Transcript Tolerances - Utah Youth Village

Tolerances
“What comes to mind when you
see or hear the word tolerances?”
Definition:
• capacity to endure
• the allowable deviation from a standard
• The point at which a Family Teacher/Treatment Parent determines
that a behavior is inappropriate is referred to as there level of
tolerance.
Rationales for Low Tolerances:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
diminish limit-testing behaviors
clarify expectations
promote self-control
youth view you as more fair/ feel safe
allow for more teaching
decreases staff stress
aids in implementation of treatment plan
Maximize Youth Success
Program Philosophy
Traditional Tolerance in Youth Care
• Traditionally, tolerances have been high in
child care because:
– Sympathy versus teaching
– Youth condition Staff
– Nurturing versus Teaching
– Belief that youth can’t
– Response to Severe Outbursts
Negotiating Tolerance Levels
• One of the obvious ways of determining your tolerance level and
explaining it to the youth is by establishing a set of rules in your
home.
– This process does have some pitfalls.
• The rules must be age appropriate.
• Too few rules produce a lot of gray areas which can cause conflict between
the Family Teacher, Associate Family Teacher, and youth.
• Too many rules can produce a system that is too complicated for either the
Family Teacher or youth to remember.
• Looking at the guidelines for determining appropriate and
inappropriate behavior, sit down by yourself and determine:
–
–
–
–
How many rules are you willing to enforce and with what consequences?
Make individual lists and be specific.
Sit down and discuss each of your rules and rank them as to importance.
Establish a permanent list that is mutually satisfying and All are willing to
enforce.
unacceptable
High Tolerances
Sympathy vs. Teaching
Nurturing vs. Teaching
Belief That Youth Can’t
Youth Condition Staff
Response to Outbursts
acceptable
Signs of High
Tolerances
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Teaching Ratios above 11:1
Youth moving up motivation system
without having achieved basic
skills
Loud noise levels in the home
Staff listening to complaining and
whining vs. teaching
Staff being called by nicknames
Increased youth arguing
Youth consumers
Organization and maintenance of
self and home is poor
Violations of house / Youth Village
rules allowed
Things to
Avoid
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Do not intervene in other Family
Teacher’s interactions
Do not give staff members feedback
in front of the youth
Make sure they are in shape to
receive it
Start with a positive or empathy
statement
Be specific
Give rationales
Use “I” instead of “You” statements
Allow the other person input
If it can’t be given in a calm voice
tone, WAIT!
Be encouraging
unacceptable
Interferes with Relationships
Viewed as Punitive
Not Seen as Fair
Doesn’t Demonstrate Concern
Avoidance Behaviors
Not Youth Preferred
acceptable
We will accept socially appropriate
behaviors which will benefit the youth
at home and in the community.
unacceptable
acceptable
Teaching Low Tolerances
•
•
•
•
Model
Be specific
Support with rationales
Set clear rules and expectations
–
–
–
–
•
Sympathy and understanding are essential components of working with youth.
–
•
Preventively teach
Praise and reinforce approximations
Explain alternative behavior
Respond to rather than react to behavior
There is such a thing as too much understanding, namely when it leads to tolerating
misbehavior.
Youth with behavior problems tend to teach staff not to deal directly with their problem
behaviors.
–
Youth teach this by:
• Intensifying their problem behaviors initially when staff confront them;
• Punishing staff who try to deal with a problem behavior by avoiding future interactions
with that staff member or by arguing that the staff member is picking on them
unnecessarily, or
• Arguing that the staff member does not really care for the youth and that the staff is
showing a lack of concern or care by emphasizing the youth’s inappropriate behavior.
Results of Inconsistent
Tolerances
•
Youth confusion:
–
–
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Youth don’t understand your expectations
Makes it harder to learn a new skill.
Less effective treatment
Creates tension and conflict among staff
Creates tension and conflict between youth and staff
Youth view staff as unfair
Can Result in tolerating inappropriate behavior.
Family Teachers/Treatment Parents need to maintain tolerance levels
that exist in the community.
Do not tolerate any behaviors which can cause negative consequences
for the youth who live in their homes.
–
By tolerating inappropriate behavior:
• A Family Teacher actually is teaching the youth inappropriate behaviors.
• The failure to teach appropriate behaviors is both ineffective and unfair to the
youth.
