Adult attention

Tangible rewards/personal gratification

Power/control

Peer affiliation

Justice/revenge

Teacher:

Instructional strategies to promote desired alternative behavior

And/or

Instructional strategies to reduce the target behavior

[Note:  when alternate behavior is incompatible with target behavior, the same strategy may work both to promote & to reduce]

-          Reinforce when borrowed item is returned

-          Reinforce students in classroom who demonstrate appropriate behavior with other’s belongings

-          Identify the items that have been stolen and provide same or similar  as reinforcers for desirable behavior

-          Maintain visibility to and from student

-          Teach about personal rights; respect for property, perspective taking (cost of theft, etc.)

-          Have clear expectations & teach about giving, lending, returning, etc.

-          Prompt students at the end of a period to return materials, etc.

-          Social stories or comic book conversations

-          Teach diversity/empathy (including socio-economic issues)

-          Help students see what they have vs. allowing them to focus on what they don’t have

-          Connect students with jobs they can do to earn extra money or items

-          Provide materials needed to complete the task

-          Allow student to borrow items with collateral or “rent”

-          Discourage student from bringing items to school that might be targets for theft

-           

-          Label items

-          Restitution

-          Relationship building

-          Give student a role as class security guard

-          Keep items in a supervised area

-          Teach how to monitor own belongings

-          Allow student to be banker

-          Use student as delivery person in the building

-          Teach student about personal space, proximity,

-          Teach sharing

-          Relationship building

-          Peer modeling

-          Involve student as a peer mediator

-          Allow student to be the checkout person (banker)

-          Group contingency for sharing, cooperation

-          Teach about space, proximity

-          Restitution

-          Contracting

-          Peer mediation; peer “court”

-          Student develops own consequences

-          Student tells how he/she feels and why; explains reason for revenge

-          Teacher or counselor works with the student to acknowledge feelings;  find “better” options

Student:

Instructional consequences for alternative appropriate behavior

And/or

Instructional consequences for inappropriate target behavior

-          Praise for complying, taking care

-          Student earns the item (pencil, etc.)

-          Restorative justice (especially with the person from whom item was stolen)

-          Have student identify appropriate ways to get adult attention

-          Token economy to “earn” the desired item(s)

-          Restorative justice

-          Have student identify appropriate ways to get the item

-          Teach perspective taking & empathy; real cost of theft, vandalism, etc.

-          Restorative justice

-          Have student identify appropriate ways to get power or control

-          Restorative justice

-          Teach perspective taking & empathy

-          Have student identify appropriate ways to get peer attention, have a sense of belonging

-          Restorative justice

-          Teach perspective taking & empathy

-          Have student identify appropriate ways to deal with revenge issues

Avoid the use of

-         Public reprimand for taking items

-         Taking away material things as a consequence

-         Power struggles

-         Minimal consequences or ignoring the behavior

-         Allowing peers to take matters into their own hands (retaliation)

-         Power struggles

-         Belittling feelings of the student

Special considerations

Are there medical issues, mental health diagnoses?  Is there a change in the family’s financial situation – has a parent recently lost their job or are there big expenses that may impact whether they can afford needed materials and/or “extras”?