In this episode of Stress-Free IEP®, Frances Shefter speaks with Dr. Teri Bullis, Behavior Therapist at Behavior Solutions for Children & Families, LLC.
Dr. Teri Bullis offers concrete solutions and real help to parents of children and teens with challenging behaviors, whether that is related to a particular diagnosis like ADHD, anxiety, or autism, or to normal developmental challenges related to bed-time, potty-training, tantrums, physical aggression, or regulating screen time.
Dr. Bullis deeply believes that parenting is the toughest job anyone will ever have — “Children don’t come with a “how to” manual.” However, she works diligently to provide those “how to” directions, tailored for your unique child and family situation.
Tune into to the episode to hear about:
Dr. Bullis’ background beginning in school psychology
What makes behavior therapy more effective than play therapy or cognitive-behavior therapy
The importance of understanding and encouraging kids being self-reflective
“Using Your Words” — Encouraging and capitalizing children’s instincts to be self-motivated with their pro-social skills
The importance and impact of rewards and consequences in response to behavior
Frances Shefter is an Education Attorney and Advocate who is committed to helping her clients have a Stress-Free IEP® experience. In each podcast, Frances interviews inspiring people to share information, educate you, empower you and help you get the knowledge you need.
VOICEOVER ( 00:00:00): Welcome to Stress-Free IEP®. You do not need to do it all alone with your host Frances Shefter, Principal of Shefter Law, she streams a show live on Facebook on Tuesdays at noon Eastern, get more details and catch prior episodes at www.ShefterLaw.com. The Stress-Free IEP® video podcast is also posted on YouTube and LinkedIn and you can listen to episodes through Apple podcasts, Spotify, Google podcasts, Stitcher and more. Now, here’s the host of Stress-Free IEP® Frances Shefter.
FRANCES ( 00:00:38): Hello everyone. Welcome to the show. Today’s guest is Teri Brooks with Behavior Solutions for Children and families and she’s gonna talk to us about the different types of therapy with ADHD. So Teri, please introduce yourself. Tell us a little bit about yourself to the listeners.
DR. BULLIS ( 00:00:57): Yeah. Sure. Hello everybody. So my name is Teri Bullis. Doctor Teri Bullis. I started out as a school psychologist for a bunch of years and then decided I needed to open my own private practice because the practitioners in my community, which was in Vermont at the time, really didn’t seem to know much about the behavior of Children and the most effective ways to support behavior change in Children and I thought I knew some things about that. So I decided to go into private practice and, and help families work through those behavioral challenges. I discovered some things right away. I’m gonna save those for, you know, the, the later conversation, but the long and the short of it is is that I’ve really refined my approach to be like, incredibly effective and efficient. And I’m pretty excited to share that with you guys today.
FRANCES ( 00:01:49): That’s awesome. So, and I know you keep saying behavior therapy is that like, so I know there’s a lot and I don’t, I don’t pretend to know all of the difference. Like pay play therapy, behavior, cognitive, like what is behavior therapy and why behavior therapy?
DR. BULLIS ( 00:02:05): Right? So behavior therapy means that your therapy is based on the principles that govern behavior. And the glorious thing about that is that you can’t argue with those principles like we know why people behave the way that they do. You do things that you get reinforced for and you don’t do things that you get, you know, punished for and that governs every single thing that we do. You know, the people would say, wow, what if you have like trauma in your history? Well, yes, but that trauma was a punishment for some, you know, behavior. So it still like everything we do is informed by. Do we get reinforced for it or do we get punished for it? So, behavior therapy is all about how we’re gonna use those sort of principles to help kids change behavior for the better. And from my perspective, it’s just, so much more logical than expecting that if we have a child, you know, meet with a play therapist for 45 minutes or an hour a week that through that play, they’re gonna make some realizations about how maybe they should change their behavior and then in between sessions, they’re actually gonna make decisions to change their behavior. Like that just doesn’t make any sense to me. , because most kids, number one, they are not self reflective. Well, there’s a reason for that because their brains don’t, right. Their brains have not developed enough to be self reflective. , and then most of the kids I work with, they don’t have impulse control that don’t have delayed gratification. They don’t have the ability to like, see what they’re doing and then stop themselves in the moment and say, oh, this is not going to be good for my relationship with my friend, right? And then say I should ask my friend nicely if I can have that toy instead of just grabbing it. You know, they just, that cognitive process is not part of what their brains are capable of doing. And so they reach and they grab the toy and then they get in trouble and then the preschool teacher says your child doesn’t know how to share your child doesn’t know how to ask nicely and use their words. Well, that’s because grabbing things is actually far more efficient and it works really well when you want to get something. So we have to do something different, which means we have to make it so that Children are motivated to do the things that we want them to do, use those prosocial skills, those you using your words, you know, being nice and polite and respectful and following directions and, you know, managing your feelings and calming yourself down, like all of those things that requires work. So we sometimes have to give Children the motivation to do that. , and then when they engage in negative behaviors instead, we need to effectively discipline that. So we have to make the, the thing we don’t wanna see, we wanna make that not worth it and the thing we do want to see, we want to make that very rewarding and it’s really just about that balance. There are a lot of skills that go into that though.
FRANCES ( 00:05:10): Oh, yeah, I’m, I’m like, thinking through, I’m like, oh, yeah, lots of different things. And I, and with an, a DH child, you know, they’re all different. Everybody’s like, oh, you have ADHD you know what I mean? But it’s like, it’s not like you have strep throat, you know what I mean? Like, it’s not like everybody has the same thing. This is how you fix it. It’s such a different and everybody needs different things. So what makes the behavior, therapy like more effective?
DR. BULLIS ( 00:05:37): Well, because we’re directly influencing the behavior, we’re giving kids the motivation to do the thing that we want them to do, right in talk therapy, even cognitive behavior therapy, which, which teaches skills, play therapy, teaches skills in an indirect way. Cognitive behavior therapy teaches skills in a more direct way. But neither of those modalities accounts for the fact that in the moment the child may not be able to reflect on their behavior, stop themselves from doing what they’re doing, make a better choice because they know that in the long run that’s gonna be better, but there’s no direct payoff. So instead of that in behavior therapy, we’re actually building for the generalization and use of skills in between sessions. It’s not really about what we’re doing in the session. We’ll do some explicit skills teaching if we need to. But we’re setting up those plans for putting in place the motivation for kids to use those skills and then the consequences if they don’t use those skills, that’s the bulk of the work and behavior therapy. So it’s all about setting it up so that kids are gonna be motivated to use skills in between sessions. And that’s what makes it very different. That’s what makes it so much more effective and so much more efficient because I can get change in a kid’s negative behavior within a few weeks, sometimes in just one session. , that’s not the usual case, but the average number of times that I see parents is 5 to 8 sessions. And then we’ve solved the challenges. Now, if you’ve got a child with a really significant, diagnosis and really severe behavior challenges, it’s gonna take us longer to sort of pinpoint all, all of the different problem behaviors and really tackle those. because in behavior therapy, we might do some general things at first, like put into place a reward system that really works and consequence is a good discipline system that really works. But then we maybe we need to really hone in and, and wrap around a specific intervention about something like, you know, toilet training or you know, managing your use of screens, shutting it off when I tell you to, for example, and not anything that’s right or following direction is the first time. Well, following directions, the first time is a very, is a fairly general skill that with the general system, we can target that we can also build in specific things like, you know, taking a shower the first time I tell you to without arguing, right? Because most many adolescents, especially adolescent boys, I’m not so interested in taking a shower. What do you do with that? Well, we put into place a reward system, we make it worth their while to take a shower on their own without a reminder or without arguing the first time you tell them to. And so we can build in all of those things into a reward system that helps kids move towards independence, you know, more cooperativeness. So you can have a peaceful, happier household and you can spend your energy for telling your kid they did the right thing instead of getting mad that they didn’t do the right thing.
FRANCES ( 00:08:58): So does that, I mean, what old school is going back to me? Like from when I was a teacher and stuff that rewarding kids for everything is like, is that going to break the independence? Are they gonna start expecting rewards more or how does that
DR. BULLIS ( 00:9:13): work? Yeah, that is such a good question. So I like, I don’t know if I dare say this, but there was a guy named Alfie Cohn. I’m pretty sure that was his name and he wrote this book called Punished By Rewards. Did you happen to read that book once upon a time? Not OK. Well, the whole premise was there have been a couple of research studies, not a lot, but a couple of research studies to suggest that if you reward somebody for something, then they’re gonna be less intrinsically motivated to do that thing. And that research is valid research. It is research we should pay attention to and we do not want to reward Children for everything that they do and we don’t want them to expect a reward for everything they, that they do. We don’t want this to become a lifelong negotiation. Well, maybe not lifelong childhood long negotiation. I’ll do this if you give me that. No, that is not what we’re talking about doing here at all. So what punished by rewards was really saying is that you shouldn’t give rewards at all. That Children will organically and naturally choose to engage in prosocial positive behaviors if you just leave them alone. The problem is is that there are some kids who are like that and then there are lots of kids who aren’t like that. And , the kids that I work with are not like that. The kids that I work with are engaging in , a lot of physical aggression, a lot of defiance, a lot of pushback against limits. , they have big tantrums, they are domineering the house because what they’ve discovered is that they can, and if they engage in those behaviors, they can get things that they want. And , that’s a problem because that’s
FRANCES ( 00:11:12): I was gonna say or avoid things that they don’t want,
DR. BULLIS ( 00:11:15): right? Avoiding things you don’t want to do. That is negative reinforcement. In other words, take away something that I don’t like that makes me happy. That’s negative reinforcement. It reinforces the behavior that they used to get to that place. But, and positive reinforcement obviously is you get something that you like for doing something But Alfie Cohn’s whole premise was is that kids will eventually, you know, learn to do the right thing. My experience is that kids don’t, not all kids do. Some kids need extrinsic motivation first to begin to do the thing, the prosocial thing, the positive thing. And then they can experience all of sort of the natural benefits that come along with those behaviors. And then when they start building that intrinsic motivation because they’ve discovered wonderful things happen when I engage in prosocial positive behaviors, then we can start to wean off, got it. But you can’t get there from here if they’re not motivated to do these things, if they’re not motivated to ask nicely and to self regulate their emotions and face their anxiety. Anxiety is a big one, by the way, kids with anxiety are the most challenging kids to work with because they’re absolutely, you know, stuck in this place in their brain that is not capable of rational thought. So rationally saying, you know, let’s breathe and calm yourself down and it just doesn’t work when kids are in that situation, you know, so we have to use this concept of automaticity. And all of this is, is sort of, I think information that perhaps in the time that that book punished by rewards came out, people just didn’t have this information and they didn’t know how that applied to children’s behavior. But we do know that now. So there’s this concept of automaticity, which is that if you get rewarded for some action, then you’re more likely need to do that action in the future. And if you get punished and I’m using punishment in a behavioral way, not in a parenting way, I avoid the word punishment because it just doesn’t feel good. I like to say discipline. That’s, you know, a more appropriate word, but in a behavioral sense, that’s the term that they use in behavior analysis and behavior theory. So you get punished for, for example, driving down the highway, you know, I don’t know about you Frances, but occasionally I speed
FRANCES ( 00:13:41): just once or twice. Not always.