Feedback Process
• Constantly evaluating youth behavior
–
From this evaluation:
• Family Teachers/Treatment Parents provide youth with feedback on which behaviors
might be helpful or appropriate, and which behaviors might be unhelpful or inappropriate
to their success both in and outside the home.
• Feedback is how tolerance levels are communicated to youth.
• It is critical to be descriptive in your definition of appropriate and
inappropriate behaviors when giving feedback to youth, so that the
youth will have an accurate perception of the tolerance level.
• Observing when you praise, correct, cons equate and when you feel
comfortable with a youth’s behavior:
–
–
–
you can determine your personal tolerance level.
if you find you are correcting, teaching or cons equating less frequently than you feel some
internal reaction of discomfort, then your tolerance level may be too high.
if you feel you are continually correcting, teaching, or cons equation, it may mean your
tolerance level is too low.
To determine if a behavior is
appropriate or inappropriate, you will:
•
Decide if it makes you uncomfortable:
–
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
If it bothers you, it will bother someone
else.
Conflicts with the norms of society
(laws, etc.)
Breaks a rule in the Teaching-Family
home
Is physically harmful to any living being
Is an extreme emotional outburst
Causes discomfort or embarrassment
to others
Puts the reputation of the home in
danger
Will lead to negative consequences for
the youth
Is not appropriate for the
circumstances under which it occurs
•
Use social Validity:
–
–
–
From your experience, you know if a
behavior is important
You know when something is trivial, or
that most people in society would think
is unimportant
The behavior will cause the youth not
to be accepted in any positive part of
society
Area of Acceptance
• If we will accept socially appropriate behaviors
which will benefit the youth at home and in the
community, then we will:
– Respond with corrective teaching when a youth’s behavior
crosses out tolerance level, and
– Respond with effective praise when a youth’s behavior does not
cross out tolerance level
– Your role as a Family Teacher or Treatment Parent is to decide
when the youth’s behavior crosses your tolerance line, and react
to it with praise or correction.
WHAT WILL YOU
ACCEPT???
Notes
Low Tolerance Levels
• What is the effective range for your
positive to negative ratio?
• What does “Does not reflect appropriate
discrimination” mean?
Cons equating Appropriate and
Inappropriate Behavior
•
With the group, use your tolerance level to decide if the behavior calls for Effective
Praise or Corrective Teaching. You can assume that the youth in the example have
been in you home for at least a month.
– “Will you help me with my homework?” Jan said in a pleasant voice.
– “Hello, my name is Mark. It’s nice to meet you, “ he said while looking
down without offering a handshake.
– “Fine, whatever, “ Amy said after I told her no.
– John looked at me, smiled and said “Thank you,” when I told him he
tried hard on his home visit.
– Tyler yelled down the stairs for Jose to come up to the family room.
– Alexa Greeted her caseworker by saying “Hey, whaz-up?”
– Trevor rolled his eyes when I told him to set the table.
Cons equating Appropriate and
Inappropriate Behavior
– Tony used a calm voice and said, “I know you were concerned about
me coming home late, but I think the consequence I earned is too high.”
– When Mary saw that my arms were full, she opened the door and said,
“may I help you?”
– Nancy reclined on the floor next to her boyfriend when he came over to
watch a video.
– Nancy Reclined on the floor next to her boyfriend when he came over to
watch a video.
– Simon turned up his radio so he could hear his music over his
roommate’s radio.
– Susan said, “We was going to go to the store, but we don’t know where
it’s at.”
– John was ready for school with his hair washed and combed, and his
clothes clean and in good repair.
– Nathan put his elbow on the table and reached for the mashed potatoes
at dinner.
Cons equating Appropriate and
Inappropriate Behavior
– Henry pulled his hair back in a pony tail and put in his gold stud
earring.
– Miguel said, “Is it alright if I make a long distance call to my
friend?”
– Anna’s room contained an ink picture with the words “death,”
“blood,” and “kill.”
– Time wore his pants in a large size with the waist pulled sown to
his hips.
– June said “okay” and got her books when I asked her to get
ready for study hour.
– Jason Sighed and looked down when I told him he earned a
negative consequence.
Negotiating Tolerance Levels
• Another common pitfall when establishing
tolerance levels in you home is when the Family
Teacher and the Associate Family Teacher are
unable or unwilling to maintain those rules. This
can cause major conflict between Family
Teachers and is readily perceived by the youth,
the old adage of “divide and conquer.” some
rules to remember here are:
• A balance between your personal discomfort and the actual
communication of your tolerance level is one way to determine the
appropriateness of tolerance. Another means is by the principle of
“social validity.” Social validity broadly defined is the convergence of
a youth’s behavior with the norms of the larger society in which
he/she will be living. For example, historically, Boys Town youth
were permitted to be irregularly punctual for campus jobs because
the jobs were not crucial and because they were to serve the youth..
