproven. You can go back to something like the world is flat, but you know what? We learned it was round, but nobody wanted to part with the idea that it was flat. I think we're gonna find the same thing about the notion that kids do well if they want to. All of the research in the neurosciences for the past 50 years has shown beyond the shadow of a doubt that challenging kids do not lack the will to behave well. They lack the skills to behave well. Skills to behave well, what kind of skills am I talking about? I'm talking about skills like problem-solving, like flexibility, like frustration tolerance. In other words, what all the research in the neurosciences has shown us is that kids who exhibit chronic challenging behaviour, you know what? They have like a learning disability, except instead of areas like reading, math, and writing, this learning disability is in areas like problem-solving, flexibility, frustration tolerance. I think it's actually a very accurate, apt, and powerful analogy, and here's why. I'm in my mid-forties. If we went back to when I was in elementary school, actually not far from here, if there was a child who was reading several grade levels behind his peers, back then, well-meaning, empathic, caring educators would not have said to themselves, huh, I wonder if he has a learning disability. I wonder if he's got dyslexia. I wonder if he has a hard time phonetically decoding words. No, actually, 40 years ago, those folks would have said, I wonder if he is either dumb or lazy. And I know that there are people sitting here listening right now who can attest to the personal pain of that, to being the child in the classroom who ironically was trying harder than anybody else in that classroom to read and it was completely misunderstood. You know what's interesting about that? Guess who wasn't trying very hard in that classroom to read? The students to whom it came naturally. Guess who was trying harder than anybody else? The very kids that we used to think were lazy. What a terrible shame. Thank goodness we have come a long way since then, but not when it comes to kids with challenging behaviour. Here's a little bit of a news flash. You know those good kids, those kids, we say, you know, they're so compliant? They do what we want. They're such good kids. You know what? They get so many kudos for their great behaviour and they don't even deserve them. You know why they don't deserve them? 'Cause they're not even trying very hard. It just comes naturally to them. Guess who's trying inordinately hard to behave themselves during the course of the day? The very kids we're trying to motivate to behave better. A very wise man who has taught me a lot in his lifetime, he's in his 98th year now, my grandfather, he's taught me a lot and one of the things he taught me early on is he said, when you give a dog a name, eventually they will answer to it. And I have learned that if you treat kids like they are lazy, unmotivated, don't care, aren't trying hard enough, over time, don't be surprised when they start to look like, talk like, and act like they don't care and aren't trying hard enough. And you know what? I don't believe it. I believe kids do well if they can. I have yet to meet the kid that prefers doing poorly to doing well. I believe kids do well if they can.