DR. BULLIS ( 00:13:44): I mean, I might actually have a policy of driving faster than the speed limit on highways, not through towns. I’m very, very good about observing speed limit through towns. But on a highway, I do go faster. But what happens when you’re driving, whether you’re speeding or not? And you see a police car parked on the side of the road, what happens? Your foot goes on the brake, right?
FRANCES ( 00:14:06): Automatic, automatic,
DR. BULLIS ( 00:14:9): you don’t think about it and then you look at the speedometer and then this part, the prefrontal, the cortex of your brain starts working. You’re like, ok, how fast was I going? Am I likely to be picked up? And they’re like, I wasn’t going too fast and that guy is going way faster. So I’m ok. Right. That’s the cognitive part of your brain that’s working. But that doesn’t kick in. At first, at first it’s automatic. I’m gonna put my foot on the brake because I want to avoid getting a speeding ticket. Right. That’s how automaticity works. So, if your child, hits and you immediately, every single time, put them in an appropriate time out and we could talk about time out versus time in because that’s another thing that doesn’t work time in anyway, an appropriate time out. If you do that every single time they’re gonna stop engaging in that hitting behavior because the automaticity will kick in and their brain will be like, oh no, and choose a different way to get what they want or to express their feelings and it happens automatically, it doesn’t happen in the prefrontal cortex. It’s not a matter of thinking, oh, I don’t want to have a time now. We don’t have time for that in real life, right? We just don’t want kids to hit and hitting is impulsive. So the only way to get control over that is to take advantage of this concept of automaticity and have really good immediate discipline come into effect. You just, there’s no way to do that with play therapy or even cognitive behavior therapy because those things are working for different brain pathways that don’t control behavior in the moment, which that’s, you know, that’s why I do what I do,
FRANCES ( 00:15:54): right. Which, you know, I, I, what’s, what’s triggering in my head is like, I remember somebody saying, well, yes, I’m learning all the skills. I know what to do. But in the moment all of that’s gone and it’s kind of like, so you do the, in the moment it’s there because that’s the important stuff. Right.
DR. BULLIS ( 00:16:17): Well, and if you’re talking about, if you’re talking about parents, like what parents do in the moment, parents actually, you know, we don’t get annoyed until a little further down the road. Right. It all starts with the first time you give the direction right now. I’m gonna get a little annoyed. I’m gonna ask again. I’m gonna tell again, I’m gonna tell again, I’m gonna tell again until eventually I, now I’m mad and now I’m gonna yell, yelling doesn’t feel good to anybody. No parent likes to yell at their child or do whatever other things that we might do that we feel bad about after because every single parent does those things, you know, that’s how parenting works. But we don’t have to get there what we’re doing when we’re telling our child to do things multiple, multiple, multiple times is we’re teaching our child to ignore us all of the other times that we told them to do it until we get mad. So now, now we’re engaged in a practice where every time I want my child to do something, I have to get mad because he or she won’t respond until you get to that point. It’s exhausting. Right. Yes, it is. How many kids do you have?
FRANCES ( 00:17:34): Two, a six year old and a nine year old?
DR. BULLIS ( 00:17:36): Oh, my God. They’re young still.
FRANCES ( 00:17:39): Yes, they’re young still. , very, in their ways. It’s very difficult. I’m like, ok, what am I doing? And I see it like, I see it and it’s 100%. Right. It’s, you know, not until that I get five, then I lose my brain and you know, start screaming and yelling that they finally do it. I’m like, why do I have to yell at you to get you to do something?
DR. BULLIS ( 00:17:58): Right? Well, it’s because it often that they don’t need to until you get to that point. So what we need to do is we can use the principles of behavior therapy to like really take a step back as parents and say, ok, now I’m gonna ask twice the first time. I’m gonna ask real nice. I’m actually not gonna ask, I’m gonna tell, we have to be careful about our language. If it’s not optional, we’re not asking, we’re telling. So we’re gonna tell one time nicely. And if I come back, I’m gonna give you some time to respond. If I come back and you’ve done it, I’m gonna say thank you. That was really cooperative, that was really helpful, that was responsible, that was respectful. We want to give behavior specific, specific praise for doing the thing that we wanted to see in and of itself, the research is very clear. The behavior specific praise is the one thing that we can do that is gonna be most effective at getting kids to change their behavior for the better. So, right away, we can just start with that. But you know, they’re not gonna do it the first time we tell them to. Right. So the second, like when we’re there and we see they haven’t done it. Now we’re gonna give them a count to three. So now we’re, we’re launching into 123 magic territory. You don’t need to read the book. I’m just gonna tell you how to do it. It’s very easy. You say, OK, I’m gonna count to three. You have to start doing the thing by the time I get to three. And if you don’t, when I say three, when that comes out of my mouth, then this consequence is gonna happen and you do it calmly because now this is only the second time you’ve had to tell them. So you’re still calm, you’re not mad yet, right? But you’re already gonna implement a consequence if they don’t jump into action by the time you get to three and we’re not gonna say 11, 1000, 1.5, 22 and three quarters, two and seven, eights, we’re not gonna do that. We’re gonna say one and in your head, you’re gonna say 1000, you’re gonna say two you’re gonna say in your head 1000 and then you’re gonna say three. And if the three happens, you’re gonna give the consequence because what you’re teaching your child is you must respond. By the second time I tell you, by the time I get the three, otherwise the consequence that you don’t like is going to happen
FRANCES ( 00:20:12): and you help develop what those consequences and the rewards will be,
DR. BULLIS ( 00:20:16): right? So the glorious thing that I discovered in partly in my training. So when I went into private practice, the first time, my training was, you know, as a clinical psychologist phd level and I had been in schools forever. So like I knew some things. but once I was in private practice and I discovered that, you know, parents kind of expected that they would leave their kids with me for 45 minutes to an hour and then I would fix things that way and then I discovered that absolutely isn’t going to work like almost ever or it’s gonna take forever and ever and ever. Basically, the amount of time it’ll take for that to, to change is maturation for the child’s brain, not really anything I was doing, I guess I, I’m impatient. I just want to see results, you know that, right? Like I just don’t have the patience to wait for that and I don’t wanna waste people’s time and I don’t want to waste their money. So in any case early on, I discovered that the sort of the behavioral work is really what I wanted to do. And I went back and I got trained as a board certified behavior analyst. And I learned a lot. I didn’t think I was gonna learn a lot, but I learned a lot. So you don’t know what you don’t know. Right. And I was able to modify what I was doing in terms of the reward systems that, that I then began to specialize in with parents. So the reward system that I use now I call it the point system and with the parents, we decide what kids are gonna get points for. So that’s how we can build on those really specific things to promote independence, to promote compliance, to promote responsibility. So brush your teeth without needing a reminder or get dressed without needing my help or do your homework without me having to tell you to like all of those things, those things can go on the list and it’s not that you’re getting points for doing your homework because you have to do that anyway, ok? You can get points for brushing your teeth. No, because if I have to argue with you for a half hour to get you brush your teeth and you finally do. I am not rewarding you for that, right? But I might reward you for remembering to do it by yourself or for doing it the first time. I tell you to cooperatively, right? So we can put those things on the list. These are things you get points for and then, and I’m getting to the point you were like, well, what are the consequence? Right? So this is a response cost system, that’s what it’s called, which means that you get points for doing the right thing and we’ll write a list of what all those things are. So kids know how they can get points but I’m taking points for negative behavior. So you talk back or you don’t do what I told you to do or you’re, you know, you say something mean to your brother or sister, which is actually why I created the point system because my kids were constantly like this and I was a school psychologist. Right? Do your kids do long?
FRANCES ( 00:23:12): It’s a love hate relationship. Sometimes they’re like this but they, they want to sleep together every night. So, like when we try to separate them, it’s the worst thing in the world. But when they’re together and they’re like, just fighting. Yeah. So
DR. BULLIS ( 00:23:23): separating them is a really good consequence because they don’t like it. Yeah, we do that. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I was a school psychologist, right? So as some is free and I was looking ahead one summer to being home with my Children, which should make me happy. And I was like, oh my God, what am I gonna do? Like, I can’t, my all my hair was not gray then. But I was convinced that by the end of that summer, my hair would totally be great. I just so I developed this point system and the response cost is you’re mean to your brother or sister. You lose a point, you’re disrespectful to me. You lose a point and kids value these points because they can use them to get things that they want and it doesn’t have to be things, it can be things, but it doesn’t have to be. If you don’t want things for your kid, it could be privileges. Like for example, screen time. So one of the other glorious things about the coin system is you can use it to control screen time. So you give them a certain amount of screen time that they get for free. We can talk more about that if you want to. But , and then like maybe half hour or whatever because parents want to let your Children do things that they really like. Right. You know, and it
FRANCES ( 00:24:38): also gives us a break.
DR. BULLIS ( 00:24:39): Exactly. Right. So you can structure that. So you get your half hour of screen time at the time. That’s most convenient for me. And then anything else that you want, you have to buy with your points. So we make a very valuable those points. We can also do outings like we can go to your favorite playground that is 15 minutes drive away. So it’s a pain in the butt to get to. , so I don’t always want to go there, but you can earn that with your points. You can earn going to Dave and Busters, which I also hate. Well, I don’t hate it. I love it. My husband
FRANCES ( 00:25:13): does.
