Difficult conversations are natural when working in ABA or autism classrooms with students with heightened emotional and behavioral challenges. Listen for tips to navigate these challenges and work productively with colleagues!
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Difficult conversations are natural when working in ABA or autism classrooms with students with heightened emotional and behavioral challenges. Listen for tips to navigate these challenges and work productively with colleagues!
😍 More, you say? We’re here for you!
🖱️ Rate, Review, Like & Subscribe so you don’t miss an episode!
Caitlin Beltran: It might not be the best part of your day, but it's really probably not going to be as terrible as you thought it would be if you go about in the right way.
Welcome to the Misfit Behaviorist Podcast. Join your hosts, Audra Jensen and Caitlin Beltran, here to bring you evidence based strategies with a student centered focus. Let's get started.
Caitlin Beltran: Welcome back to the Misfit Behaviorist Podcast. Today, we are talking about something that a couple of listeners have requested, which is the idea of having a really difficult conversation with your colleagues, specifically in an ABA classroom type of setting.
So this was something that Brittany reached out about. Also, Sarah touched on this when she talked about navigating difficult conversations with paraprofessionals. But really, this could be with admin. It could be with inclusion teachers. It could be with mainstream buddy teachers. any time where you as the BCBA or the special education teacher in the classroom are having to talk about something that is not so pleasant.
So not your everyday run of the mill conversation, but hey, this plane isn't being followed or hey, I don't think this, strategy is working out. And I know you really want to keep doing it, but the data saying it's time to change it. So Audra, has this come up for you a lot?
Audra Jensen: Yeah, and I think there's a balance that you have to strike between being buddy with our colleagues and then saying, hey, we really need to make some changes. And I think there's a balance that we have between you have to strike that between those two things.
Caitlin Beltran: Yes. And that can be super hard because we want to establish ourselves as, a trusted person, who has expertise, but also is a team player on the same page as our colleagues. And so some examples that came to mind just for me in my experience are maybe a teacher is refusing to collect data that you've asked for and, I'm not asking someone to take the data just so that I can read it and be happy about it.
I need that data to make the decisions or I need to justify the supports we're doing, or, as a teacher resorting to a punishment based intervention before trying any reinforcement based interventions. I feel like this kind of comes up more often than you think it might in public school scenarios, as I'm sure other people can attest to like the timeout chair or something seemingly benign in, a kindergartner first grade inclusion classroom where the BCBA, side of us is saying, oh, that's really, you're jumping right to punishment. You missed a couple of reinforcers there.
Audra Jensen: One conversation that comes to mind and it was a parent conversation, not necessarily a teacher conversation, but it comes to mind because it's a hard conversation to have.
And I think all of these conversations when we have to have them bring up emotional feelings to us as the people who have to have them, but it was a conversation I had to have with a, with another parent as a clinician. I was working with a family. They had two kids already, one with autism already diagnosed, one had a diagnosis of ADHD, who was also, we suspected, on the spectrum, and then she had a daughter, who was two or three at the time, and I had to have the difficult conversation that the daughter also was very likely on the spectrum, and I had to have that conversation, there's another one now we have to have evaluated, who did end up also having autism, all three of them, and then she now has autism.
or five, they all are on the spectrum, but I had to have a very difficult conversation and I just mean being able to have these conversations that are difficult to bring up, emotional feelings for us, as well as either the teacher, the recipient of the conversations are also bring up difficult convert their feelings that, it, it creates a…what am I trying to say? This, a reaction to us?
Caitlin Beltran: Like a visceral reaction.
Audra Jensen: Yeah, and we can either go one way with it. It either creates a, an action feeling from us or, a defensive feeling. And this particular parent, took it and was very action oriented and became very, she was able to really work with it.
And some of our teachers are going to have that same thing. They're going to become very defensive and closed off, or they're going to take that and be able to really react positively with it. And so part of it is going to be able to know your teacher, know your audience, and how to go at the conversation in such a way that you're going to have that positive reaction from them. So that was the first thing that I thought ofknowing your audience and how to come at it in such a way that you're going to get that positive response from them.
Caitlin Beltran: Yeah, absolutely. And I had put together a couple of tips to navigate these difficult conversations. And I think that segues perfectly into the first one that I thought of, which is that people are more likely to commit to solutions as a result of a clear, open dialogue.
So if I know this teacher's background, and I know we've had differences of opinions, and I'm sitting thinking, I'm not so happy with how they're starting with this intervention, and I want to bring it up, me going into it, and, picking the time, the wrong time, the wrong place, and potentially saying it the wrong way is going to likely not have any productive outcomes, right?