- I don't know about you, but I think that's a very, very powerful message. So that's Stuart Ablon. And I think this is such a helpful and empowering way to understand challenging behaviours is that children are missing the skill to behave well, not the will to behave well. So what does that look like? Well, if we think about children having a problem such as needing another child to move away from them and that has sufficient skill, they can say, can you please move away? Then they're gonna have adaptive behaviour, right? Can you please move away from me? But if they have a lagging skill, they're not able to use that verbal expression, please move away, then we might have challenging behaviours such as Harley pushing Mandy. Yeah. This really does allow us to view misbehaviour differently, which is the first step in being able to be effective in supporting children with challenging behaviours. So let's imagine Johnathon and his sister both want the same toy and Ginger and her sister both want the same toy. Yeah. Let's imagine these two children. They both want the same toy and they have sufficient skills. Yeah. They're able to express their needs verbally or you have a turn and I'll have a turn and they're able to take turns. So they've got the regulation and self-regulation that's required to be able to take turns. So they've got sufficient skill. So then that creates a picture of children working well and playing together. But if we go back to Ginger and Nellie, they might have poor frustration tolerance. They can't manage it when they're frustrated. They might have poor cognitive flexibility and ability to shift plans in the moment and they might not be able to express their needs verbally. Then we see challenging behaviour like this. So a few more examples of what this might look like. Is this child not listening or is he struggling with what we call working memory, with the ability to remember the detailed instructions and stay on task, even when you're not particularly interested? Working memory. A lot of people would say this child is not listening, but through this lens, yeah, we can say maybe he's struggling with working memory. Would we say that this child is ignoring instructions? Why she's near a knife, none of us know about, but what she's ignoring instructions, we told her to leave the knife there, or is she struggling with inhibitory control, the ability to think before you act and evaluate a situation and how you might behave might impact it, right? Clearly at this age, she's struggling with inhibitory control and this is the cognitive flexibility I've mentioned a couple of times and Stuart Ablon mentioned in that talk. Is this child having a tantrum or is she struggling with cognitive flexibility, the ability to revise plans in the face of obstacles, setbacks, and new information or mistakes? Adapting to changing conditions. She had in her mind she was going to walk to the end of the jetty. There was a bird there. She was going to walk to the end of the jetty. That was what was in her mind. Her mum and dad said, no, we have to walk to the car and she just cannot revise her plans. She's struggling with cognitive flexibility. So you can see from this framework how we can understand challenging behaviour as children missing or lagging skills. Yeah. And I guess I just want to put out a little caveat on that and it's true for all of us, right? Is most of us have the skill to behave well when we're feeling calm and confident and when our emotional cup is filled up. But when we're feeling really, really stressed, then the skills that we might have when we're feeling calm and confident and rested, we have trouble accessing verbal expression skills. We have trouble accessing those skills. So that's also true for children. Yeah. We might see misbehaviour as the child really missing a skill, like they're really missing verbal expression skills, for instance, they're really missing play entry skills. They just don't have those skills. Or it might be that there's kind of, we've got those skills but because they're stressed, for example, they're very tired, it's much harder for them to access those skills, just like it is for us. Okay. So what am I talking about when I'm talking about skills? What specifically do I mean by skills? So children need five domains of skills to behave well. They need language and communication skills, attention and working memory skills, emotion and self-regulation skills, cognitive flexibility skills, and social thinking skills. Now, I'm not gonna read through everything on the next five slides. I've put together all of the skills, so all of the language and communication skills, all of the attention and working memory skills and so forth on the slides so that you can refer to those and read them in detail when you get the handouts, right? 'Cause it's far too many for me to read through. But what I want to do is give you some examples of how this is helpful. All right. If we go back to Harley pushing Mandy when Mandy walks near him, what skills might Harley be missing? And once again, the purpose of this is not that we nail exactly what the skill is. The purpose of this way of thinking is that we really become curious about what's the skill that is missing, helps us be curious. Now, one way of understanding that behaviour out of all of the language and communication skills there are, he might be missing the skill of being able to express his concerns, needs, or thoughts in words. Please go away. Please step back, Mandy. He might be missing that skill so instead of expressing his desire verbally, he expresses his desire physically. We could also imagine he's missing the skill of understanding the impact of his action. So, at his age, he would really be missing that skill, as well. All right. Another example, Nate spends a lot of time wandering around the classroom aimlessly. He doesn't engage in any activity for very long. So we would be guessing that he's really struggling with some attention and working memory skills, staying with tasks requiring sustained attention, and maintaining focus during activities. So those might be two out of the many attention and working memory skills that he might be particularly struggling with. Arlo becomes very angry when he can't have first turn. He lashes out and he hurts other people. So what skills might he be missing? I'd imagine that Arlo's really missing quite a few skills. Emotion and self-regulation is the domain I was thinking. He's going to struggle to think rationally, even when he's frustrated. He's going to struggle to manage anxiety in an age-appropriate way and he's going to struggle to think before responding. He's not really gonna be considering the likely outcomes or consequences of his actions. With children like Arlo, just to make a little side note, I've written anxiety, managing anxiety in age-appropriate ways. With very aggressive children, they're often highly anxious and that fear translates and manifests itself in terms of aggression. But most of us aren't attuned to the fear and the anxiety that drives the aggression and so that's really what a very big thing that's often beneath the iceberg for children who have aggressive behaviours, just as a side note. So we could say that Arlo is struggling with emotional self-regulation skills. What about Carla? So Carla becomes very aggressive at transition times, especially when she hasn't had a chance to complete the task she was working on. So what skills might Carla be struggling with? We could say Carla's struggling to handle transition and to shift easily from one task to another, that that's a real stress for Carla. And we could say that Carla really struggles to handle deviations from rules, routines, and original plans. Like the little girl on the jetty who was planning to get to the end of the jetty and that's where she was going to go and mum and dad wanted to go somewhere else and that's too hard for her, Carla was going to finish this activity and for some reason, she needs to move and that's just really a stress for her, a real stressor, yeah, because she