DR. BULLIS ( 00:25:15): Right. Or the trampoline park or whatever. Or you can get little things from a prize box or you can get a sweet treat or you can do dessert if that’s not something that you do every night that you want your kid to earn, like, all kinds of options for rewards. But the point is we make them valuable so that when they lose those point, which happens immediately, there’s a little, a little, a little, oh, no, I lost a point and there’s your appropriate effective discipline. I don’t have to get mad. I don’t have to, we all these other privileges because by the way, when you take away privileges, I don’t know if you’ve experienced this Frances, but like you take away one thing, then you have to take away another thing. And pretty soon they don’t add anything. I’ve had parents say my kid has nothing in his room. He doesn’t get to play with anything. I’m like, oh, no, that’s not where we want to be. Yeah.
FRANCES ( 00:26:07): No. Well, and it’s, you know, it’s funny because when my, my husband will sometimes be like, that’s it. You’re losing the tablet for the whole weekend and I just look at him like, who are you punishing them or us? Because, you know, I, I can’t have both. And then he’s like, oh, he starts, he’s now thinking about it. And it makes sense. I mean, we had so with my older one when she was in preschool, we had a pom, pom jar that we did. And it was the same basic thing. You earn the pom, poms, you lose the pomp pops. Sometimes you get bonus pom poms just for like doing something that wasn’t expected, wasn’t told you, you know, on your list, just doing something extra and it worked really well. But of course, we didn’t stay consistent with it and so it doesn’t work anymore. , but that I don’t like, I’m thinking like you probably work mostly with the parents and changing the parents’ behavior more than changing the kids’ behavior. Right. Right. Right.
DR. BULLIS ( 00:26:58): Well, because parents are the ones who are in control of the positive reinforcement and the discipline. Right. Right. And you know what, for instance, that pom pom system would work. You just need to refresh it and modify it. Right. I’ll tell you a story. This is really funny when my, so I started this when my kids were fairly young, I think, you know, my daughter and my daughter was six and my, my son was 3.5 years older. So nine, I think that was about the age that I started with them, although it could have been earlier in any case. Fast forward. I didn’t always have an active point system. It wasn’t always in place and by the time my daughter was, hm, I don’t know, like 16, I wasn’t doing it at all when they get older. They’re more concerned with not losing privileges than they are with getting things. So we just, you know, we sort of shift the system around to be appropriate for their developmental level. But so she’s 16. My son was, you know, in high school and, and graduating and maybe going, I don’t know, he was like, going to college. So I didn’t have to worry about him. My daughter was always the one when she was two, she was in her crib taking a nap and my husband, her dad went in to get her, he was just playing around. He’s like, where is Zoey? I can’t find Zoe and she stood up in her crib and she said I’m in my crib taking a nap. Stupid. Oh my God. Two. Like, how
FRANCES ( 00:28:29): do you not laugh? , and you know what? That’s something II, I say all the time as a parent, the hardest thing in parenting is to not laugh when your child does something hysterical but totally inappropriate. Oh,
DR. BULLIS ( 00:28:42): when they’re little, when they’re little. Right. That’s hard. When they get older. You’re like, oh my God, I’m gonna die. Like this is so embarrassing. Right. The thing is, is that, I don’t even know where she got that word. I was so careful about media exposure and we didn’t use words like they shut up when my son was, I don’t know, 14 or something. I thought he’s a very straight laced guy. Very rule abiding and he did say something or whatever. And I’m like, oh, shut up. And he was like, mortally offended mom, you just swore at me. I can’t believe you just swore at me. I’m like, shut up. But I, I did that. It’s my own fault. But anyway, back to the story. So my daughter’s 16 and she is a typical, really difficult 16 year old girl and she was being so nasty to me like all the time and I’d had it and I said that’s it. We’re doing the point system again. And I’m like, ok, what can I use for points? So I found these 10 butterscotch candies and I found a dish and I’m like, I put them in the dish. I said these are your base points. Now, base points buys you privileges. If you have your 10 base points, you get your privileges. If you dip below your 10 base points, you’ll lose your privileges. In order to get your privileges back, you have to earn back the points back up to your 10 base. So this was not a, you’re gonna get rewards for, you know, spending points for anything. This was not a reward system at all. It was just a base level privilege system. You dip below and you lose the right for me to drive you places, you lose the right to drive the car yourself, you lose your phone, you’re grounded, right? And she’s like, I can’t believe you’re treating me like a baby. That system never worked, blah, blah, blah. They like to say these things to try to convince you not to do them right? But I tell you, her behavior immediately improved. So you don’t have to use it all the time. This is when you discover that you need it. When you’re like, oh, I can’t believe this child is driving me crazy. Hm. Ok. Well, now let’s put it back into place this, pull it out of the closet and refresh it.
FRANCES ( 00:30:58): I think it’s going to happen. I should have to figure out how to do it with the two girls because like, you know, but I’ll get the two jars and I think it’s going to happen because then with them, I see my girls competing of who can kill the jar faster.
DR. BULLIS ( 00:31:12): It’s not a bad thing. That’s right. Yeah. If you want any, I can send you my point system handout that I use.
FRANCES ( 00:31:22): Yeah, thank you. Don’t do that.
DR. BULLIS ( 00:31:25): I don’t normally like advise that I would send that to parents and say here’s a handout. Now you can do it because as you said earlier, every child is an individual and every family is an individual unit. And it’s, it, it’s not just as easy as me saying, here are the tools now, you can do it, but, you know, give me two or three sessions with a set of parents and we can create it in that amount of time and then you will see positive change within a week or two of implementing that. And the discipline piece happens even faster. Like I teach people how to do an appropriate time out and appropriate. We have something set up for, you know, more lower level problem behaviors and you can see change within days. It’s really, and I
FRANCES ( 00:32:16): know that from my teaching days and, and that’s why I say, like, I know what to do. It’s always, you know, I intellectually know what to do. I have the degrees I’ve done it, but it’s the consistency and, but at home I don’t feel like doing it anymore.
DR. BULLIS ( 00:32:30): I know. Right. Right. Right. That’s why having a therapist person who, like, you’re paying money. So, and you have an appointment with me. And so I think that’s kind of a pivotal factor that keeps parents accountable to actually doing this thing and implementing it. I do usually have parents come back and they’re like, we didn’t do our homework. I said that’s ok. I’ll do it with you. We’ll do it all together and then, and then they’re like, well, we’re not really ready to implement yet. I’m like, that’s ok. Implement it when you’re ready to implement. But let’s have a follow up and make sure it’s working the way that it does because sometimes it needs to be tweaked a little bit, here or there and sometimes people get a wrong, but that’s why it can be really helpful to have someone to support you and guide you through the process.
FRANCES ( 00:33:20): Right. And you know, the first thing that’s coming to my head now is that the, it’s functional behavior assessment, behavior intervention plans that they do in school that I don’t think I’ve ever seen one done. Right. Which is scary for the 11 years. I’ve been as an education attorney and nine years in the, in the school system because it’s not, they don’t do a specific plan. They’ll be like, oh, he’s eloping. We need to teach him to not elope. Well, we’ll give him this if he doesn’t, you know, like, but it’s not a, a very specific, like when he ops, this is what happens when he doesn’t elope. That’s what happens, you know what I mean? Like, just not. and so like it’s not, how is it a behavior plan? It’s not specific, like
DR. BULLIS ( 00:34:03): you have to work. Yeah. So there are a number of challenges that I’ve seen with people who try to do FBAS and behavior support plans in, in schools. One of the challenges is that in behavior analysis, when you become trained as a board certified behavior analyst. one of the, the things that they really emphasize is that we want to focus on reinforcement to get kids to do things that we want them to do and not on punishment, which again is a behavioral term, right? Schools don’t really want to talk about punishment because then, you know, that’s a bad, that’s a naughty word. But so bear with me when I say that it’s just a technical term. And so the problem with many behavior support plans that BC bas are creating for kids is that they do not include a disciplined component. Well, that’s a problem because rewards for doing the right thing is only gonna go so far if a child is faced with a situation of, you know, doing what they’ve always done before that gets them what they want and it doesn’t really have any consequences that they don’t care mind about. Why wouldn’t they do the same old thing? Why are they gonna choose a new behavior that’s harder to do that? I’ve never, you know, really practiced in real life before. And I, you know, maybe I’ll get a reward for that, but it’s not in my wheelhouse. We can only get it in the wheelhouse by making this the thing. I’ve always done much less worth it. There’s got to be a disciplinary consequence that I don’t like. And here’s the other problem with behavior plans, behavior support plans, the rewards are often not big enough or they’re not frequent enough or they’re not immediate enough. So we have to make sure that we’re making it worth it to put the effort into engaging in a replacement behavior. And it’s gotta be more worth it to do that than it is to do the same old thing that I used to do. So, it’s, philosophically, it, it’s a problem but then another part of the problem is many people are in that role, are very young and they don’t have Children, they don’t understand that discipline is absolutely essential. Like, you know, a consequence for the bad stuff is absolutely essential. And they, they, you’re absolutely right. Like the specificity of this is what you do when this happens. When I do plans like that, I usually do a chart. It says if the kid does this, then this is what staff responds with. Right? And if it should be. Yeah, I know. Right. And replacement behaviors. If the child engages in a replacement behavior, then you immediately give them a bonus point or, you know, and behavior specific praise. Like here’s what, here’s how it all works so that we are immediately giving Children the motivation to do the right thing and discouragement against doing the negative thing,
FRANCES ( 00:37:16): which makes sense. And I think a lot of that is because teachers aren’t trained BC bas they don’t have them in the school system. So there’s teachers that are doing what they think is. Right. But they, they don’t, it’s not like you can pick up and into a behavior intervention plan without training. Yeah. You know, and that’s, that’s the problem. I, I don’t even see functional behavior assessments or ABC data collected. Right. You know, that. It’s right. Right. It’s frustrating,
DR. BULLIS ( 00:37:41): is it? Well, we don’t need to go down the road of teacher training. Right. I’m like, why don’t teachers get trained in this stuff? Which, you know, some teachers are really and all teachers, in my experience, all teachers went into this field because they love kids and they want to teach and they want to, to help kids, you know, learn, people do not go into teaching because they wanna make money. Exactly. Right. So, getting everybody on the same page. I, I, when you, when we can recognize that we really all want what’s best for this child is something that I know that you were pretty hard to do in your role. , and sometimes can be a real challenge.
