Reducing Head Butting

Some children tend to butt their heads on the table when they become frustrated. As teachers, we can help reduce this tendency by reducing the anxiety level in our activities. Here is a way of approaching the child that helps to develop a comfortable raport, and ultimately eliminates a lot of stress from the student.

We will call him Bob again. Bob was known to butt his head a lot according to reports that I received from others who had worked with him in the past. Bob wasn't real fond of participating in a formal agenda, and often became frustrated. When he did, I figured my influence on his learning was suspended unless I could remove that frustration. I felt like he was most frustrated with being in the "teacher's world", that environment where he was to "perform" beyond his interests or attention span.

Fortunately, I was working with him on a one-on-one basis, so I had a lot of freedom to adapt the climate as I saw fit. He enjoyed the "Moonbeam" book series about a monkey, so I brought a stuffed monkey to our sessions. This turned out to be a great addition to activities besides reading. Moonbeam made an EEE-EEE sound when someone pressed his stomach, and that added animation to our tasks. It appeared that Moonbeam sitting at his side made our world his and Moonbeam's with me as a visitor. This allowed me to influence his activities by asking if he and Moonbeam would perform a task, or ask him to do something for Moonbeam.

While any child may respond favorably to a particular approach by the teacher regarding their relationship, I've found that making myself the "kindly visitor" in the child's world is very reliable in most cases. I think that a "Moonbeam" creates a feeling of security in the mind of the child if the teacher creates that image. Once the security is developed, the visitor in the child's world can begin to challenge the child to branch out just a little bit.

I hope that you have found my idea interesting. I am always looking for additional methods, information and resources that are useful in education, so if you know of any that I don't have links to, let me know about them. If you have a helpful tip that you would like to share, but don't have a web site, send it to me, and if I publish it, I'll include your e-mail address with it so you can get feedback. Have a great day!

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