doesn't yet have those skills of being cognitively flexible about being able to handle those deviations from rules, routines, and original plans. All right, another one. When educators are seated with other children, Nadia snatches the toy they're playing with and runs off laughing. Pretty annoying behaviour. What skill might she be missing? Yeah. She might be really struggling to seek attention in appropriate ways and to understand how his or her behaviour affects other people around, how her behaviour affects other people. All right. I'm gonna proceed. I can see that there are a couple of questions. I'm gonna proceed and then hopefully I'll have some time at the end to take some questions. All right. So what we've just done is we've really had a look at a framework for trying to understand behaviour. Challenging behaviour is always the tip of the iceberg. It's like that for us as adults and it's also like that for children. It's our job as, in circle of security language, the bigger, stronger, wiser, kind adults is to be curious about what is beneath the iceberg and what is, there's different ways of thinking about that, but one really helpful way of thinking about what's beneath the iceberg is children who are struggling with particular skills. They might be struggling with those skills because they just simply haven't developed, or they might be struggling to use skills they have because they're tired and stressed. Okay. So then, from that framework, how do we support positive behaviour? So we teach the missing skill. Now what I'm gonna do because we only have a short time is I'm gonna focus on the first domain of skills, which is language and communication skills. Yeah. I'm gonna focus on language and communication skills and are about to do a poll, so listen up. Yeah. I'm asking you to think, how much challenging behaviour could be avoided in your classrooms, and we're really talking about preschools here because we don't expect babies or toddlers to have these skills, but just imagine, if children you work with were consistently able to use these language and communication skills, so what I'm doing is I'm taking point one, language and communication skills, and I'm just kind of breaking that down into a whole range of language and communication skills. If they were able to get someone's attention without bopping them on the head, if they were able to listen to other people and follow instructions, if they were able to give other children toys or objects in a way that was socially appropriate, if they were able to ask for a turn, if they were able to invite someone to play and join play and joining in play, if they were able to enter conversations, participate in group discussions. If you can just imagine that all of the children, just imagine all of the children in your classroom, we've got a magic wand, magically had all of those skills, yeah, I'm just about to launch a poll. How much do you think challenging behaviour would reduce? Do you think the challenging behaviour in your classroom would reduce by just a little bit, a lot, not much? What do you think? What's your vote? So if all of the children had all of those skills, they were able to enter play, they were able to take turns, they were able to participate in class discussions, they were able to get other children's attention without popping them on the head, what percentage do you think of challenging behaviour incidents, what percentage reduction would you say in challenging behaviour incidents? Okay. So I think you can see that we've got 40, 70, 90% of you think 40% or above. So 90% of you think that there would be a significant, like at least 50% reduction in challenging behaviours if all children could develop these skills. All right. So, if that's the case, then how are you teaching these missing skills? That's my question for you. How are you teaching these missing skills? What I'm gonna propose to you is that conflict between children is an opportunity to teach these missing skills and the glasses there represent the way we view conflict. So if we view challenging behaviour as something that is irritating and annoying and an interruption to your learning, then you can't teach the missing skill 'cause you're not viewing it as a missing skill. But if you adopt or put on a different set of glasses and see this challenging behaviour or this conflict between children or with you as an opportunity to teach missing skills, then that opens up a whole world of possibility, which I'm about to go into now. I just need to acknowledge that in this section, I am sharing with you strategies and resources from Conscious Discipline, which is an American programme that provides an array of behaviour management strategies and classroom structures that educators can use to turn everyday situations into learning opportunities. There are more references. There'll be more references at the end of today's presentation if you want to explore that further, but I just want to acknowledge the source of this particular strategy and the videos I'm about to show you is Conscious Discipline. All right, I've got a question for you now. One child grabs another child's toy. And I really want you to think, what is the skill that you could teach? One child grabs another child's toy. Now, very often, educators want to say, oh, that's very nice or don't do that. We don't do that. You know, be nice to our friends. That's what they would say. But what about if we were gonna teach a skill? What's the skill that we could teach? I would say, yeah, you could teach the skill of asking for a turn instead of grabbing. Another question for you. One child grabs a toy another child is playing with and runs off. Now, this, I just need to say behaviours can have different meanings. So the same behaviour can have different meanings. But the behaviour in this instance might mean that the child is really struggling to enter play. They don't know how to enter play, so they grab a toy and run because they don't have play entry skills. What about if one child pulls another child's hair? What's a skill that you could teach? What about the skill of getting another child's attention? One child throws a toy at another child. What's a skill that you could teach? Getting another child's attention and giving them the toy. So what I'm proposing here is that it's helpful, as always, to think about what's beneath the iceberg and if we use this framework of thinking about missing skill, then it opens up an opportunity for us to respond really effectively to challenging behaviours so children develop skills that they need to behave well, yeah, rather than just trying to fix what's on the top of the iceberg, we've fixed the root of the issue. Yeah. So I'm going to introduce a strategy now called ACT. And as I said, you're gonna get copies of these slides, so don't worry about taking too many notes. So this will all be made available to you. So what I'm gonna do is I'm going to talk you through the strategy and show you videos of what it looks like so you can see it in practise, okay? So, A, acknowledge the child's deepest desire or intent. You wanted a turn with the toy. Clarify the skills to use. When you want a turn at the toy, say, can I have a turn at the toy, please? And then take time to practise. Do it now. Say, may I have a turn? Okay? So if one child snatches a toy from another child, the ACT strategy, acknowledge the child's desire. Clarify the missing skill. Take time to practise might look like this. You want a turn. When you want a turn, tap her on the shoulder. Wait for her to look and say, may I have a turn, please? Do it now as a practise. Okay. So that's what the ACT strategy looks like. Now, what I'm about to do is show you a teacher who just does this little bit here. Now, we don't quite get the first bit. We don't see the challenging behaviour, but you see the teacher teaching this skill of asking for a turn. Okay? And you'll notice how specific it is. Educators will often say, take turns, be nice, talk nicely. This is much more specific than that. Okay? So let me just get this up.