FRANCES ( 00:38:28): Yeah. No, when I say all the time, you know, like that, I don’t blame the teachers. The teachers aren’t trained. They have, you know, 28 kids, 30 kids in the classroom, six of them have IEPs that are totally different than each other. Like, it’s not realistic to expect the teacher to do all this stuff. I collect the data but legally they’re supposed to. So we went a lot of cases because the teacher didn’t collect the data. And do I feel guilty somewhat sometimes? But it’s all about the child, the child wasn’t getting the services and the child’s behavior changed or educationally fell behind whatever it is, then there has to be some
DR. BULLIS ( 00:39:06): accountability. Right. So there’s the other critical thing about behavior support plans, right? Is that I see a lot of plans that are really unrealistic, like there’s no way that teachers can implement these plans. Not only are they not as specific as they need to be, but they don’t take into account the limited resources that are available in a classroom setting. So like when I’m working with schools, which I also do a little bit of, I do some consulting with schools to develop behavior support plans. I’m working with the teachers to create the plan with them. Most BC bas they’ll go in, they’ll do a bunch of observation, they’ll talk to people, then they will go home or to their office, they’ll write this very, you know, detailed lengthy behavior support plan that is completely unrealistic and comes out of their head. And they’ll say here, this is what you should do. I absolutely do not work with that way. I will the teachers tell me what they can do. And if I have an idea, I’ll say here’s my idea. Tell me if that makes sense for you, would that work for you philosophically? Does that fit with your approach. Is this feasible? Given your resources in your classroom? Do you think you can do this? Can you get excited about this idea? That’s my job. I feel like is to get the teacher invested and excited about trying this approach to really help this kid be more successful in the classroom rather than because of legal reasons or whatever, somebody creating a plan that gets delivered and then people really have a hard time implementing that because they’re complicated. I’ll
FRANCES ( 00:40:48): tell you they’re not, they read it and like, yeah, ok. And it goes, it goes in a drawer and they don’t, they never try to implement it. They’ll, because you can’t like again, like you
DR. BULLIS ( 00:40:57): can’t, they don’t even know where to start.
FRANCES ( 00:40:59): Right? And with you going in with the teacher and working with the teacher to help do it, it’s like we have that consistency that we need and tweaking it because some of us are better at one thing than the other thing. So either will work for the child. Let’s see what the teacher needs, make it work.
DR. BULLIS ( 00:41:16): Yes, I love it. And what are the other resources within the school that we can pull in if we need to, to help support that, that child and that teacher and implementation of that plan. And this, you know, I am not an advocate of kids having one on one or even two on one. Support people to implement a behavior support plan. I really don’t think that that’s necessary most of the time, but there might be a class or a time of day recess, lunch, physed, the specials tend to be challenging for lots of kids. So maybe if we can just take, you know, a pair of, from another classroom who’s available during that time to like, help support this child during the specific times that we have found her challenging. Maybe we just do that or maybe we talk with the parents and the teacher about is it really conducive for this child who hates music class and acts up in music class and can’t handle the sensory overload of new music class. Maybe we have them do an alternative activity during music class. Like those are the kinds of conversations that I’m having with teams about how to help kids be more successful and to enjoy school more.
FRANCES ( 00:42:32): Yeah, I love that because it’s like, I know we, we’ve tried before of getting kids out of certain classes because the behaviors in the school is always like, well, legally we have to do da da da da and, you know, like I’ve said in IEP meetings many a time, like, yes, I’m the attorney. Yes. Legally we have to. But if we have a room full of professionals that all agree on the same thing, it’s OK. It’s about the child, you know, like legally, OK, whatever. You know, like I know the law, your attorneys know the law too. But what’s it? You know, the laws are written, the way the laws are written. It’s not necessarily for this individual child. So.
DR. BULLIS ( 00:43:12): Exactly. And if we’re all in the same room and we’re all agreeing that this is what’s best for the child, well, then that’s what we should do. Right. And nobody’s gonna sue anybody about that because we were all in agreement doing what is right for the child.
FRANCES ( 00:43:28): Right. And it’s all
DR. BULLIS ( 00:43:29): exactly. And if parents change their mind about that, then they can, and then the school has to say, ok, we’ll put them back in music class because you want the child to be in music class. Ok. And, and then we work with that, but we have to be willing to work as teams and be creative and, you know, think outside the box sometimes I think that that is a real challenge for school folks, especially where you are, like, especially like Northern Virginia. It, it’s, I just find
FRANCES ( 00:43:59): I’m at Moco in Montgomery County.
DR. BULLIS ( 00:44:01): Ok. All right. So, I don’t, I don’t have a lot of experience in Montgomery. Most of my experience is more in, you know, Falls Church and in Arlington and in Fairfax. And there’s a rigidity that is really challenging because schools, school people are afraid of being sued. And I, I find that, that fear kind of makes them more rigid instead of being able to work collaboratively with parents. And that’s where someone who has some experience in the school systems like yourself can help bring people together and really solve these problems without having to go down that long road if I’m suing you
FRANCES ( 00:44:46): right now. And that’s, I mean, I, I always try to say that, that, that I come in nice at first. Like let’s work collaboratively. Yeah. But once you cross that line, I’m not gonna play nice anymore. Like this is about the kid and it’s always about the child and always what’s best for the child and we are going to make that happen. You know, I would say that I was in Montgomery County, but I do do Virginia and DC and other, all the other states also. But it, it’s the same though, a lot of times what I’ve seen and the reason I left teaching is that the higher ups say how you have to do something. Your principal says, how you have to do something that’s your boss. You can’t go against what your boss said, no matter how much the child needs it. And so teachers are put in this position of, I want to do what’s right for the child, but I don’t want to lose my job. So what do I do? And that, that’s when I’ve had teachers, you know, after the meeting come and say thank you so much because they knew it was needed.
DR. BULLIS ( 00:45:42): Right. Right. Right. I’ve had teachers say that to me too. Like inside private conversations say, I can’t say that this is what we should do, but this is what we should do, right? And then I get to come in and say, ok, this is what we need to do. And the principal, you know, because I, and you, because we’re outside people saying this is what needs to be done. They’re much more amenable to it. Definitely. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Well, we’re on the same team. All of us are we want what’s best for kids, you
FRANCES ( 00:46:14): know? Exactly. Like I, you know, yes, I’m a lawyer but I don’t like litigating it, doesn’t it? Nobody wins in litigation. You know, we’re all spending money and doing, you know, litigation for two years. Like, seriously, let’s look at this child, what does the child need to be successful? And that’s, you know, like, let’s find a way to make it work and most parents want to make it work in the public school system. They don’t necessarily want their kids in a non-public placement, they want to make it work, you know, like work together. You know, I always say like, I wish I didn’t have a job because that would mean the school systems and the parents are working together and doing great, you know. But
DR. BULLIS ( 00:46:50): like, I wish I didn’t have a job because that would mean that all Children are well behaved. Right. That’s not realistic. And honestly I love poorly behaved. Children, they’re my favorite. They have character, they have lit and perseverance and they know what they want and we just need to channel that so that they can use more poor social ways of getting what they want.
FRANCES ( 00:47:16): And I love that, you say channel that because it’s so often it’s old school thinking squashing it that they shouldn’t be like that. And no, we want to keep that part of that. And, you know, one of the other things I used to say is that, the characteristics I want my child to have in her twenties doesn’t really work 567, you know, adolescence years, you know. But it’s true. Like, I don’t want to break that from her, but she’s gonna do what she’s gotta do.
DR. BULLIS ( 00:47:46): That’s right. What you want to teach her is how to use her powers for good. Yep. Right. Yep. Yeah. Exactly.
FRANCES ( 00:47:56): Exactly. That’s my job. , so I just realized the time and we have been talking forever, which is great and it is fabulous. I know. Right. , but so I just wanted to touch real quick, like I know you, I think you said like, eight sessions is normal, like, as a parent, I’m like, oh, great. Another thing I need to do an hour a week, like, what is the time commitment in real, in reality? What’s the time commitment, financial resources that you need to commit to, to make a
DR. BULLIS ( 00:48:23): difference? Right. So, I mean, with me specifically. , I don’t really ask parents to commit to anything. , I probably should but I don’t because I feel like things happen and priorities shift. So, like I’ve had lots of people who I have an initial conversation with them, they’ll decide that they, maybe they like what I have to say or not, but it’s not the right time for them. It’s just too many other priorities. They’re too stressed out, they’re dealing with other things and then now and then they contact me a year later, two years later, you know, and they say, hey, I know I never followed up, but I’d love to, you know, now I would really like to work with you. And so I’m a firm believer that I respect people’s ability to prioritize and decide what they need to do first. So I’m never going to be angry or annoyed at somebody who says, look, you know, I can’t do this right now or I didn’t do my homework like last week or now is not the right time for me to start the point system because I have XY and Z happening. I’m like, yeah, OK, I get it. I understand that makes sense. So let’s do this when you feel like you can totally put some energy into it. OK, so to answer your question, I have a sliding fee scale. So for people who can’t, who, who don’t make a huge amount of money. You know, I do have a sliding fee scale that goes down to 100 and 25 an hour, but I don’t take insurance. , I am, you know, a licensed phd, the level psychologist. So I’ll provide invoices that are marked paid and it has all those codes that you need if you have insurance that you can submit that to and get reimbursed for. And those reimbursement rates are sometimes as much as my sliding fee scale rate. Sometimes I think even more. Although honestly, I don’t really know because I don’t deal with insurance companies. So there’s that, in terms of the amount of time commitment, I have seen parents, you know, for one session or two sessions depending upon what the issue. That is rare that that is enough to like, make a difference. But if we’ve got a child, for example, who is very young and the issue is tantrums and that’s really the only issue, then I’ll teach time out, that’ll take one session, maybe two sessions, implement it a third session to check in, make sure things are going well, maybe 1/4 session in another month. So that would be three sessions once a week, space apart and then another one a month later just to check in, make sure everything is great and now we’re done. But if you’ve got a 10 year old who has severe ADHD maybe some a lot of anxiety too and there’s, you know, layer upon layer upon layer of challenging behaviors, then we’re gonna spend maybe three sessions developing a point system, maybe a session working on discipline and then a bunch of sessions following up on that. So four to start seeing some positive change and once you get the implementation of the point system in place and then you have discipline in place, we’re gonna make sure that those are working and we’re gonna tweak them. And as soon as we know they’re working well, then we might identify specific behaviors that we still need to address. Just the point system alone will address a lot of stuff, right? But there may be other specific things that we wanted them begin to target and, and we can build an intervention around those things in one session. But if you’ve got 10 really problematic behaviors on top of the general stuff, that’s usually not the case. Usually it’s four or five. You know, then we’ll do a specific training session on that. Now, if you have a kid with anxiety, that’s a longer road because those kids need to learn how to face their anxiety and tolerate being anxious, which is something that kids are not motivated to do because it sucks, you know, anxiety is horrible and why would I want to face it when I can run away from it? I can have a tantrum and successfully avoid it. I can convince my parents to rescue me from the thing that’s making me anxious. So there’s a lot of work that goes into that. So those situations take quite a bit longer and we might meet, we might meet, you know, every other week we might do a half hour with the child every week just to sort of maintain that relationship and that focus on being brave. , it really that I modify depending upon what the family feels is best for their child and, and for them, and that’s usually a mix of, just parents sessions because we can’t set up point systems and discipline with kids there. They sabotage that. That, that’s not a, a productive use of time. But we might add kids for like a half hour to do the skills teaching bit like how do you calm yourself down? How do you face your anxiety? You know, or maybe we’re teaching them an intervention around saying hello and goodbye appropriately or, you know, who should do rules about hugging or, you know, all whatever huge range of anything in the world. But again, that’s gonna be really specific according to kids needs. Does that? Did I answer your question? Did you did? Yes,
FRANCES ( 00:54:01): you did. I mean, it, it, it, it’s the lawyer answer. It depends, you know, because it is and it does. But I like to hear that you listen to the parents and what the parents need and that 100% if now is not the time we get it. Like I tell my clients that also if now is not the time that you don’t have the capacity, that’s fine. We’re here, call us, you know, and then when you’re ready, we’ll get, we’ll get where we need to be. This is so awesome and I know we’re gonna put it in the show notes. But how can people reach you? Like if people want to do a consultation with you or want to learn more, where should they go? What should they do?