Even though this was appropriate for Boys Town, The principle of
“social validity” would judge this inappropriate because employers
outside Boys Town would not tolerate erratic work attendance. Any
time we allow institutional concern or past troubles a youth has had
to tolerate inappropriate behavior, we are violating the principle of
“social validity” and have a tolerance level that is too high for the
youth to learn important skills.
Tolerance
• The Teaching-Family Model operates upon the principle that
inappropriate behaviors most frequently are signs that the youth
does not know the appropriate behavior for that situation. So, the
basic task of the Family Teacher is to teach the youth new skills and
appropriate behaviors where inappropriate behaviors of the youth
occur.
• Before a Family Teacher can teach appropriate behaviors, he/she
has to have the ability to perceive and describe the inappropriate
behaviors being demonstrated by the youth in the home. This skill
allows the Family Teacher to decide when to teach new appropriate
behaviors and new skills.
•
As a Family Teacher identifies opportunities to teach more
appropriate behaviors, he/she is making the discrimination between
what is perceived as appropriate youth behavior and what is seen as
inappropriate youth behavior. Essentially, the Family Teacher is
letting the youth know which behaviors will and will not be tolerated.
Each Family Teacher will make the discrimination between
appropriate and inappropriate based upon his/her own level of
tolerance of youth misbehavior.
• Of course, every Family Teacher will establish different levels of
tolerance, based upon their own experience and willingness to
tolerate certain inappropriate behaviors. Historically, staff in
institutions learn to tolerate many inappropriate behaviors from
youth in the program. There appears to be several major reasons
for this phenomenon:
•
•
•
Institutions frequently establish their major purpose to be the taking care of
youth, rather than teaching new skills to youth. Staff often times believe
that youth in institutions are not capable of performing at levels of
appropriateness which are normally expected of individuals by society and
consequently, set goals lower.
Staff who work with problem behaviors tend to attend more to grossly
inappropriate behaviors (e.g., running away, fighting, vandalism) than to
those behaviors which are more subtle…
…(e.g., frowning and looking away when cirticized, using one-word answers
to questions, unpleasant facial expressions and voice tones, mumbling
under the breath when receiving instructions). While grossly inappropriate
behaviors my be the reason why some youth are placed in institutions, it is
their inability to perform the more subtle, appropriate social behaviors that
results in their lack of success in social situations outside of the institution.
Staff tend to tolerate the subtle inappropriate social behaviors when youth
exhibit many more grossly inappropriate behaviors.
Determining between appropriate
and inappropriate behaviors
• Once a Family Teacher has determined whether a behavior is
inappropriate or not, he/she needs to communicate that tolerance to
the youth. It is this communication of tolerance levels that is critical
to teaching the youth appropriate behavior. This communication
takes the form of feedback from the Family Teacher to the youth,
when the Family Teacher defines for the youth which behaviors
were appropriate and which were inappropriate.
• Family Teachers let their youth know which behavior will be tolerated
in various ways. Whenever a Family Teacher tries to teach a new
skill to a youth, he/she is describing to the youth appropriate and
inappropriate behaviors.
• …(praise for appropriate and disapproval for inappropriate behavior)
teacher the youth which behaviors are to be tolerated under various
circumstances.
• …Every time a Family Teacher cons equates a youth for his/her
behavior, the tolerance level is being communicated. Also, when a
Family Teacher praises a youth for doing a task or practicing a skill,
the Family Teacher’s tolerance level for behavior is communicated.
• Besides teaching youth which behaviors are tolerated by means of
the formal teaching interactions and behavior cons equations, It is
important for Family Teachers to realize that every mode of
feedback.
• The determination of Family Teacher’s tolerance levels is
critical so that opportunities to teach new skills and more
appropriate behaviors can be identified. As those
behaviors are taught to youth, the youth will come aware
of which behaviors are appropriate. Tolerance, then is
taught to the youth, and the Family Teacher’s descriptive
feedback and consequences are the means by which
youth learn which behaviors are to be tolerated.
Tolerances
This training presentation is available for download at:
www.utahparenting.org
© 2007 Utah Youth Village.