- Stephanie, I want to have it.

- You did it. You touched Stephanie and you waited for her to look. You asked her for what you wanted.

- Okay, so pretty straightforward. Pretty explicit, yeah? We didn't really see any challenging behaviour in that instance, but you saw the teacher be very specific in teaching how to ask for a turn. So what we saw there is taking this idea of asking for a turn and breaking it down into very specific steps that the child can follow. Now, this visual that I'm showing you now that I'll be showing you throughout this section is actually in a handout that will also be sent through to you, so you will get a handout about this strategy, including these visuals. Okay? So asking for a turn, it's not just be nice, be a good friend, it's nice to share, general stuff. It's specific. Tap her on the shoulder, wait for her to look, say her name. Say, may I have a turn with this? Okay? So what about if a child grabs a toy another child is playing with and runs off? Remember our guess there was that child might struggle with play entry, yeah? So acknowledge the child's desire, teach the child the missing skill, take time to practise. We might say you wanted to play with Chris, right? When you want to play with Chris, get his attention by tapping him on the shoulder, saying his name, waiting for him to look, and say, may I play? Do it now for practise. All right. So let's have a look at what this looks like.

- And I think that with the tools that we have learned with conscious discipline, that we have been able to teach some of these children that we have some skills for building relationships and building connections that they would've never had had they not been in a classroom that is implementing conscious discipline. We want to get Chris's attention, so the safe way to get his attention is tap. Say his name and wait for him to look. Say, Chris. Wait for him to look. Try again. Say, Chris.

- Chris.

- He looked. Say, may I play?

- May I play?

- He nod. He said yeah.

- So, once again, you can see how specific that is. She didn't lecture him about running off with the toy. She didn't talk to him about that's not nice. I mean, you know, you can still set boundaries, obviously, but that's not where the bulk of her focus was. The bulk of her focus was what he can do differently and the bulk of his focus is what he can do differently. Yeah. Tap him on the shoulder, wait for him to look. A lot of children, particularly in preschool, get into trouble 'cause they're not looking into the faces of their peers and their educators, or if they are looking into the faces, they're not reading the faces particularly well. Okay. So that is a way that you can teach the strategy of play entry. Now, people often say to me, what about if the child had said, no, you can't play? And I would say, well, I think that is really good if you're there because then you can help them problem-solve. Oh, well, Johnny doesn't want to play at the moment, but we can go and play with Ella or Sarah. So, yeah. So that's my response if that is a question that you had. All right, another challenging behaviour. One child pulls another child's hair. Yeah. Acknowledge the child's desire. You wanted to get her attention. Clarify what skill to use when you want to get her attention. Tap her on the shoulder and say, hi, Victoria. Do it now for practise. All right. So now, the next couple of videos that I'm going to show you, there's a lot of background noise, but you get the intention 'cause they're in a classroom. So you should be able to hear well enough and you'll certainly get the intention of the teacher teaching the missing skill.