DR. BULLIS ( 00:54:38): Yeah. The best way to do that is to email me at Dr Teri B at gmail dot com. So that’s just DrTeriB@gmail.com. I do have a website, Behavior solutions for Children and families which is a great way to find out a little bit more about me and, and how I work, I have a side specialization in OCD, by the way, obsessive compulsive disorder. So I work with kids and adults on OCD, but that is the only thing I do with adults because it’s very behavioral. So it’s very much in my, in my wheelhouse. But email me is that’s the very best way I have contact buttons on my website. So that’s easy to people should not try to call me, say generally I don’t answer my phone if I don’t know who’s calling.
FRANCES ( 00:55:30): Right. That makes sense, but all of that information, it will be below in the show, not show notes. Thank you so much for coming on the show. This was like such a wealth of information. I hope our listeners gained as much as I did from listening and talking to you.
DR. BULLIS ( 00:55:44): Thank you and I will send you my hand out on point system. Thank you. All right, thanks, Frances.
VOICEOVER ( 00:39:23): You’ve been listening to Stress-Free IEP®. With your host Frances Shefter. Remember you do not need to do it all alone. You can reach Frances through ShefterLaw.com where prior episodes are also posted. Thank you for your positive reviews, comments and sharing the show with others through YouTube, LinkedIn, Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher and more.
Stress-Free IEP® with Frances Shefter and Dr. Teri Bullis
In this episode of Stress-Free IEP®, Frances Shefter speaks with Dr. Teri Bullis, Behavior Therapist at Behavior Solutions for Children & Families, LLC.
Dr. Teri Bullis offers concrete solutions and real help to parents of children and teens with challenging behaviors, whether that is related to a particular diagnosis like ADHD, anxiety, or autism, or to normal developmental challenges related to bed-time, potty-training, tantrums, physical aggression, or regulating screen time.
Dr. Bullis deeply believes that parenting is the toughest job anyone will ever have — “Children don’t come with a “how to” manual.” However, she works diligently to provide those “how to” directions, tailored for your unique child and family situation.
Tune into to the episode to hear about:
Learn more about Dr. Teri Bullis:
Stress-Free IEP®:
Frances Shefter is an Education Attorney and Advocate who is committed to helping her clients have a Stress-Free IEP® experience. In each podcast, Frances interviews inspiring people to share information, educate you, empower you and help you get the knowledge you need.
Watch more episodes of Stress-Free IEP®:
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READ THE FULL TRANSCRIPT TO THIS EPISODE:
VOICEOVER ( 00:00:00): Welcome to Stress-Free IEP®. You do not need to do it all alone with your host Frances Shefter, Principal of Shefter Law, she streams a show live on Facebook on Tuesdays at noon Eastern, get more details and catch prior episodes at www.ShefterLaw.com. The Stress-Free IEP® video podcast is also posted on YouTube and LinkedIn and you can listen to episodes through Apple podcasts, Spotify, Google podcasts, Stitcher and more. Now, here’s the host of Stress-Free IEP® Frances Shefter.
FRANCES ( 00:00:38): Hello everyone. Welcome to the show. Today’s guest is Teri Brooks with Behavior Solutions for Children and families and she’s gonna talk to us about the different types of therapy with ADHD. So Teri, please introduce yourself. Tell us a little bit about yourself to the listeners.
DR. BULLIS ( 00:00:57): Yeah. Sure. Hello everybody. So my name is Teri Bullis. Doctor Teri Bullis. I started out as a school psychologist for a bunch of years and then decided I needed to open my own private practice because the practitioners in my community, which was in Vermont at the time, really didn’t seem to know much about the behavior of Children and the most effective ways to support behavior change in Children and I thought I knew some things about that. So I decided to go into private practice and, and help families work through those behavioral challenges. I discovered some things right away. I’m gonna save those for, you know, the, the later conversation, but the long and the short of it is is that I’ve really refined my approach to be like, incredibly effective and efficient. And I’m pretty excited to share that with you guys today.
FRANCES ( 00:01:49): That’s awesome. So, and I know you keep saying behavior therapy is that like, so I know there’s a lot and I don’t, I don’t pretend to know all of the difference. Like pay play therapy, behavior, cognitive, like what is behavior therapy and why behavior therapy?
DR. BULLIS ( 00:02:05): Right? So behavior therapy means that your therapy is based on the principles that govern behavior. And the glorious thing about that is that you can’t argue with those principles like we know why people behave the way that they do. You do things that you get reinforced for and you don’t do things that you get, you know, punished for and that governs every single thing that we do. You know, the people would say, wow, what if you have like trauma in your history? Well, yes, but that trauma was a punishment for some, you know, behavior. So it still like everything we do is informed by. Do we get reinforced for it or do we get punished for it? So, behavior therapy is all about how we’re gonna use those sort of principles to help kids change behavior for the better. And from my perspective, it’s just, so much more logical than expecting that if we have a child, you know, meet with a play therapist for 45 minutes or an hour a week that through that play, they’re gonna make some realizations about how maybe they should change their behavior and then in between sessions, they’re actually gonna make decisions to change their behavior. Like that just doesn’t make any sense to me. , because most kids, number one, they are not self reflective. Well, there’s a reason for that because their brains don’t, right. Their brains have not developed enough to be self reflective. , and then most of the kids I work with, they don’t have impulse control that don’t have delayed gratification. They don’t have the ability to like, see what they’re doing and then stop themselves in the moment and say, oh, this is not going to be good for my relationship with my friend, right? And then say I should ask my friend nicely if I can have that toy instead of just grabbing it. You know, they just, that cognitive process is not part of what their brains are capable of doing. And so they reach and they grab the toy and then they get in trouble and then the preschool teacher says your child doesn’t know how to share your child doesn’t know how to ask nicely and use their words. Well, that’s because grabbing things is actually far more efficient and it works really well when you want to get something. So we have to do something different, which means we have to make it so that Children are motivated to do the things that we want them to do, use those prosocial skills, those you using your words, you know, being nice and polite and respectful and following directions and, you know, managing your feelings and calming yourself down, like all of those things that requires work. So we sometimes have to give Children the motivation to do that. , and then when they engage in negative behaviors instead, we need to effectively discipline that. So we have to make the, the thing we don’t wanna see, we wanna make that not worth it and the thing we do want to see, we want to make that very rewarding and it’s really just about that balance. There are a lot of skills that go into that though.
FRANCES ( 00:05:10): Oh, yeah, I’m, I’m like, thinking through, I’m like, oh, yeah, lots of different things. And I, and with an, a DH child, you know, they’re all different. Everybody’s like, oh, you have ADHD you know what I mean? But it’s like, it’s not like you have strep throat, you know what I mean? Like, it’s not like everybody has the same thing. This is how you fix it. It’s such a different and everybody needs different things. So what makes the behavior, therapy like more effective?
DR. BULLIS ( 00:05:37): Well, because we’re directly influencing the behavior, we’re giving kids the motivation to do the thing that we want them to do, right in talk therapy, even cognitive behavior therapy, which, which teaches skills, play therapy, teaches skills in an indirect way. Cognitive behavior therapy teaches skills in a more direct way. But neither of those modalities accounts for the fact that in the moment the child may not be able to reflect on their behavior, stop themselves from doing what they’re doing, make a better choice because they know that in the long run that’s gonna be better, but there’s no direct payoff. So instead of that in behavior therapy, we’re actually building for the generalization and use of skills in between sessions. It’s not really about what we’re doing in the session. We’ll do some explicit skills teaching if we need to. But we’re setting up those plans for putting in place the motivation for kids to use those skills and then the consequences if they don’t use those skills, that’s the bulk of the work and behavior therapy. So it’s all about setting it up so that kids are gonna be motivated to use skills in between sessions. And that’s what makes it very different. That’s what makes it so much more effective and so much more efficient because I can get change in a kid’s negative behavior within a few weeks, sometimes in just one session. , that’s not the usual case, but the average number of times that I see parents is 5 to 8 sessions. And then we’ve solved the challenges. Now, if you’ve got a child with a really significant, diagnosis and really severe behavior challenges, it’s gonna take us longer to sort of pinpoint all, all of the different problem behaviors and really tackle those. because in behavior therapy, we might do some general things at first, like put into place a reward system that really works and consequence is a good discipline system that really works. But then we maybe we need to really hone in and, and wrap around a specific intervention about something like, you know, toilet training or you know, managing your use of screens, shutting it off when I tell you to, for example, and not anything that’s right or following direction is the first time. Well, following directions, the first time is a very, is a fairly general skill that with the general system, we can target that we can also build in specific things like, you know, taking a shower the first time I tell you to without arguing, right? Because most many adolescents, especially adolescent boys, I’m not so interested in taking a shower. What do you do with that? Well, we put into place a reward system, we make it worth their while to take a shower on their own without a reminder or without arguing the first time you tell them to. And so we can build in all of those things into a reward system that helps kids move towards independence, you know, more cooperativeness. So you can have a peaceful, happier household and you can spend your energy for telling your kid they did the right thing instead of getting mad that they didn’t do the right thing.