I can, work in a scenario where I can bring this teacher, call the meeting, whatever time I have to that's convenient for both of us and bring it up as a dialogue. And rather than just me saying, this is what you should do, or I think it would work much better this way without explanation, which hopefully seems like common sense.
Probably no one is just walking in and saying, okay, do this, see you next Friday and walking out. But just keeping that constant theme in mind of like, how much of an open dialogue am I making this because when I have those conversations with people and I'm like, okay, walk me through every aspect of why you think you should do that.
How did we get there? And if we can do that back and forth and distill it down together to this 1 shared plan, even if it's not 100 percent how I wanted it to be. We're both like, getting 80, 85 percent of what we want and then it's a shared plan that we all agree on rather than me coming in with the to do list or with the agenda.
Audra Jensen: I had a teacher who was, she was getting a lot of pushback from her administration and she was in such a state of not being able to go back to her administration with a concrete responses. And so I was able to role play with her and how to respond to her administration. And so I was able to use that information with her and role play her responses so that she could then turn back to her administration and respond appropriately with her admin, which I don't think she would have been able to do without that role play information or kind of practice.
And so some of that does take some practice in situations. That role play situations and open dialogue and practicing situations that can, help, you're going to have some very young teachers who are learning how to advocate for themselves too, in situations. And then you're going to have some seasoned teachers who are fixated on the way that they do things.
And those are different types of conversations you have to have. And you navigate different types of mentoring between your younger teachers and your more seasoned teachers. And how to navigate different types of dialogues between the different types of teachers too.
Caitlin Beltran: Yeah, and just hearing you say that it brings to mind, we've got a lot of very young BCBAs listening to this and I know that practice and role play that you spoke of like today, conversations that I have in this arena look very different than I myself would have approached them like years ago when I first started as a BCBA.
And that's only because the sole reason of I've had to practice them so many times going into so many different classrooms in so many different situations. So that kind of brings me to my second tip, which was staying focused on your goals to prevent that over emotionality piece. And of course, no one's here to say you can't be emotional.
We're all going to be so passionate about our students and so passionate about our practices. But I think again, just going into that dialogue, what am I actually trying to achieve rather than bringing that emotion and stress into it and saying Oh, I know she's going to resist this, but I know it's the right way to do when we're going to butt heads again, really whittling it down to the main thing that I want to achieve out of this interaction is this. Whether it's getting the teacher to collect some piece of data or getting the teacher to agree upon one strategy to implement and finding that one thing that before I go into the meeting, that's my bottom line. And also maybe 1 thing I definitely want to avoid. I definitely want to avoid an unproductive conversation where nothing gets resolved. And for me, again, things that I've had to learn along the way, really that active listening and making sure I even have my facts straight because the emotionality becomes such a big piece. Especially if there's a little bit of a history there, oh, everyone says this teacher will never take data or this teacher just loves to use punishment.
They don't want to buy-in to any motivators. And again, when I'm going into that dialogue. I'm constantly like, Okay, so I hear you saying that you like to start with this strategy. Is that how you're feeling? Because sometimes it's not. Sometimes the teacher's Oh, no, that's not what I meant. I was just saying I didn't want to do it on Fridays because that's when we do fun Friday.
And I'm like, Oh, okay. So just a lot of that active listening and restating. I read somewhere once recently and that said, listen actively and communicate confidently. And I thought that's so beautiful. Like it pairs so well together. Because if I'm just blindly communicating confidently, I'm probably not having a productive conversation.
But if I'm doing both of those things, really listening well, then I'm able to communicate my thoughts confidently.
Audra Jensen: One of my most favorite books. I'm going to probably do a whole podcast on it soon. It's called Never Split the Difference. It was written by an actual has nothing to do with special ed or teaching or anything, but it's written by Chris Boss.
He was a former FBI negotiator, I believe. It is a fascinating read, but it was all it's all about it was FBI negotiating, but it is all about how to negotiate with somebody to get them to come to an agreement in, in a tough situation and talks a lot about all these techniques you're talking about in, and one of the techniques he talks about is mirroring and talking about when you're having these difficult conversations, a lot of, mirroring back.
So saying the same thing back to them that they're saying and making them feel validated and taking that emotional piece out of it. Some of the other things he talks about is having that active listening, staying calm, standing your ground, standing by the objective data is a lot of what we need to do.