- Victoria. Victoria, your hair got pulled. You didn't like it. You didn't like it.

- I have to hit him.

- You don't have to hit him, but you can get his attention and you can say...

- I don't like that.

- That's right. You can say, I don't like it, Tommy.

- I don't like it.

- It hurts.

- It hurt.

- It hurt. Tommy, you wanted to get her attention. Tommy, you forgot to say her name. Tommy, look. You can say Victoria. Victoria. You can say hi.

- Hi.

- Hi. But look, Tommy. Tommy. It hurt when you pulled her hair. Ouch, that hurt. Tommy. Tommy, you can say, Victoria.

- Victoria.

- Victoria, hi.

- Hi.

- You did it, Tommy, you did it. Nice going. You did it, big guy.

- So that child pulled another child's hair. Now, was his intention to get her attention? We're making the assumption that that is the case, but it is a helpful opportunity if he's pulling the child's hair to teach what he can do. Oh, if you want someone's attention, tap, look, and say their name. And that little boy was missing that skill or unable to use that skill at that moment, hence the challenging behaviour, pushing, pulling the hair. All right. Another example, one child takes another child's blocks. Acknowledge the desire. Uh-oh. You wanted to help Anthony build a road, so you took the block. Yeah, you want it. That's why you took the block. And you can notice in this you wanted language that there's no shaming children. I'll just give you a little tip. If we shame children for their behaviour, they're going to shut down and not listen to us. This is a very non-shaming way of working with children. If we're not shaming children, they're much more likely to be paying attention to us and they're much more likely to be interested in learning the skill that we are delivering. And you can see that with both of those children, yeah? Tommy wasn't being shamed for pulling Victoria's hair and there was a connection moment because the teacher was teaching him that skill. Anyway, that's a digression. So, one child takes another child's blocks. Oh, you wanted to help Anthony build a road, so you took the block. When you want a turn of the block, tap on the shoulder, say, may I have a turn, please? Teach the missing skill. Do it now for practise.

- [Boy] Hers making .

- Okay, so I got you. So, wait here right now. You didn't like it when Andrew took one of your blocks for your castle. You didn't like it. You didn't like it. And Andrew, you wanted to take block for what reason?

- I wanted to make a Anthony make a road.

- Okay, 'cause you wanted to help Anthony build a road, so you took this one, but wait, you forgot to ask her for the block.

- Yeah, I did.

- Oops. Oops. Well, try it again. Try it again. Let's see how it works.

- Can I have a turn for me?

- Oh, he needs that one to give to Anthony. Oh, you know what? Andrew. You know what, Andrew, come here. Hold on. Come here. Andrew, come here. Come here. You know what? I'll tell you what. You remembered to ask. That was helpful. And you gave it to Andrew when he asked you for it. That was helpful. Wow.

- So what we saw just then was one child takes another child's blocks. So if you forgot to take the block, tap her on the shoulder, say her name, wait for her to look, ask for the block. Very simple, breaking down that skill of asking for a turn so that children can be successful in using that skill. All right. Here's another example. One child throws a toy at another child. Yeah. Acknowledge the desire. You wanted to give her the animal. If you want to get her attention, tap her on the shoulder. Wait for her to look and say, here, here's the toy. Do it now for practise.

- With the animal.

- Colton.

- With the animal. She hit your back with the animal? And Daniella, did you like that? No, you didn't like that? You know what? Come here. Sarah, look. You wanted to give her the animal.

- That's animal.

- Yeah, but you know what, Sarah? You forgot to get her attention.

- Mama, look, it's an elephant.

- The elephant. If you want to get her attention, you say, Daniella.

- Daniella.

- Here.

- Here.

- I don't want it.

- Here.

- Here.

- Oh, she said, no, thank you.

- Here, Daniella.

- But Sarah, Sarah, Sarah.

- Here. Hey, he's in the bookcase.

- Sarah, you may not throw it. Ouch.

- I'm just wanting to show you different examples of what it looks like. I really want you to have the core of this skill, yeah? Acknowledge the child's desire. This is what you wanted. You had this positive desire, even though the behaviour is not okay. Ouch, we don't do that, but we're going to recognise that you, there's nothing wrong with you. You have a positive desire. It's a valid desire. And here's what you can do to be a helpful member of our classroom. And you can see there, you forgot to get her attention. You may not throw. So there's still boundaries there, but we're focusing mainly on teaching them some skill. All right? Giving someone a toy or object and breaking that down. All right. I think this is the last video in this theory. Yes, it is. Before we do some practise. Okay. So one child grabs another child's bow. This little girl has got a bow on her shirt and one child grabs it and pulls it. Okay? You wanted to see her bow. When you want to see her bow, tap her on the shoulder. Say, may I see your bow? Do it now for practise.

- When Sienna pulled your shirt, did you like it? No. Say, Sienna, stop.

- Sienna, stop.

- Stop. Stop. I don't like it.

- I don't like it.

- Sienna, you wanted to see her bow, so you pulled it. You may not pull her bow. That's not safe. When you want to see her bow, tap her on the shoulder. Tap her and say, Emily.

- Emily.

- Emily, can I touch your bow? Ask her, can I touch your bow? Can she touch your bow?

- Yeah.

- Yeah. Now you can touch it gently. There, you did it. You're touching it gently. That was kind of you to let her touch it. You just have to tell her, touch it gently. Tell her, touch it gently.