FRANCES ( 00:08:58): So does that, I mean, what old school is going back to me? Like from when I was a teacher and stuff that rewarding kids for everything is like, is that going to break the independence? Are they gonna start expecting rewards more or how does that
DR. BULLIS ( 00:9:13): work? Yeah, that is such a good question. So I like, I don’t know if I dare say this, but there was a guy named Alfie Cohn. I’m pretty sure that was his name and he wrote this book called Punished By Rewards. Did you happen to read that book once upon a time? Not OK. Well, the whole premise was there have been a couple of research studies, not a lot, but a couple of research studies to suggest that if you reward somebody for something, then they’re gonna be less intrinsically motivated to do that thing. And that research is valid research. It is research we should pay attention to and we do not want to reward Children for everything that they do and we don’t want them to expect a reward for everything they, that they do. We don’t want this to become a lifelong negotiation. Well, maybe not lifelong childhood long negotiation. I’ll do this if you give me that. No, that is not what we’re talking about doing here at all. So what punished by rewards was really saying is that you shouldn’t give rewards at all. That Children will organically and naturally choose to engage in prosocial positive behaviors if you just leave them alone. The problem is is that there are some kids who are like that and then there are lots of kids who aren’t like that. And , the kids that I work with are not like that. The kids that I work with are engaging in , a lot of physical aggression, a lot of defiance, a lot of pushback against limits. , they have big tantrums, they are domineering the house because what they’ve discovered is that they can, and if they engage in those behaviors, they can get things that they want. And , that’s a problem because that’s
FRANCES ( 00:11:12): I was gonna say or avoid things that they don’t want,
DR. BULLIS ( 00:11:15): right? Avoiding things you don’t want to do. That is negative reinforcement. In other words, take away something that I don’t like that makes me happy. That’s negative reinforcement. It reinforces the behavior that they used to get to that place. But, and positive reinforcement obviously is you get something that you like for doing something But Alfie Cohn’s whole premise was is that kids will eventually, you know, learn to do the right thing. My experience is that kids don’t, not all kids do. Some kids need extrinsic motivation first to begin to do the thing, the prosocial thing, the positive thing. And then they can experience all of sort of the natural benefits that come along with those behaviors. And then when they start building that intrinsic motivation because they’ve discovered wonderful things happen when I engage in prosocial positive behaviors, then we can start to wean off, got it. But you can’t get there from here if they’re not motivated to do these things, if they’re not motivated to ask nicely and to self regulate their emotions and face their anxiety. Anxiety is a big one, by the way, kids with anxiety are the most challenging kids to work with because they’re absolutely, you know, stuck in this place in their brain that is not capable of rational thought. So rationally saying, you know, let’s breathe and calm yourself down and it just doesn’t work when kids are in that situation, you know, so we have to use this concept of automaticity. And all of this is, is sort of, I think information that perhaps in the time that that book punished by rewards came out, people just didn’t have this information and they didn’t know how that applied to children’s behavior. But we do know that now. So there’s this concept of automaticity, which is that if you get rewarded for some action, then you’re more likely need to do that action in the future. And if you get punished and I’m using punishment in a behavioral way, not in a parenting way, I avoid the word punishment because it just doesn’t feel good. I like to say discipline. That’s, you know, a more appropriate word, but in a behavioral sense, that’s the term that they use in behavior analysis and behavior theory. So you get punished for, for example, driving down the highway, you know, I don’t know about you Frances, but occasionally I speed
FRANCES ( 00:13:41): just once or twice. Not always.
DR. BULLIS ( 00:13:44): I mean, I might actually have a policy of driving faster than the speed limit on highways, not through towns. I’m very, very good about observing speed limit through towns. But on a highway, I do go faster. But what happens when you’re driving, whether you’re speeding or not? And you see a police car parked on the side of the road, what happens? Your foot goes on the brake, right?
FRANCES ( 00:14:06): Automatic, automatic,
DR. BULLIS ( 00:14:9): you don’t think about it and then you look at the speedometer and then this part, the prefrontal, the cortex of your brain starts working. You’re like, ok, how fast was I going? Am I likely to be picked up? And they’re like, I wasn’t going too fast and that guy is going way faster. So I’m ok. Right. That’s the cognitive part of your brain that’s working. But that doesn’t kick in. At first, at first it’s automatic. I’m gonna put my foot on the brake because I want to avoid getting a speeding ticket. Right. That’s how automaticity works. So, if your child, hits and you immediately, every single time, put them in an appropriate time out and we could talk about time out versus time in because that’s another thing that doesn’t work time in anyway, an appropriate time out. If you do that every single time they’re gonna stop engaging in that hitting behavior because the automaticity will kick in and their brain will be like, oh no, and choose a different way to get what they want or to express their feelings and it happens automatically, it doesn’t happen in the prefrontal cortex. It’s not a matter of thinking, oh, I don’t want to have a time now. We don’t have time for that in real life, right? We just don’t want kids to hit and hitting is impulsive. So the only way to get control over that is to take advantage of this concept of automaticity and have really good immediate discipline come into effect. You just, there’s no way to do that with play therapy or even cognitive behavior therapy because those things are working for different brain pathways that don’t control behavior in the moment, which that’s, you know, that’s why I do what I do,
FRANCES ( 00:15:54): right. Which, you know, I, I, what’s, what’s triggering in my head is like, I remember somebody saying, well, yes, I’m learning all the skills. I know what to do. But in the moment all of that’s gone and it’s kind of like, so you do the, in the moment it’s there because that’s the important stuff. Right.
DR. BULLIS ( 00:16:17): Well, and if you’re talking about, if you’re talking about parents, like what parents do in the moment, parents actually, you know, we don’t get annoyed until a little further down the road. Right. It all starts with the first time you give the direction right now. I’m gonna get a little annoyed. I’m gonna ask again. I’m gonna tell again, I’m gonna tell again, I’m gonna tell again until eventually I, now I’m mad and now I’m gonna yell, yelling doesn’t feel good to anybody. No parent likes to yell at their child or do whatever other things that we might do that we feel bad about after because every single parent does those things, you know, that’s how parenting works. But we don’t have to get there what we’re doing when we’re telling our child to do things multiple, multiple, multiple times is we’re teaching our child to ignore us all of the other times that we told them to do it until we get mad. So now, now we’re engaged in a practice where every time I want my child to do something, I have to get mad because he or she won’t respond until you get to that point. It’s exhausting. Right. Yes, it is. How many kids do you have?
FRANCES ( 00:17:34): Two, a six year old and a nine year old?
DR. BULLIS ( 00:17:36): Oh, my God. They’re young still.
FRANCES ( 00:17:39): Yes, they’re young still. , very, in their ways. It’s very difficult. I’m like, ok, what am I doing? And I see it like, I see it and it’s 100%. Right. It’s, you know, not until that I get five, then I lose my brain and you know, start screaming and yelling that they finally do it. I’m like, why do I have to yell at you to get you to do something?
DR. BULLIS ( 00:17:58): Right? Well, it’s because it often that they don’t need to until you get to that point. So what we need to do is we can use the principles of behavior therapy to like really take a step back as parents and say, ok, now I’m gonna ask twice the first time. I’m gonna ask real nice. I’m actually not gonna ask, I’m gonna tell, we have to be careful about our language. If it’s not optional, we’re not asking, we’re telling. So we’re gonna tell one time nicely. And if I come back, I’m gonna give you some time to respond. If I come back and you’ve done it, I’m gonna say thank you. That was really cooperative, that was really helpful, that was responsible, that was respectful. We want to give behavior specific, specific praise for doing the thing that we wanted to see in and of itself, the research is very clear. The behavior specific praise is the one thing that we can do that is gonna be most effective at getting kids to change their behavior for the better. So, right away, we can just start with that. But you know, they’re not gonna do it the first time we tell them to. Right. So the second, like when we’re there and we see they haven’t done it. Now we’re gonna give them a count to three. So now we’re, we’re launching into 123 magic territory. You don’t need to read the book. I’m just gonna tell you how to do it. It’s very easy. You say, OK, I’m gonna count to three. You have to start doing the thing by the time I get to three. And if you don’t, when I say three, when that comes out of my mouth, then this consequence is gonna happen and you do it calmly because now this is only the second time you’ve had to tell them. So you’re still calm, you’re not mad yet, right? But you’re already gonna implement a consequence if they don’t jump into action by the time you get to three and we’re not gonna say 11, 1000, 1.5, 22 and three quarters, two and seven, eights, we’re not gonna do that. We’re gonna say one and in your head, you’re gonna say 1000, you’re gonna say two you’re gonna say in your head 1000 and then you’re gonna say three. And if the three happens, you’re gonna give the consequence because what you’re teaching your child is you must respond. By the second time I tell you, by the time I get the three, otherwise the consequence that you don’t like is going to happen
FRANCES ( 00:20:12): and you help develop what those consequences and the rewards will be,
DR. BULLIS ( 00:20:16): right? So the glorious thing that I discovered in partly in my training. So when I went into private practice, the first time, my training was, you know, as a clinical psychologist phd level and I had been in schools forever. So like I knew some things. but once I was in private practice and I discovered that, you know, parents kind of expected that they would leave their kids with me for 45 minutes to an hour and then I would fix things that way and then I discovered that absolutely isn’t going to work like almost ever or it’s gonna take forever and ever and ever. Basically, the amount of time it’ll take for that to, to change is maturation for the child’s brain, not really anything I was doing, I guess I, I’m impatient. I just want to see results, you know that, right? Like I just don’t have the patience to wait for that and I don’t wanna waste people’s time and I don’t want to waste their money. So in any case early on, I discovered that the sort of the behavioral work is really what I wanted to do. And I went back and I got trained as a board certified behavior analyst. And I learned a lot. I didn’t think I was gonna learn a lot, but I learned a lot. So you don’t know what you don’t know. Right. And I was able to modify what I was doing in terms of the reward systems that, that I then began to specialize in with parents. So the reward system that I use now I call it the point system and with the parents, we decide what kids are gonna get points for. So that’s how we can build on those really specific things to promote independence, to promote compliance, to promote responsibility. So brush your teeth without needing a reminder or get dressed without needing my help or do your homework without me having to tell you to like all of those things, those things can go on the list and it’s not that you’re getting points for doing your homework because you have to do that anyway, ok? You can get points for brushing your teeth. No, because if I have to argue with you for a half hour to get you brush your teeth and you finally do. I am not rewarding you for that, right? But I might reward you for remembering to do it by yourself or for doing it the first time. I tell you to cooperatively, right? So we can put those things on the list. These are things you get points for and then, and I’m getting to the point you were like, well, what are the consequence? Right? So this is a response cost system, that’s what it’s called, which means that you get points for doing the right thing and we’ll write a list of what all those things are. So kids know how they can get points but I’m taking points for negative behavior. So you talk back or you don’t do what I told you to do or you’re, you know, you say something mean to your brother or sister, which is actually why I created the point system because my kids were constantly like this and I was a school psychologist. Right? Do your kids do long?
