"Hello, I am an Educator and I am an ACT Practitioner"
Abu Nasim 9/13/2021
The preschool years are challenging for children, their parents, and the educators that guide them. This is often the first formal school for children, and they struggle in a new environment with unfamiliar faces, rules, and routines. As a psychologist in special needs preschool, I coach and model to my team how to be effective in serving the educational and social-emotional needs of our students. In order to effectively guide these young students, educators need to maintain a calm and flexible mind, even in a room of crying children! In these circumstances, my training in ACT is critical in staying grounded, present, and in control in the classroom.
ACT provides a framework in understanding human behavior in the classroom. While educators would prefer for all students to be well-behaved, there will be difficult students that challenge an educator’s patience. ACT trains educators not to judge students, but to see their challenging behaviors as a combination of various circumstances. Certain circumstances, such as the presence of a developmental disability, or of adverse-childhood-experiences, are outside the educator’s control. As a psychologist, I explain this larger context to parents and educators. This facilitates the development of compassion and acceptance; both for the child, and for the adult experiencing frustration working with the difficult behaviors.
Within the ACT framework, there is a method for educators to regain control when they are overwhelmed by challenging behaviors. Cognitive defusion is a method to move from a rigid, single-minded focus, to a more flexible and broad thought process. Educators practice defusion when instead of getting angry and yelling in response to a misbehaving student, they instead apply alternative strategies (i.e., praising on task students). When I coach my teachers, I remind them they are not alone, but are apart of larger education team. A teacher also applies cognitive defusion when they realize their usual behavior management practices are ineffective and are open to guidance from others.
A central component of ACT that guides how educators work with students is our shared values. When my team discusses a child, we value the child’s well-being, social-emotional growth, as well as progress towards IEP goals. When a student’s difficult behaviors need to be managed, individual members on the education team may prioritize different goals for the child. For the best outcome for the student, individual members on the team need to be calm, collected, and flexible in the discussion process. As ACT practitioners, we unite and harmonize over our shared values, which then guides our next steps in intervening and managing the child’s challenging behaviors.
Once a plan is developed, the committed action component of ACT is then applied. At this stage, I would coach classroom staff on how to implement an intervention plan. Moreover, I would model how to apply strategies to reduce challenging behaviors. Classroom staff then follow through with the behavioral intervention and data is collected and monitored. This process takes patience and requires commitment that plans are implemented with fidelity. I then evaluate the effectiveness of the intervention and collaborate with the education team to determine if the desired outcomes were achieved.
Working in a school will always be challenging, especially a special needs preschool. Through applying ACT and its various components, my team and myself remain calm, flexible, and effective in working with our students. No challenging behaviors are taken as an individual task. Instead, we work together as a team to support all students. The team knows we did a job well done when the kids end their day with smiling faces.
The ACBS Coaching SIG is interested in increasing visibility to all ACT practitioners who might not be psychotherapists, in the service of inspiring more people to use ACT. The Coaching SIG is launching a monthly column series titled "Hello, I'm a ... and I am an ACT practitioner."