- Okay, so that's a final example there. The child grabs another child's bow. You wanted to see her bow. You may not do that. It's not safe. When you want to see her bow, tap her on the shoulder. Say, may I see your bow? Do it now for practise. So that's the strategy. That's the ACT strategy. Yeah. Incredibly helpful. The services I work with that implement this, it's just incredibly helpful because the children are then empowered with skills so they don't need to engage in those challenging behaviours. All right, it's time for us to practise. So, how would you do this? Harley pushes Mandy when she walks near him. What would you say for A? Remember, A is to acknowledge the child's desire, starting with you wanted. Acknowledge the child's desire starting with you wanted. So what does Harley want, do you think? What does Harley want? What would you say to him? You wanted. What words would come out of your mouth? You wanted. And then what skill would you teach? You wanted Mandy to move, yeah, so you pushed her. You may not push. Pushing hurts. Say, move, please. Do it now for practise. Say, move, please. When educators are seated with other children, Nadia snatches the toys they're playing with and runs off laughing. And we think this is a play entry issue. She doesn't know how to join the group, so that's why she's engaging in this, yeah? There's actually a bit of anxiety underneath this behaviour. So what would you say? You wanted. So that's your beginning scaffold. You wanted is where we start. You wanted. So what are you gonna say to Nadia? You wanted. You wanted to play with us. You just need to say, may I play? We'd love to have you play with us, Nadia. Just say, may I play? It's very simple, in a nice tone. Nellie and Ginger are fighting over the same toy. Remember, Nellie and Ginger are fighting over the same toy. Now, once you've taken a moment to breathe and separate and make sure no one's going at each other, what would you say you wanted, right? So remember, you wanted is our starting point with this strategy. You wanted. You wanted the toy that Ginger was playing with, so you scratched her. You may not scratch. Ouch, scratching hurts. When you want a turn, and they have to be calm enough. Now you're obviously, when these children are in this particular state, there's no way you're teaching the missing skill, right? They're not gonna be listening to anything, right? They just have to do some deep breathing, little bit. Everybody needs to be calm enough and then you can teach that skill, yeah? And do it now for practise. Yeah. And then if Ginger says no, you just move to problem-solving. Yeah. What are we gonna do while Nellie is waiting for her turn or what are you gonna do to manage that? Okay, so that's your ACT strategy. Okay. That is your ACT strategy. It's actually harder to do than it sounds because if we've been kind of trained to focus on what children shouldn't be doing, it really takes a bit of effort to pivot to focus on teaching the skill. But if you do the work, it really, really pays the rewards. All right. Now, for younger children or children are struggling, you can use ACT, but just use two positive choices. Yeah. And you know, you're often using the two positive choices anyway. You wanted to play with the toy. You may play with this toy or this toy. What's gonna work better for you, right? So the two positive choices with Nellie and Ginger would be you wanted the toy that Ginger was playing with, so you scratched her. You may not. Be calm. Breathe. Two choices. While we're waiting for Ginger to finish, you can sit at the table or you can play at the table with these dinosaurs or in the sand pit with me. Which one is going to work best for you? Okay? So that is just beyond the children who might be struggling a little bit and need a little bit more containment. All right. We've just covered a lot. Now, you noticed in that last slide, I actually literally breathed, right? So I know it sounds so simple, but actually, literally, you taking a deep breath, not like, oh, yeah, I should take a deep breath, but actually taking, filling your lungs with oxygen calms your nervous system and makes you more effective in teaching missing skills. All right. Those visuals that we saw in terms of what are those different skills and how do you break them down into small steps, that is going to be sent through to you and you can use them in a range of different ways. You can role model those skills with children deliberately when you're entering play. You can deliberately role model those skills. You can involve children in role play and practise. You can discuss these skills during group time or morning meetings. And you can also use them as visuals in prominent areas where children are often, in the block corner or wherever children are often struggling. And then when children are struggling to use those skills, you can go to the visual with them. Remind them of this is how we do it and then go back and teach this skill. And that's a good way for you, too, because it helps you remember. All right. Okay. A few final tips, yeah? In terms of behaviour management, very often, we focus on what we don't want, on the behaviour that we don't want. Yeah. I'm gonna ask you again to do a poll in a minute, and Ella, I don't think the poll is actually working for me. I've clicked that little arrow. So I might need to ask you to launch the poll in a minute, Ella. Very often, educators focus on the behaviour they don't want. Don't hit. Don't bite. Don't snatch. Snatching is not nice. Don't use this, don't do that. So when there's a challenging behaviour, in my experience, it's focused mainly on what the child shouldn't be doing. Not all the time, obviously, but you know, a lot of the time. But I'm gonna get you to think about in a minute, but to be effective, we have to focus on the behaviours we do want to see, right? So the child is climbing, we don't say don't climb. We say, put your feet on the ground, right? If the child's, I don't know, throwing food, we don't say don't throw food. We say keep the food in your plate. Switching our language to focus on the behaviour that we do want to see. Okay. All right. I've got that. Okay. Yes, I can do that. Yes. Sorry. I've put something in the chat box. I will definitely do that. Thanks very much, Laura. Okay, so we've got a poll here now. Ella, are you able? Oh, thank you very much. Have you launched that? Yes, you have. All right. Perfect. Thank you, Ella. So during moments of misbehaviour, what percentage of time are you focusing on what the child can't do versus what the child can do? All right. Perfect. There's a nice variability here. All right. So, perfect. So for a few of you, you having the realisation that you're focusing mostly on what you can't do, so that is a fantastic realisation. And for a few of you, you're already really focusing on what the child can do. A lot of you are just recognising, probably bit over 50% of you at the moment are recognising that you're focusing a lot on what the child can't do. There's a bit. It's about 50/50. Most of you are about 50/50. All right. There's some variability there. Okay, excellent. So I just wanted to invite you to really think about that because for me, when I'm in centres, most of what I'm seeing is the percentage is more on what the child can't do and there is opportunity for growth and focusing more on what the child can do and you can see that this ACT strategy is designed to help you focus on what the child can do. And I'll just let you see those results for a minute. So I encourage you to really reflect on yourself in your practise and is there any room for focusing more on what the child can do? Thank you, Ella, for watching that. All right. I'll have time for that question in just one minute, Laura. Okay. All right. Final points before I go to one question that Laura has sent through to me. For this strategy to work, you must be willing to see challenging behaviour as a call for help. So it actually starts with how you view behaviour. Your intent must be to teach the child a skill. If you're using the right words but your intention is to punish the child, the strategy will not work because the child will be stressed because you're intending to punish them. They will pick that up in your tone. Now, if you really recognise challenging behaviour as a call for help, that beneath the iceberg, I'm stressed and struggling, then that will come through in your tone as it was in the tone of the teachers that we saw in those videos and you will find it is effective. If you're feeling stressed and overwhelmed, it will be a struggle to teach these skills, yeah? So do your best to be calm and literally take those deep breaths, like I suggested. And you'll need patience, yeah. It certainly takes time to teach these skills. Just like reading and writing, you know, we don't expect children to learn how to read and write in half a day. It's certainly the same for social and emotional skills for children. All right. I actually have a couple. Let me just check my timing. Yeah, I've got three minutes for questions. So Laura's asked me if I'm able to give some examples for primary school-aged children if there are some WOOSH services attending. This strategy is so helpful for WOOSH services. Yeah. I was actually in WOOSH service just recently and I could see how this could be really helpful. Children who are running around, yeah. Well, actually, I'm just wondering if that's the best example. Children who were snatching from other children, you wanted to have a turn. You may not snatch when you want to have a turn. Say, may I have a turn, please? Yeah. You're really upset and really angry. You wanted me to know how angry you are. You may not hit other children when you're angry. When you're angry, come to me and say, please, can you help me? Do it now. Say the words. Come to me and say, please, may you help me? I will always help you when you're angry. These strategies are absolutely applicable to school-aged children and really incredibly useful for school-aged children. I don't know, Laura, if that's covered that accurately. I've got time for one more question. So the team I'm working with, did you want to throw that in the chat box? Is there one more question that's outstanding for the moment that you wanted me to look at?

