When you think of behavior disorders the first thought is to go to the definition given in the DSMIV or to go off of what a doctor has told you.
The diagnoses rely on chemical imbalances or neurological difficulties.
I on the other hand, after working in a behavior disorder room for over three years, have seen another form of behavior disorder.
After observing these students on a regular basis, I have begun to see the negative impact that video games can have on a student's behavior.
In thinking about this subject I also came across a journal article that seems to help with the knowledge of what our society is doing to our children.
This research study showed how school performance and behavior is negatively affected by children playing video games.
My first reaction to this was that when you look at boys and girls who play video games with violence of any form, it seems that society has made this out to be a norm and we, as parents, should be OK with allowing our children to play these games.
As a mother of four boys, my husband and I make sure that we watch the rating of the game before making any purchases of games for our children.
This seems to be the easiest way to watch what games end up in our children's hands.
However, when your child goes to a friend's house you do not know what that child's parents allow him/her to have.
The research journal tries to find the correlation between video game playing and school performance and behaviors.
"Overall, the expected pattern emerged.
Time spent playing video games was negatively related to one school performance variable and positively related to aggression and externalizing behavior," (Hastings, 2009).
Playing video games with violent tendencies seems to affect more boys than girls.
Girls would rather play learning video games opposed to violent video games.
According to Hastings (2009), parental monitoring seems to have more of an impact on girls' behavior and school outcomes.
When parents pay attention to what their children are getting their hands on it is more likely that the games will be less harmful to the children's behaviors.
Those parents who do not care what their kids play are obviously not going to be concerned with their children's grades either.
Again as a mother, my husband and I are very aware of our children's grades, behaviors, and school performance.
This seems to make a great difference in their world.
Parents that do not take the time to care about these factors generally give in and let their children do whatever they want to do.
Then how can you have children who know their parents care about what they do in school and what they do outside of school? This makes me believe that parts of the behaviors children pick up on are learned.
I can see how these games can negatively be affecting children, making them act out in ways that may be taken out of context, earning a diagnosis of a behavior disorder by a medical doctor.
My past experience working in a behavior disorder classroom has shown me other ways that children have "learned" behaviors as well.
These are behaviors they watch their parents commit or are told this is how they should act, which then in turn teaches kids the wrong way to handle situations.
I have a case in which I will only use the first name of the student, Jessie.
Jessie was an incredibly talented child with fabulous artistic ability and every time we got close to getting Jessie ready to go out and leave our program, Jessie became very agitated and began having his behaviors all over again.
It was like going back to square one.
When we got down to the bottom of things we found out that Jessie was being told to act out again, but did not want to.
Jessie did these things because his parents guilted him into it by telling him that if he left our program they would lose all of their income as the family depended on Jessie's disability check from the state.
This is how the family functioned and was able to meet any demands that they had.
They were living off of Jessie.
Jessie did what he thought was right because he was taught that if he had behavioral problems then he would not leave our program.
These are perfect examples of learned behaviors.
I do know that some behavior disorders are not learned; they are programmed that way in the child's system.
However, I do believe from some of my past experience that these behavior problems can also be learned by watching examples.
In any case most of the true diagnosed behavior disorders are meant to help teachers and IEP teams figure out the best ways to handle students who have those true behavior disorders.
In most cases everyone can work together to address the behavior and work with the student.
Once this is accomplished the student can work toward handling the anger or other issue appropriately to gain control of himself/herself and learn to function without assistance.
Until this happens we have special education programs, Behavior Intervention Plans, associates, and other such programs to help these kids get where they need to be.
Addressing these problems as they occur, and addressing them together, is the best way to accomplish this.
Hastings, E.
C.
, Karas, T.
L.
, Winsler, A.
, Way, E.
, Madigan, A.
, & Tyler, S.
(2009).
Young Children's Video/Computer Game Use: Relations with School Performance and Behavior.
Mental Health Nursing, 30, 638-649.
The diagnoses rely on chemical imbalances or neurological difficulties.
I on the other hand, after working in a behavior disorder room for over three years, have seen another form of behavior disorder.
After observing these students on a regular basis, I have begun to see the negative impact that video games can have on a student's behavior.
In thinking about this subject I also came across a journal article that seems to help with the knowledge of what our society is doing to our children.
This research study showed how school performance and behavior is negatively affected by children playing video games.
My first reaction to this was that when you look at boys and girls who play video games with violence of any form, it seems that society has made this out to be a norm and we, as parents, should be OK with allowing our children to play these games.
As a mother of four boys, my husband and I make sure that we watch the rating of the game before making any purchases of games for our children.
This seems to be the easiest way to watch what games end up in our children's hands.
However, when your child goes to a friend's house you do not know what that child's parents allow him/her to have.
The research journal tries to find the correlation between video game playing and school performance and behaviors.
"Overall, the expected pattern emerged.
Time spent playing video games was negatively related to one school performance variable and positively related to aggression and externalizing behavior," (Hastings, 2009).
Playing video games with violent tendencies seems to affect more boys than girls.
Girls would rather play learning video games opposed to violent video games.
According to Hastings (2009), parental monitoring seems to have more of an impact on girls' behavior and school outcomes.
When parents pay attention to what their children are getting their hands on it is more likely that the games will be less harmful to the children's behaviors.
Those parents who do not care what their kids play are obviously not going to be concerned with their children's grades either.
Again as a mother, my husband and I are very aware of our children's grades, behaviors, and school performance.
This seems to make a great difference in their world.
Parents that do not take the time to care about these factors generally give in and let their children do whatever they want to do.
Then how can you have children who know their parents care about what they do in school and what they do outside of school? This makes me believe that parts of the behaviors children pick up on are learned.
I can see how these games can negatively be affecting children, making them act out in ways that may be taken out of context, earning a diagnosis of a behavior disorder by a medical doctor.
My past experience working in a behavior disorder classroom has shown me other ways that children have "learned" behaviors as well.
These are behaviors they watch their parents commit or are told this is how they should act, which then in turn teaches kids the wrong way to handle situations.
I have a case in which I will only use the first name of the student, Jessie.
Jessie was an incredibly talented child with fabulous artistic ability and every time we got close to getting Jessie ready to go out and leave our program, Jessie became very agitated and began having his behaviors all over again.
It was like going back to square one.
When we got down to the bottom of things we found out that Jessie was being told to act out again, but did not want to.
Jessie did these things because his parents guilted him into it by telling him that if he left our program they would lose all of their income as the family depended on Jessie's disability check from the state.
This is how the family functioned and was able to meet any demands that they had.
They were living off of Jessie.
Jessie did what he thought was right because he was taught that if he had behavioral problems then he would not leave our program.
These are perfect examples of learned behaviors.
I do know that some behavior disorders are not learned; they are programmed that way in the child's system.
However, I do believe from some of my past experience that these behavior problems can also be learned by watching examples.
In any case most of the true diagnosed behavior disorders are meant to help teachers and IEP teams figure out the best ways to handle students who have those true behavior disorders.
In most cases everyone can work together to address the behavior and work with the student.
Once this is accomplished the student can work toward handling the anger or other issue appropriately to gain control of himself/herself and learn to function without assistance.
Until this happens we have special education programs, Behavior Intervention Plans, associates, and other such programs to help these kids get where they need to be.
Addressing these problems as they occur, and addressing them together, is the best way to accomplish this.
Hastings, E.
C.
, Karas, T.
L.
, Winsler, A.
, Way, E.
, Madigan, A.
, & Tyler, S.
(2009).
Young Children's Video/Computer Game Use: Relations with School Performance and Behavior.
Mental Health Nursing, 30, 638-649.
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