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Black and (to a somewhat lesser degree) Hispanic students face significantly higher rates of punitive, exclusionary methods of discipline as compared to White students. In response, many schools have embraced cultural competence or cultural humility training, helping their educators and administrators to embrace more informed views about Black and Brown students. These programs can heighten awareness of how systemic racism may contribute to the disproportionality and have actuated efforts to address it, including re-examination of disciplinary practices in general. Indeed, while Black and Brown students are clearly over-represented in statistics regarding the use of punitive and exclusionary discipline, such discipline is still most frequently applied to White students, for whom it is also counterproductive and unnecessary. This article examines alternatives to punitive, exclusionary disciplinary practices.

Education innovation is important to ensure that we are providing the best support and preparation for our children for all aspects of their lives. Therefore, it is important to examine and improve our practices in all aspects of education, including how we respond to challenging student behaviors.

What we're thinking about behaviorally challenging students and what we're doing to them requires a fresh look. When schools believe that parental discipline explains a child's misbehavior, educators are less likely to consider different explanations for the misbehavior and the full range of interventions that could be implemented at school. And when psychiatric diagnoses get involved in school behavior issues, educators and others tend to pathologize kids, implying that the "problem" resides within the child and that it's the child who needs fixing. Behaviorally challenging students are lacking crucial developmental skills. When school discipline programs focus on teaching lagging skills and solving problems collaboratively, they rely a lot less on incentive-based interventions and punitive procedures such as detention, suspension, and expulsion.

This study examined differential treatment effects for children with varying degrees of reactive and proactive aggression who received one of two types of psychosocial treatments that were specifically designed to address the unique characteristics associated with these two subtypes of aggression. Forty-seven affectively dysregulated children with oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) participated in the study and were randomly but proportionately assigned to Collaborative Problem Solving (n = 28) or Parent Training (n = 19) treatment conditions. Results indicate a main effect for type of treatment, modest support for the moderating role of proactive aggression, and no support for reactive aggression as a moderator of treatment outcome. Implications for assessment and treatment of aggression are discussed. (Contains 1 table.)

Oppositional-defiant disorder (ODD) refers to a recurrent pattern of negativistic, defiant, disobedient, and hostile behavior toward authority figures. Research has shown that children with ODD and comorbid mood disorders may be at particular risk for long-term adverse outcomes, including conduct disorder. In this study, the authors examined the effectiveness of a cognitive-behavioral model of intervention--called collaborative problem solving (CPS)--in comparison with parent training (PT) in 47 affectively dysregulated children with ODD. Results indicate that CPS produced significant improvements across multiple domains of functioning at posttreatment and at 4-month follow-up. These improvements were in all instances equivalent, and in many instances superior, to the improvements produced by PT. Implications of these findings for further research on and treatment selection in children with ODD are discussed.

Using the Index of Teaching Stress, an instrument assessing a teacher's subjective level of stress and frustration in response to teaching a particular student, a study found elementary school teachers (n=64) rated students with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder as significantly more stressful to teach than their typical classmates. (Contains references.) (Author/CR)

Suggests that "teaching stress" be conceptualized as one measure of student-teacher compatibility. Introduces the Index of Teaching Stress (ITS) which focuses on the stress experienced by a teacher interacting with a specific student rather than on more global aspects of teacher stress. Tests of the ITS indicate good factor validity. (RJM)

Information about collaborative problem solving, which can help improve school discipline programs, is provided. This approach can help educators see challenging behavior through more compassionate, accurate, and productive lenses. It is believed that challenging behavior is a form of developmental delay.

This study examined the degree to which the parent–child relationship uniquely predicted clinical outcomes in externalizing problems and adaptive skills in children meeting diagnostic criteria for oppositional defiant disorder and whether facets of this relationship moderated the effects of two unique psychosocial treatments. We recruited 134 children and their parents (38.06% female; M age = 9.52 years, range = 7–14; 83.58% White). Families were randomly assigned to 1 of 2 treatments: Parent Management Training (PMT) and Collaborative and Proactive Solutions (CPS). We formed principal components from pretreatment reports and behaviors of the parent–child relationship to predict within- and between-family outcomes in children's externalizing problems and adaptive skills. Four principal components were supported (parental warmth, parental monitoring, family hostility, and family permissiveness). Parental monitoring predicted fewer externalizing problems, whereas family permissiveness predicted more externalizing problems. Parental warmth predicted greatest improvements in children's adaptive skills among families receiving PMT. Family hostility predicted more externalizing problems and poorer adaptive skills for children; however, families receiving CPS were buffered from the negative effect of family hostility on adaptive skills. The parent–child relationship can uniquely inform posttreatment outcomes following treatment for oppositional defiant disorder. Certain treatment approaches may better fit unique relationships that emphasize warmth and/or hostility, allowing clinicians to anticipate and tailor treatments to families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent theories conceptualize oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) as a two-dimensional construct with angry/irritable (i.e., affective) and argumentative/defiant (i.e., behavioral) components. This view has been supported by studies of nonreferred youth but not yet examined in clinic-referred youth. In a reanalysis of data regarding children who received one of two psychosocial ODD treatments, we examined multiple conceptualizations of ODD, whether children showed improvements across these ODD dimensions, and whether main and joint effects of ODD dimension improvement predicted clinical outcome. One hundred thirty-four clinic-referred youth (ages 7-14 years, 38% female, 84% White) who met Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th ed.) criteria for ODD received 1 of 2 psychosocial treatments. At pretreatment, 1-week follow-up, and 6-month follow-up, mothers reported child aggression and conduct problems, clinicians reported global clinical impairment and clinical improvement, and ODD symptom counts were collected from a semistructured diagnostic interview with mothers. Baseline ODD symptom were used to test previously supported multidimensional models. One- and two-factor conceptualizations were supported; however, the two-factor solution was preferred. With this solution, each dimension significantly and similarly improved across treatment conditions. Improvements across affective and behavioral ODD factors also had significant effects on clinician- and mother-reported clinical outcomes. The current findings provide empirical support for the ongoing study of multidimensional ODD conceptualizations in clinic-referred youth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]