Knowing what works, giving them choices. Some of the same techniques that we use for our students is what we use with our teachers as well. Works for different situations. That's, I'll put a link for that quote or that book into the show notes, too. It's a really, it's an easy read. It's a really good book too. And a lot of these techniques you're talking about is used in there too. Great techniques.
Caitlin Beltran: I'm definitely going to read that because I just thought the other day that in another life I would be a hostage negotiator. Oh my gosh. I don't know if anyone else feels like I'd be good at that. But, so that kind of brings me to my third tip, which was consider the atmosphere.
So when we're having these conversations, when we're having this open dialogue, people are more likely, just like our students, to become, heightened or aggressive if they're in unknown territory, unfamiliar, if things are sprung on them. So planning out ahead of time, hopefully you're doing that anyway and not dropping something on the fly to a teacher.
But, if you're meeting in your office space or their classroom, give them the choice, right? Give them the preference. Is it easier for you to take 10 minutes on your prep if that's allowed in your district or come in during our planning time before school. Letting them have some input in that and then also like watching our own body language.
Because again, totally guilty of this if I know going in, it's going to not be the most pleasant conversation right away. I don't want to walk in just like I would not want to face a student who was emotionally heightened and have my arms crossed and be on my phone and be looking down and, do it like, if that's how you feel, I want to go into it, fully facing them, ready to hear everything, validating what they're saying, and most of what they're saying, I'm sure, is perfectly valid.
If I'm giving a teacher some data collection and they're saying, I'm really nervous about doing this on top of everything else that I'm already doing, instead of me just saying, I can't help you with that, I could say, I would be nervous too. You are doing so much in your classroom. Would you be willing to try it for 2 days and then we can debrief and you can let me know this totally doesn't work at all or hey, it was actually doable. Can we start there?
Audra Jensen: All right. Some of the questions that I think about when you think about the environment is is the conversation something that's already happened before? Have we had this conversation before? Does the conversation need to be stepped up? Does it need to be given more clout? Do we need to be having it in the presence of admin?
Do we need to make sure it's more documented? Does it need to be more lighthearted? Is it something we can just chat about, over lunch? Do we need to have a clear progression from let's just chat about it to, let's look at the data and the plan? Do we need to talk about are we following the plan?
Do we need to talk about what's next? Have those reflective conversations about the environment as well of where we're having it.
Caitlin Beltran: For sure. I think that's such a good point because if we've already had the conversation the 1st time, what's changing? So either we're bringing new ideas or a new strategy or even a new approach to the conversation.
Or can we bring in a third party, not in a combative way, not like I'm bringing the principal, but can we say, hey, I feel like we're in different perspectives, maybe this person, and hopefully somebody who's neutral at the same time, whether it's like a child study team member. Or an admin, like somebody who has a vested interest in also helping this child succeed.
And that is also something, you can always start any meeting informal to formal with saying, I know that we both want this kid to succeed. Just establishing that small kind of common sense, but commonality that we have, I don't think can be understated. Like same thing with the mirroring and the active listening.
I don't think it can be done too much because just it's a constant reminder. Like you could be having the most difficult conversation. But if you can take a minute and remember that the other person is also so passionate about what they're saying because they want this child to succeed. It just shifts the balance a little bit.
And then one other thing I wanted to mention, especially if you do have a third party with you, and I think it never hurts to document again, not in a combative way, but just put things in writing during and after. Again, something I've learned along the way that I don't think I was as good at when I 1st started was
summarizing like what we discussed because sometimes the meeting started out a little contentious and then it got pretty smooth. And I feel like we ended in a good place. And then a week later, I'm like, so I thought we agreed we were doing this. And the person's no, I didn't think that at all. So just like a really.
Audra Jensen: Yeah, that's a really good thing to do with an email. Yes. And just, and it doesn't have to be,this is a meeting or, just, hey, I was just thinking about, I was so grateful for the meeting we just had, this is what we talked about. I'm going to work on this. Thank you so much for the ideas that we came up with,
Caitlin Beltran: I'm going to get into a positive and I think that's also great. If you do have a 3rd person. Sharing that with them, not just for logistics, but also you can highlight hey, Mrs. So and so, and I met this morning and we brainstorm so well, we've thought of a lot of supports together and it just lets everyone know, let your guard down here. We are all on the same page and I'm even shouting you out, maybe to potentially a higher up that, you did, we did, an awesome job putting our heads together for more strategies for this day.
