Timer heals all things

When Nat was five he started his life at the May School in Arlington. The May is a behavioral school, dedicated to positive reinforcement such as earning tokens towards desirables, taking small incremental steps towards goals, and scrupulous attention to “behaviors.” The May people jumped right in to getting Nat’s attention, which is one of the first lessons taught in behavioral schools. I was very heartened to see Nat learning how to pay attention to people. Nat’s first May teacher was joyful and kind. She focused her bright eyes on Nat and got him to listen to her sometimes. At the May Nat learned the concept of the classroom, of paying attention to the teacher, and doing what she said to do. That was huge. Nat did well with learning the skills of the school life, because school skills work well with step-by-step, systematic reward-based approaches. But about six months in, the May began its Home-Based program, where we were to be trained in using these same techniques on Nat at home. That was when we kind of lost the thread. Teaching play skills in particular stymied me. “Put doll in car.” “Yayy, good job, Nat!  Now, Move car.” “Yayyy! Good job! Car says “vroom.” And so on. I saw that Nat could indeed learn how to look like a boy at play but we could not make him see the point of playing this way. The scales fell from my eyes and I began to sour a little on the May’s approach. We were only giving him ...
Source: Susan's Blog - Category: Child Development Authors: Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: blogs