by Kathy Kucera of The Register-Guard
Janice and Bill used to have a diabolical monster for a daughter. “She was very demanding and quite verbal,” recalls her mother. “She could cuss you out in a minute, though to see her she looked loving and sweet.”
“She had developed a pattern of controlling the whole family. And it was getting progressively worse. Almost every day we had a shouting scene over something she’d done or said. Her sister and brother were used to going to another room to get away from the yelling.”
Discipline didn’t faze eight-year-old Susan — but it worried her parents. “We were afraid our spanking would turn into child abuse,” Janice admits.
Last winter, the family saw the Harlem Globetrotters perform in Eugene. Like every other family outing in years, it was a disaster. Susan’s backtalk and foul language had become unbearable.
“I’d had enough,” Janice recalls. The next day she called CARES, the information and referral service sponsored by the county. They referred her to the Oregon Research Institute’s Family Center program for socially aggressive kids.
Today, Susan and her parents can boast that she hasn’t had a spanking in two months. Her mother no longer wallows in self-pity. The family shares a peace of mind it never knew before.
The metamorphosis of Susan isn’t complete but her parents and teachers have seen a turnaround in her behavior. “We started the program at a good time in her life — she can understand what’s happening,” Janice says. “She’s accepted what we’re trying to do and has matured quite a lot in the past few months.”
Susan still doesn’t qualify for a halo. “But we’re not in the business of creating angels,” says Matt Fleischman of ORI.
Instead, he and three other researchers settle for a more mundane objective: To restore normal relationships and behaviors in families wracked by the obnoxious behavior of children ages 3 to 12 years old.
“The kids we treat don’t do anything very different from other kids,” Fleischman says. “The difference is in the rate of what we call socially aggressive behavior.
“At one time or another, most kids cry, lie, talk back to their parents, whine and throw temper tantrums,” he says. “There’s nothing unusual in that. The kids we’re talking about are the ones who do those things two or three times as often as normal kids do.”
Such kids are usually labeled hyperactive, aggressive and difficult-to-manage. They may be taking medication for their problems. Or they may be attending counseling sessions. Or they may be spending an inordinate amount of time in the school principal’s office.
At one time or another, most parents have probably become exasperated enough to assume their child must be among those Fleischman is describing. But he’s not talking about occasional bratty behavior — he’s concerned with the kids who exhibit Dennis the Menace tendencies practically every day, all day long.
As a guide in determining if a child fits the socially aggressive description, Fleischman asks parents how often the child exhibits the tendencies described in the chart below. Generally, if they witness most of these tendencies more than once a week, their child might benefit from the training ORI gives to parents.
About 200 families have gone through the training program since it started as a research project eight years ago. It is based on concepts developed by ORI researcher Gerald Patterson. Fleischman says the program has been successful in about three out of four cases. Fees for the program depend on family size and income and range from nothing to about $20 per week.
“Our program works on the premise that a person’s behavior is learned or reinforced by the actions of the people around him,” Fleischman says.
“In our situation, we’re talking about the parents’ ability to influence the child’s behavior.
The treatment program, which usually takes three to six months, concentrates on teaching parents how to change the child’s behavior. “We use simple techniques,” he explains. “We teach the parents how to look at what the kid does. Then we show them how they can change the child’s behavior by their actions right after the child does something.
“In some families, we use an artificial system such as rewarding points to the child for good behavior. But that’s not used in every case. Where it is used, we make it clear to parents that it’s not bribery and we’re not turning their kids into puppets.”
Before parents are taught the behavior modification techniques they’ll be using at home, an ORI staff member conducts several observation sessions in their home to assess family interaction and behavior problems.
Then parents attend a series of weekly training classes at ORI to learn the techniques to use in dealing with a child’s behavior problems. Once the family has started applying the principles learned in the training sessions, an ORI staff member telephones the parents every day at a specified time. “That gives us a better idea of day-to-day situations in the home and allows the parents to ask questions every day,” Fleischman says. “The effort is all on the parents’ part. We don’t see the kids too much.”
The treatment program is adaptable to different families’ problems, he adds. “We try to work our suggestions in with the parents’ ideas about childrearing. We don’t do any moralizing but we make it clear that physical punishment isn’t necessary to make a child behave.
“Many of the parents have a real fear of abusing their children. It’s often these kids who frustrate their parents so much that the parents become abusive,” he says.
“There’s no one type of kid we see,” Fleischman adds. “About a third is girls. About 50 per cent have trouble in school as well as at home. One person on our staff works with schools so the child receives a consistent experience at home and at school.”
Within a couple of weeks after starting the program, most parents can see marked changes in their child’s behavior, Fleischman says. “In younger kids, the changes are usually noticeable sooner.” The formal treatment period usually last three to six months, with periodic checkups by ORI for about a year. Afterward, parents are encouraged to call ORI whenever they’re having trouble with their kids.
Follow-up studies of children who’ve gone through the program in past years reveal that they’re functioning normally, Fleischman says. “We weren’t just applying a Band-Aid to their troubles. They are staying out of the juvenile detention system.”
Paul Lenarduzzi, director of the Lane County juvenile department, says some kids in the 9 to 12 year-old range have been referred to ORI from his agency. “In dealing with certain kids, they’ve had extremely good results,” he says. “The ORI program is the only one in the area using the behavior modification approach. It won’t help everyone but it’s been effective for certain kids.”
The treatment provided at ORI has attracted nationwide attention among social scientists, Fleischman says. A similar program has been started in Montana and is being considered in other parts of the country.
Lane County Children’s Services Division director Tom Moan says his agency also refers families to ORI. “We’re very pleased with the service those families have received there,” he says. “We’ve given them some pretty tough cases, too. Some have involved child abuse or very destructive behavior. One recent case involved malnutrition in the family. They work in very small groups and can provide the intensive help these families need.”
If the program has a failing, says one parent currently in the training program, it is that it doesn’t attempt to get to the reasons for the destructive behavior. “It doesn’t try to find out why a child acts the way he does,” says Carol, the mother of seven-year-old Steven. “The program doesn’t provide an answer to that question but when you’re desperate for help, doing something about the behavior takes a terrible burden off the parents.”
Carol’s son had shown the symptoms of a hyperactive child since the age of four, with less obvious signs that he’d be a destructive kid soon after he learned to walk. Despite visits to several doctors, including specialists on the East Coast, Carol says she and her husband got little practical advice on how to deal with their son’s destructive behavior or an explanation for the cause of his actions.
“Our relatives would tell us to do something about him and say he was spoiled rotten,” she says. “Neighbors threatened to sue us for things he had done. The blame for his behavior had always come down on us. I even considered suicide a couple times.”
About the same time that Steven’s parents began the ORI program, his mother read about the food additive and coloring-free diet advocated by Dr. Ben Feingold of California. Carol put Steven on the diet, which is intended to reduce hyperactive behavior in children. The combination of the ORI program and the diet has caused a complete change in Steven’s personality, his mother says. “I’m not sure what changes in him to attribute to which changes we’ve made in his life — his diet or our reaction to his behavior,” she says.
But wherever the credit lies, Steven’s parents are happy to be living with a son who’s finished his career as a diabolical monster.
Reprinted with permission. Copyright 1975, The Register Guard, www.registerguard.com.