- [Laura] Perhaps some. There was a question from Jenny about we find a lot of children do not like to be touched.

- Oh, okay.

- [Laura] Do you have any suggestions for those who perhaps don't like the touching on the shoulder?

- Yeah. Yeah. So that's a really great question. Depending on the age, you could kind of workshop that with children, but what you might find is children coming in front and maybe waving, right? I would be, if they're preschool or older, you could even workshop with them. What's the best way to get a child's attention if you don't want to be touched, you know? Come up with something collaboratively with them so they feel that they are owning it. Talk about this skill of getting another child's attention and if they don't like to be touched, maybe I would imagine standing and waving might be something or putting your hands in the air or something that's a little bit more obvious, but I would collaboratively work with the children to come up with something that's going to work for them. But that's a good question, yeah. Thank you. All right. So here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna go through the next two sections and I'm going to hope that I've got a couple of minutes at the end for more questions. All right. So, talking to parents about challenging behaviours. All right, this is hard. Yeah. You may feel worried, frustrated, concerned, anxious, resentful. This is really hard and I'm really gonna be able to only offer you a few ideas, which I hope are helpful. I guess the first thing I would say is obviously, it has to be safety first. Yeah. And what I mean by that is emotional safety, that if you're really going to be successfully collaborating, parents need to feel safe. And if they're feeling judgement from you and it's kinda like the elephant in the room because sometimes educators do judge parents, not all the time, of course, but sometimes educators do judge parents and parents will feel that, yeah, they won't feel safe and that can create resistance or defensiveness. So that's just the first thing is just to kind of check, are you being judgmental and frustrated? And it is very frustrating if parents aren't willing to work with you, but that judgement will leak and parents will feel lash. And blame is also a dead-end street, yeah. Blame is a dead-end street. So if you're blaming the parents, they're blaming you, you're all blaming the children, you can't work effectively towards solutions. All right? So I'm gonna walk you through four what I think are helpful steps in talking to parents about challenging behaviours. Clearly showing parents that you care about the children, talking with the parents about what's beneath the iceberg, inviting parents to collaborate with you, and then if a referral is needed, talking about the benefits of referral. So, you know, obviously showing the parents that you care about the child, it's pretty basic. You're probably already doing this, but that's step number one, yeah? Parents need to know that you really see the child as being more than just someone who behaves badly. So that involves consistently talking with parents about all of the other things about their children, not just the bad behaviour, the children's interests, strengths, what they enjoy doing, what they like playing with. The child might have hit five other children today, but for seven hours, they weren't hitting anyone. So what were they doing in those seven hours that they weren't hitting anyone? Just to really create that trust with parents, right? Pretty straightforward, but that's step number one. I don't think you're going to get anywhere if the parents don't have that sense from you. I think it's really helpful to talk about challenging behaviours in terms of need. I don't think it's helpful to talk about good day and bad day and that kind of judgmental language. And obviously not just focusing on the bad behaviour. It's so demoralising for some parents to constantly be hearing about what the children did wrong. Children with challenging behaviours are used to being judged publicly. They're often punished at home by parents if all the parents are hearing about is the challenging behaviour. They're often punished at home, which makes them feel even worse about themselves. Actually makes the behaviour worse for very many reasons, so it's much more helpful to talk about behaviour challenging behaviour in terms of need, yeah. Share your guesses as to the meaning of the behaviour and the need the child is trying to express, including the skills the child needs help to develop. Yeah. So it's a beneath-the-iceberg type of conversation. Yeah. If a child is hitting or biting or hurting or engaging in those challenging behaviours, what's happening underneath? Is the child feeling anxious? Are they unsure? Are they worried and they need reassurance? Are they're still managing how to learn frustrations or enter play, yeah? So really encourage you to talk about what's beneath the iceberg. Let's say Harley hit a child when she took a toy off him. Yeah. What that might look like is that Harley gets upset very quickly when life doesn't go his way. So this is language that you could use with parents about talking beneath the iceberg. He's still learning to manage these frustrations and he's still learning the words to use to ask for what he wants. Imagine how different it is for the parent to hear that, rather than Charlie's hitting more children. I mean, they need to hear that, of course, but that you're willing to work with them to see what's happening beneath the iceberg, yeah? Nadia snatches other children's toys and runs off with them. So talking beneath the iceberg might look something like this. Nadia's keen to make friends and is still learning how to do so. Yeah. We're helping her by giving the language she can use when she wants to invite a child to play with her. Today, she said to a friend, may I play? And we were so proud of her. So finding something to celebrate with parents, even if there are challenging behaviours, giving them some hope. Ginger and Nellie hurt each other when they want the same toy. Ginger and Nellie both get very frustrated. So this is language, once again, that you could use to talk to parents about behaviour. Ginger and Nellie both get very frustrated when they can't have what they want. We're teaching them to practise taking a deep breath when they're frustrated and to ask us when they need help. So you're sharing what you're doing and you're framing it, the behaviour in terms of needs and developing skills. So this approach about talking about need and missing skills or still-developing skills can reduce defensiveness, invite collaboration as much more of an inviting approach, gives the parents some hope, and move you and the parents towards solutions. It can also help the parent respond more sensitively to the child's needs at home if they're not just viewing the tip of the iceberg and the child being bad and they might be potentially more sensitive at home. All right. Invite parents to collaborate with you to find solutions. So, of course, your aim is to work with the parents to understand the meaning of the behaviour so that the child can receive help. Yeah. So be curious about the meaning of the behaviour and invite the parents' input. We need your help to understand what's happening for Harley so that we can better help him. So if you're coming from that curious space, parents will feel safer. How do you understand what he might be trying to tell us in terms of his behaviour? And obviously the question that you would already be asking anyway is, do you have any strategies you use at home that you think would be helpful here? And then share what you're doing and invite the parents to collaborate and do that at home. So if we go back to Harley, Harley hit a child when she took a toy off him. He gets very upset when life doesn't go his way. He's still learning to manage his frustrations and to use words to ask for what he wants. And we're helping him by teaching him to breathe when he's upset, giving him words for his feelings, and teaching him the words to use to ask for what he wants. If you were also able to do this at home, that would be a big help for him. Do you think this could be possible? So share what you're doing with the parents and invite them to collaborate with you. It's a very positive, solution-focused approach. Nadia snatches other children's toys and runs off with them. Nadia's keen to make friends and still learning how to do so. We're helping her by giving the language she can use when she wants to invite her friends to play. We're also helping her by reading these books about how to play with friends. Is there a chance you could also read these to her at home? Ginger and Nellie. Ginger and Nellie hurt each other when they want the same toy. Ginger and Nellie both get very frustrated. You could help at home by doing some deep breathing with the girls when they're getting frustrated. Does this sound like something you could do? All right. So that's my suggestions. And look, maybe you're already doing a lot of that. I don't know. You're all gonna have different things that you bring to the table, but there's a few suggestions for me about what is helpful. If you think a resource or assessment would be helpful, obviously for many parents that thought that their child might need an assessment can be scary for parents, yeah? Parents might be wondering, is there something wrong with my child? Will people think I'm a bad parent? So, obviously, instead of focusing on the child's problems and deficits, explaining potential benefits for the child and their parent about early assessment support and intervention is helpful. I've just realised this is very small writing for your slides, so I do apologise about that. So some language that might be helpful is I think now would be the perfect time for an assessment for Nadia. The earlier we are able to find out what her needs are, the better we're gonna be able to help her. So really talking about the benefits of the assessment. Yeah. Getting Arlo assistance now is going to help him to be more successful with his peers when he moves into the preschool room next year. With the right support now, I think I can see him flourish and grow next year. So if we can find out more about Ginger's needs now, it will help set her up for success with learning and making friends when she gets to school. And as an added bonus, I think you might find she'll be having fewer upsets at home, so it might reduce some of the stress you're going through. So really, if you're