Audra Jensen: And I love that you said, just always bringing it back to the student. Just always bring it back to the student. We have the student in mind. It's all about the student. that's the main goal. That's why we're here. That's our why. That's always where we are.
Caitlin Beltran: Yeah, and I think we've talked about this in so many episodes, just for me, that self reflection is key. So I feel like a takeaway out of this, just to summarize again, the three tips that we shared were bringing in open dialogue into the conversation. If you think it's at all going to be difficult, start talking less, start listening more and have that shared back and forth.
Two, staying focused, not becoming overly emotional, or I think that's the wrong way of saying it. You can be emotional, but not relying on, that negative body language or raised voice, really staying calm and neutral in your message, and then considering that atmosphere. And I think that, The bonus or the takeaway would be that self reflection.
If I'm saying that this conversation was so unproductive and it was so contentious, really taking a hard look at myself and being like, did I contribute to that atmosphere in any way, shape or form? And I think I mentioned I was reading, it's a book about, and it's called 25 essential skills and strategies for the behavior analyst or something like that.
I'll link it as well. It's more about or to me, like organizational behavior management. So like structures for that kind of thing, but one of the chapters and I was cracking up because it's okay. Have you considered the atmosphere? Have you considered active listening? And, are there any difficult people involved? And then the next heading was like, are you the difficult person?
Audra Jensen: Don't they say that about families? Everybody has a crazy person in your family. If you don't know who it is, it's you.
Caitlin Beltran: Yeah. Yeah. and hopefully it gets less every year, but I can certainly think of times, especially back toward the beginning of when I started yep, that was me. I was a difficult one. At least all we can do is learn from it.
Audra Jensen: Yes. Oh, I love that. I just, everybody, nobody likes a difficult conversation. Nobody. but we all have to have them, whether it's in your personal life, we all have to have them in our personal lives. We have to have them in our professional life.
And I think it's also important, and I think we've been a lot better at it as we've gone on teaching our students to have difficult conversations from early on. We've gone into teaching students how to have those in small groups into, what it, There's a term for it now, and it's escaping me because I'm old.
Caitlin Beltran: Social skills?
Audra Jensen: No, not social skills. Collaborative problem solving?
Caitlin Beltran: Oh, okay, there you go.
Audra Jensen: Know what I'm talking about? Yeah. There's a term, something like that. But yeah, in, in coming back, after a situation and problem solving it together. I think we need to teach those skills as young as possible, having conversations that are difficult and working through it and being okay with it.
And it's okay to have conflict. Conflict resolution. Thank you.
Caitlin Beltran: There you go. We got to it in the end.
Audra Jensen: Yes, I did.
Caitlin Beltran: Yeah, I think like you said, it's a part of life. As children, as adults, as coworkers, as spouses, as friendships, there's never a perfect relationship. And I think, I guess the global takeaway would be like, there's nothing ever to be gained by not having the conversation or even delaying the conversation.
Amen. And I think in the beginning of my career, I was like, oh, what are they going to think? This is going to go terribly. And you don't want to do it, right? Nobody's like, yeah, I get to have the most difficult conversation today. but the more you just realize, it is a fact of life and I have to get through it.
Audra Jensen: And I'm going to channel these tips to remain grounded in my message. Have that clarity and have that active listening and mutual respect. It might not be the best part of your day, but it's really probably not going to be as terrible as you thought it would be if you go about in the right way. And get it over with. Yes. Don't put it off. Just get it done.
Caitlin Beltran: And there's such a difference in saying swinging by in a classroom observation, oh, I don't know if that's a good idea, but let's catch up later. Probably not the best way to do it. It's one thing if the person's asking for feedback, but really carving out time, if it's going to be a difficult situation, carving out that time to have it the right way to me is like 90 percent of the battle.
Audra Jensen: That was great.
Caitlin Beltran: I feel like this episode was short and sweet and I love it. I'm going to link in the show notes just like a few free visuals of just, short and sweet ways to shift your conversation from negative to positive. As always, remember to like, subscribe, follow us on Apple Podcasts, and definitely join the Facebook group at Misfit Behaviorist Podcasts, and let us know if you have a topic that you want us to talk about.
Audra Jensen: Thank you, and we will see you again next week.
Caitlin Beltran: See you next week.
Audra Jensen: Bye. Bye.
Thanks for listening to the Misfit Behaviorist. And be sure to tune in next week for more tips and tricks. Don't forget to subscribe so you don't miss an episode.