FRANCES ( 00:23:12): It’s a love hate relationship. Sometimes they’re like this but they, they want to sleep together every night. So, like when we try to separate them, it’s the worst thing in the world. But when they’re together and they’re like, just fighting. Yeah. So
DR. BULLIS ( 00:23:23): separating them is a really good consequence because they don’t like it. Yeah, we do that. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I was a school psychologist, right? So as some is free and I was looking ahead one summer to being home with my Children, which should make me happy. And I was like, oh my God, what am I gonna do? Like, I can’t, my all my hair was not gray then. But I was convinced that by the end of that summer, my hair would totally be great. I just so I developed this point system and the response cost is you’re mean to your brother or sister. You lose a point, you’re disrespectful to me. You lose a point and kids value these points because they can use them to get things that they want and it doesn’t have to be things, it can be things, but it doesn’t have to be. If you don’t want things for your kid, it could be privileges. Like for example, screen time. So one of the other glorious things about the coin system is you can use it to control screen time. So you give them a certain amount of screen time that they get for free. We can talk more about that if you want to. But , and then like maybe half hour or whatever because parents want to let your Children do things that they really like. Right. You know, and it
FRANCES ( 00:24:38): also gives us a break.
DR. BULLIS ( 00:24:39): Exactly. Right. So you can structure that. So you get your half hour of screen time at the time. That’s most convenient for me. And then anything else that you want, you have to buy with your points. So we make a very valuable those points. We can also do outings like we can go to your favorite playground that is 15 minutes drive away. So it’s a pain in the butt to get to. , so I don’t always want to go there, but you can earn that with your points. You can earn going to Dave and Busters, which I also hate. Well, I don’t hate it. I love it. My husband
FRANCES ( 00:25:13): does.
DR. BULLIS ( 00:25:15): Right. Or the trampoline park or whatever. Or you can get little things from a prize box or you can get a sweet treat or you can do dessert if that’s not something that you do every night that you want your kid to earn, like, all kinds of options for rewards. But the point is we make them valuable so that when they lose those point, which happens immediately, there’s a little, a little, a little, oh, no, I lost a point and there’s your appropriate effective discipline. I don’t have to get mad. I don’t have to, we all these other privileges because by the way, when you take away privileges, I don’t know if you’ve experienced this Frances, but like you take away one thing, then you have to take away another thing. And pretty soon they don’t add anything. I’ve had parents say my kid has nothing in his room. He doesn’t get to play with anything. I’m like, oh, no, that’s not where we want to be. Yeah.
FRANCES ( 00:26:07): No. Well, and it’s, you know, it’s funny because when my, my husband will sometimes be like, that’s it. You’re losing the tablet for the whole weekend and I just look at him like, who are you punishing them or us? Because, you know, I, I can’t have both. And then he’s like, oh, he starts, he’s now thinking about it. And it makes sense. I mean, we had so with my older one when she was in preschool, we had a pom, pom jar that we did. And it was the same basic thing. You earn the pom, poms, you lose the pomp pops. Sometimes you get bonus pom poms just for like doing something that wasn’t expected, wasn’t told you, you know, on your list, just doing something extra and it worked really well. But of course, we didn’t stay consistent with it and so it doesn’t work anymore. , but that I don’t like, I’m thinking like you probably work mostly with the parents and changing the parents’ behavior more than changing the kids’ behavior. Right. Right. Right.
DR. BULLIS ( 00:26:58): Well, because parents are the ones who are in control of the positive reinforcement and the discipline. Right. Right. And you know what, for instance, that pom pom system would work. You just need to refresh it and modify it. Right. I’ll tell you a story. This is really funny when my, so I started this when my kids were fairly young, I think, you know, my daughter and my daughter was six and my, my son was 3.5 years older. So nine, I think that was about the age that I started with them, although it could have been earlier in any case. Fast forward. I didn’t always have an active point system. It wasn’t always in place and by the time my daughter was, hm, I don’t know, like 16, I wasn’t doing it at all when they get older. They’re more concerned with not losing privileges than they are with getting things. So we just, you know, we sort of shift the system around to be appropriate for their developmental level. But so she’s 16. My son was, you know, in high school and, and graduating and maybe going, I don’t know, he was like, going to college. So I didn’t have to worry about him. My daughter was always the one when she was two, she was in her crib taking a nap and my husband, her dad went in to get her, he was just playing around. He’s like, where is Zoey? I can’t find Zoe and she stood up in her crib and she said I’m in my crib taking a nap. Stupid. Oh my God. Two. Like, how
FRANCES ( 00:28:29): do you not laugh? , and you know what? That’s something II, I say all the time as a parent, the hardest thing in parenting is to not laugh when your child does something hysterical but totally inappropriate. Oh,
DR. BULLIS ( 00:28:42): when they’re little, when they’re little. Right. That’s hard. When they get older. You’re like, oh my God, I’m gonna die. Like this is so embarrassing. Right. The thing is, is that, I don’t even know where she got that word. I was so careful about media exposure and we didn’t use words like they shut up when my son was, I don’t know, 14 or something. I thought he’s a very straight laced guy. Very rule abiding and he did say something or whatever. And I’m like, oh, shut up. And he was like, mortally offended mom, you just swore at me. I can’t believe you just swore at me. I’m like, shut up. But I, I did that. It’s my own fault. But anyway, back to the story. So my daughter’s 16 and she is a typical, really difficult 16 year old girl and she was being so nasty to me like all the time and I’d had it and I said that’s it. We’re doing the point system again. And I’m like, ok, what can I use for points? So I found these 10 butterscotch candies and I found a dish and I’m like, I put them in the dish. I said these are your base points. Now, base points buys you privileges. If you have your 10 base points, you get your privileges. If you dip below your 10 base points, you’ll lose your privileges. In order to get your privileges back, you have to earn back the points back up to your 10 base. So this was not a, you’re gonna get rewards for, you know, spending points for anything. This was not a reward system at all. It was just a base level privilege system. You dip below and you lose the right for me to drive you places, you lose the right to drive the car yourself, you lose your phone, you’re grounded, right? And she’s like, I can’t believe you’re treating me like a baby. That system never worked, blah, blah, blah. They like to say these things to try to convince you not to do them right? But I tell you, her behavior immediately improved. So you don’t have to use it all the time. This is when you discover that you need it. When you’re like, oh, I can’t believe this child is driving me crazy. Hm. Ok. Well, now let’s put it back into place this, pull it out of the closet and refresh it.
FRANCES ( 00:30:58): I think it’s going to happen. I should have to figure out how to do it with the two girls because like, you know, but I’ll get the two jars and I think it’s going to happen because then with them, I see my girls competing of who can kill the jar faster.
DR. BULLIS ( 00:31:12): It’s not a bad thing. That’s right. Yeah. If you want any, I can send you my point system handout that I use.
FRANCES ( 00:31:22): Yeah, thank you. Don’t do that.
DR. BULLIS ( 00:31:25): I don’t normally like advise that I would send that to parents and say here’s a handout. Now you can do it because as you said earlier, every child is an individual and every family is an individual unit. And it’s, it, it’s not just as easy as me saying, here are the tools now, you can do it, but, you know, give me two or three sessions with a set of parents and we can create it in that amount of time and then you will see positive change within a week or two of implementing that. And the discipline piece happens even faster. Like I teach people how to do an appropriate time out and appropriate. We have something set up for, you know, more lower level problem behaviors and you can see change within days. It’s really, and I
FRANCES ( 00:32:16): know that from my teaching days and, and that’s why I say, like, I know what to do. It’s always, you know, I intellectually know what to do. I have the degrees I’ve done it, but it’s the consistency and, but at home I don’t feel like doing it anymore.
DR. BULLIS ( 00:32:30): I know. Right. Right. Right. That’s why having a therapist person who, like, you’re paying money. So, and you have an appointment with me. And so I think that’s kind of a pivotal factor that keeps parents accountable to actually doing this thing and implementing it. I do usually have parents come back and they’re like, we didn’t do our homework. I said that’s ok. I’ll do it with you. We’ll do it all together and then, and then they’re like, well, we’re not really ready to implement yet. I’m like, that’s ok. Implement it when you’re ready to implement. But let’s have a follow up and make sure it’s working the way that it does because sometimes it needs to be tweaked a little bit, here or there and sometimes people get a wrong, but that’s why it can be really helpful to have someone to support you and guide you through the process.