thinking about referral for assessment, just focus on what the benefits of assessment would be as opposed to fixing the child. So I hope that's helpful. There's a few thoughts there. All right. Final point is working with other services to assist the family. Yeah. So I've broken this down roughly into getting help for parents and getting help for children and it's a fairly short section. I know we've been together for an hour and a half, so this is fairly short, okay? There's a lot of help for parents available. There's financial, counselling, mental health, domestic violence support, parents' support, employment services, parenting courses. There's a lot that's available. A really good one-stop shop is the Family Connect and Support Agency, which is a government-funded agency. That's their website. Just type in Family Connect and Support and you can speak to them about what agencies might be in your area to help families and children, parents, if they need anything, and also children. You just click on Find a Provider, put your postcode in, and there you go. Yeah. Some helpful phrases when suggesting parents might seek support for themselves, you've got a lot going on at the moment. There's some good services out there that might be able to help. Would you be interested? Getting the right help and support can reduce stress and make a big difference. We also notice positive changes for children when their parents get support that they need. Everybody needs help sometimes or many of the parents we work with have reported back positively about working with this service. So there's just a few phrases if you wanted to talk to parents about getting some support for themselves and of course, parents might decline and that's fine. You can check in with them later. In terms of making a referral, the Family Connect and Support Agency can do this for you and obviously work with the parent, get their permission to call, or with the parent's permission, you can call and make the referral yourself or the parent can make the referral, yeah. So it's up to you. There's lots of different options there. Okay. Obviously, some children need after their assessment and support, for instance, an OT, speech pathologist, psychologist. In extreme instances, they might need a psychiatrist. We've had extreme anxiety or extreme violence, a psychiatric assessment might be necessary, but usually is the first three, yeah. So in terms of where to start and then many of you will already have connections with agencies in your area. If you don't, you can speak to the Family Connect and Support Service, your local community health service. And you could also check for Department of Health initiatives in your area. You can get to know the services and families in your, sorry, the services for children and families in your area. You can do some research, invite agencies to come and talk to you, go to visit them if you have time. I know how busy you are. But it really can be a really, really worthwhile investing and finding out what the agencies in your area are. You can help families and children. When you're collaborating with agencies and families, it can really, really help for you to put your observations and concerns in writing and once the assessment has been done, you can certainly invite agencies and families to have a meeting, virtually by Zoom or in-person, preferably, just to make sure that you're all on the same page and working well together for the benefit of the child. You need assistance, too. So obviously reach out for help. I know the Department of Education is really keen to hear from you. That's their number there, 1 800 619 113. If you've got inquiries about how to help particular children or get some particular support for yourselves, excuse me, what the initiatives are out there, and of course, you can call your local inclusion agency. Lot of information in just an hour and 25 minutes. I hope that's helpful. I do have five more minutes. I'll fly through these slides and see if I can take a couple more minutes for questions, but of course, I want to thank you for your work. I think your work is under-appreciated and I just really want to acknowledge the difference you make to children every day and thank you for the work that you do. In the handouts, you will see there's a range of references, recommended resources, including my website, that TED Talk, some fantastic free webinars. And I also have recorded a webinar for ECA on emotion coaching. If you wish to access that, that's available. Also mentioned, I'm also the author of a book on babies and sleep, which is available on my website if you're interested. And good news, we have five minutes for questions. What about children with no language skills and they just keep fighting other children? There's no other signs as to why they show this behaviour. Okay, so depends on the age, yeah. If they're younger, then there's all sorts of reasons, obviously, for the biting. You know, there's a range of reasons. It's really helpful to think about stress. Often, now, not always, but often, children that are biting other children are feeling a little bit anxious about the availability of the educator. Now, that's not blaming educators for a second because I know really how hard this is and how closely you work with these children. But very often for those, if they're very young children, really consciously, a lot of face-to-face contact, a lot of touch, a lot of rhythm, a lot of movement to reduce the stress that they might be experiencing and obviously trying to prevent the bite, which I know you're already doing, but teaching the skill before the biting, if possible. If you see a child going to bite another child, teaching them to, and they might not have the verbal skills, but you can be teaching sign language. May I have a turn, please? Or can I have a turn, please? So you can be teaching sign language, not just verbal skills, for those much younger children. If you've got older children who are biting, more in the preschool room, that's obviously developmentally not normal and there's serious stress in that child's world of some sort. I strongly recommend Stuart Shanker's work on stress and he is in one of the references that I gave you and one of the recommended books. So I'd definitely recommend looking at Stuart Shanker's work. How do you handle a situation where children swear or use negative and threatening language or aggression towards educators? I would wind back a little bit and ask, how much time is being invested in really connecting with those children? Now, you might say a lot of time, in which case then we go to step B, but that absolutely has to be step A. If children are swearing and being threatening and aggressive, then children are actually stressed. It's actually a sign of stress, that behaviour. They're actually operating in the lower centres of their brain. And so stress is mitigated in the first instance through connection. So the first thing I would be asking is are those children getting a lot of face-to-face time with a warm, kind, connected educator who's really investing in that time to get to know those children and make a connection with those children and where those children feel really seen as individuals? That has to be your prevention strategy. I guess the next thing I would be looking at is then what is the trigger? So are the children swearing or being aggressive because they're being told what they can't do? Are there boundaries that they're pushing against? In which case, and it's hard for me to know exactly what age children are. I guess I'm thinking about WOOSH-age children here. In that case, is there any way of thinking about how boundaries can be set where the children feel less powerless, where they're feeling a little bit more empowered, where you're using those two choices strategy, for instance? What else could I say about that? Then you can obviously set the boundary around not being spoken to like that and what language they can use clearly, but you have to be looking beneath the iceberg for that kind of aggressive behaviour. There's a sign of stress or disconnection somehow somewhere. All right. The acknowledge part is tricky with children who specifically say the reason for their action is I don't like them or I wanted to hurt them, but will argue when we try to acknowledge it in a more positive way. So, sorry, I'm just reading that. The acknowledge part is tricky for children who specifically state the reasons for their action is I don't like them or I wanted to hurt them or arguing when we try to acknowledge it in a bit more positive way. Honestly, I'm assuming these are older children who are a bit more verbal is I would really, what I would do is I would really start with active listening. Oh, you wanted to hurt them. What's going on? You know, tell me about that. I'm curious to know. And if the child's able to tell you, well, you know, she looked at me sideways in the playground or she's not my friend or there's something that is upsetting the child, I would be moving towards problem-solving in that instance. What's at the root of that problem? Why is the child feeling so much animosity towards that other child? What's at the root of that? I would be really trying to get at the root of it. And I would also be, and this is the last question I'll take because we're out of time and I want to hand over to Ella or Maria or someone to talk through that QR code, so this is my final thing for me. Yeah, I would be really trying to find out, what's the problem? This is a child's solution, right? The child's solution is hurting or being aggressive towards another child. What is the actual problem that they're trying to solve with that behaviour? That's where my mind would be going. Okay, Ella, I might hand over to you.

- [Laura] Actually, it'll be to me, Laura. Beth, I just wanted to thank you for joining us today and hopefully the people who have participated in this seminar have a number of new skills to try in their services. We'd love some feedback following the session and everyone will be sent a link to respond to a survey and on screen, you can see a QR code, which will take you to our Facebook page. You can give us a like and follow us for more information. You can also visit our website to join up to our newsletter if you're not already receiving that. This marks the end of our roadshow sessions. We're keen to hear from you, so if you've got any ideas or any considerations for our next round of roadshows, which will commence in October, please let us know via the survey. Thank you so much for joining us.