FRANCES ( 00:33:20): Right. And you know, the first thing that’s coming to my head now is that the, it’s functional behavior assessment, behavior intervention plans that they do in school that I don’t think I’ve ever seen one done. Right. Which is scary for the 11 years. I’ve been as an education attorney and nine years in the, in the school system because it’s not, they don’t do a specific plan. They’ll be like, oh, he’s eloping. We need to teach him to not elope. Well, we’ll give him this if he doesn’t, you know, like, but it’s not a, a very specific, like when he ops, this is what happens when he doesn’t elope. That’s what happens, you know what I mean? Like, just not. and so like it’s not, how is it a behavior plan? It’s not specific, like
DR. BULLIS ( 00:34:03): you have to work. Yeah. So there are a number of challenges that I’ve seen with people who try to do FBAS and behavior support plans in, in schools. One of the challenges is that in behavior analysis, when you become trained as a board certified behavior analyst. one of the, the things that they really emphasize is that we want to focus on reinforcement to get kids to do things that we want them to do and not on punishment, which again is a behavioral term, right? Schools don’t really want to talk about punishment because then, you know, that’s a bad, that’s a naughty word. But so bear with me when I say that it’s just a technical term. And so the problem with many behavior support plans that BC bas are creating for kids is that they do not include a disciplined component. Well, that’s a problem because rewards for doing the right thing is only gonna go so far if a child is faced with a situation of, you know, doing what they’ve always done before that gets them what they want and it doesn’t really have any consequences that they don’t care mind about. Why wouldn’t they do the same old thing? Why are they gonna choose a new behavior that’s harder to do that? I’ve never, you know, really practiced in real life before. And I, you know, maybe I’ll get a reward for that, but it’s not in my wheelhouse. We can only get it in the wheelhouse by making this the thing. I’ve always done much less worth it. There’s got to be a disciplinary consequence that I don’t like. And here’s the other problem with behavior plans, behavior support plans, the rewards are often not big enough or they’re not frequent enough or they’re not immediate enough. So we have to make sure that we’re making it worth it to put the effort into engaging in a replacement behavior. And it’s gotta be more worth it to do that than it is to do the same old thing that I used to do. So, it’s, philosophically, it, it’s a problem but then another part of the problem is many people are in that role, are very young and they don’t have Children, they don’t understand that discipline is absolutely essential. Like, you know, a consequence for the bad stuff is absolutely essential. And they, they, you’re absolutely right. Like the specificity of this is what you do when this happens. When I do plans like that, I usually do a chart. It says if the kid does this, then this is what staff responds with. Right? And if it should be. Yeah, I know. Right. And replacement behaviors. If the child engages in a replacement behavior, then you immediately give them a bonus point or, you know, and behavior specific praise. Like here’s what, here’s how it all works so that we are immediately giving Children the motivation to do the right thing and discouragement against doing the negative thing,
FRANCES ( 00:37:16): which makes sense. And I think a lot of that is because teachers aren’t trained BC bas they don’t have them in the school system. So there’s teachers that are doing what they think is. Right. But they, they don’t, it’s not like you can pick up and into a behavior intervention plan without training. Yeah. You know, and that’s, that’s the problem. I, I don’t even see functional behavior assessments or ABC data collected. Right. You know, that. It’s right. Right. It’s frustrating,
DR. BULLIS ( 00:37:41): is it? Well, we don’t need to go down the road of teacher training. Right. I’m like, why don’t teachers get trained in this stuff? Which, you know, some teachers are really and all teachers, in my experience, all teachers went into this field because they love kids and they want to teach and they want to, to help kids, you know, learn, people do not go into teaching because they wanna make money. Exactly. Right. So, getting everybody on the same page. I, I, when you, when we can recognize that we really all want what’s best for this child is something that I know that you were pretty hard to do in your role. , and sometimes can be a real challenge.
FRANCES ( 00:38:28): Yeah. No, when I say all the time, you know, like that, I don’t blame the teachers. The teachers aren’t trained. They have, you know, 28 kids, 30 kids in the classroom, six of them have IEPs that are totally different than each other. Like, it’s not realistic to expect the teacher to do all this stuff. I collect the data but legally they’re supposed to. So we went a lot of cases because the teacher didn’t collect the data. And do I feel guilty somewhat sometimes? But it’s all about the child, the child wasn’t getting the services and the child’s behavior changed or educationally fell behind whatever it is, then there has to be some
DR. BULLIS ( 00:39:06): accountability. Right. So there’s the other critical thing about behavior support plans, right? Is that I see a lot of plans that are really unrealistic, like there’s no way that teachers can implement these plans. Not only are they not as specific as they need to be, but they don’t take into account the limited resources that are available in a classroom setting. So like when I’m working with schools, which I also do a little bit of, I do some consulting with schools to develop behavior support plans. I’m working with the teachers to create the plan with them. Most BC bas they’ll go in, they’ll do a bunch of observation, they’ll talk to people, then they will go home or to their office, they’ll write this very, you know, detailed lengthy behavior support plan that is completely unrealistic and comes out of their head. And they’ll say here, this is what you should do. I absolutely do not work with that way. I will the teachers tell me what they can do. And if I have an idea, I’ll say here’s my idea. Tell me if that makes sense for you, would that work for you philosophically? Does that fit with your approach. Is this feasible? Given your resources in your classroom? Do you think you can do this? Can you get excited about this idea? That’s my job. I feel like is to get the teacher invested and excited about trying this approach to really help this kid be more successful in the classroom rather than because of legal reasons or whatever, somebody creating a plan that gets delivered and then people really have a hard time implementing that because they’re complicated. I’ll
FRANCES ( 00:40:48): tell you they’re not, they read it and like, yeah, ok. And it goes, it goes in a drawer and they don’t, they never try to implement it. They’ll, because you can’t like again, like you
DR. BULLIS ( 00:40:57): can’t, they don’t even know where to start.
FRANCES ( 00:40:59): Right? And with you going in with the teacher and working with the teacher to help do it, it’s like we have that consistency that we need and tweaking it because some of us are better at one thing than the other thing. So either will work for the child. Let’s see what the teacher needs, make it work.
DR. BULLIS ( 00:41:16): Yes, I love it. And what are the other resources within the school that we can pull in if we need to, to help support that, that child and that teacher and implementation of that plan. And this, you know, I am not an advocate of kids having one on one or even two on one. Support people to implement a behavior support plan. I really don’t think that that’s necessary most of the time, but there might be a class or a time of day recess, lunch, physed, the specials tend to be challenging for lots of kids. So maybe if we can just take, you know, a pair of, from another classroom who’s available during that time to like, help support this child during the specific times that we have found her challenging. Maybe we just do that or maybe we talk with the parents and the teacher about is it really conducive for this child who hates music class and acts up in music class and can’t handle the sensory overload of new music class. Maybe we have them do an alternative activity during music class. Like those are the kinds of conversations that I’m having with teams about how to help kids be more successful and to enjoy school more.
FRANCES ( 00:42:32): Yeah, I love that because it’s like, I know we, we’ve tried before of getting kids out of certain classes because the behaviors in the school is always like, well, legally we have to do da da da da and, you know, like I’ve said in IEP meetings many a time, like, yes, I’m the attorney. Yes. Legally we have to. But if we have a room full of professionals that all agree on the same thing, it’s OK. It’s about the child, you know, like legally, OK, whatever. You know, like I know the law, your attorneys know the law too. But what’s it? You know, the laws are written, the way the laws are written. It’s not necessarily for this individual child. So.
DR. BULLIS ( 00:43:12): Exactly. And if we’re all in the same room and we’re all agreeing that this is what’s best for the child, well, then that’s what we should do. Right. And nobody’s gonna sue anybody about that because we were all in agreement doing what is right for the child.
FRANCES ( 00:43:28): Right. And it’s all
DR. BULLIS ( 00:43:29): exactly. And if parents change their mind about that, then they can, and then the school has to say, ok, we’ll put them back in music class because you want the child to be in music class. Ok. And, and then we work with that, but we have to be willing to work as teams and be creative and, you know, think outside the box sometimes I think that that is a real challenge for school folks, especially where you are, like, especially like Northern Virginia. It, it’s, I just find
FRANCES ( 00:43:59): I’m at Moco in Montgomery County.
DR. BULLIS ( 00:44:01): Ok. All right. So, I don’t, I don’t have a lot of experience in Montgomery. Most of my experience is more in, you know, Falls Church and in Arlington and in Fairfax. And there’s a rigidity that is really challenging because schools, school people are afraid of being sued. And I, I find that, that fear kind of makes them more rigid instead of being able to work collaboratively with parents. And that’s where someone who has some experience in the school systems like yourself can help bring people together and really solve these problems without having to go down that long road if I’m suing you
FRANCES ( 00:44:46): right now. And that’s, I mean, I, I always try to say that, that, that I come in nice at first. Like let’s work collaboratively. Yeah. But once you cross that line, I’m not gonna play nice anymore. Like this is about the kid and it’s always about the child and always what’s best for the child and we are going to make that happen. You know, I would say that I was in Montgomery County, but I do do Virginia and DC and other, all the other states also. But it, it’s the same though, a lot of times what I’ve seen and the reason I left teaching is that the higher ups say how you have to do something. Your principal says, how you have to do something that’s your boss. You can’t go against what your boss said, no matter how much the child needs it. And so teachers are put in this position of, I want to do what’s right for the child, but I don’t want to lose my job. So what do I do? And that, that’s when I’ve had teachers, you know, after the meeting come and say thank you so much because they knew it was needed.
DR. BULLIS ( 00:45:42): Right. Right. Right. I’ve had teachers say that to me too. Like inside private conversations say, I can’t say that this is what we should do, but this is what we should do, right? And then I get to come in and say, ok, this is what we need to do. And the principal, you know, because I, and you, because we’re outside people saying this is what needs to be done. They’re much more amenable to it. Definitely. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Well, we’re on the same team. All of us are we want what’s best for kids, you
FRANCES ( 00:46:14): know? Exactly. Like I, you know, yes, I’m a lawyer but I don’t like litigating it, doesn’t it? Nobody wins in litigation. You know, we’re all spending money and doing, you know, litigation for two years. Like, seriously, let’s look at this child, what does the child need to be successful? And that’s, you know, like, let’s find a way to make it work and most parents want to make it work in the public school system. They don’t necessarily want their kids in a non-public placement, they want to make it work, you know, like work together. You know, I always say like, I wish I didn’t have a job because that would mean the school systems and the parents are working together and doing great, you know. But
DR. BULLIS ( 00:46:50): like, I wish I didn’t have a job because that would mean that all Children are well behaved. Right. That’s not realistic. And honestly I love poorly behaved. Children, they’re my favorite. They have character, they have lit and perseverance and they know what they want and we just need to channel that so that they can use more poor social ways of getting what they want.
FRANCES ( 00:47:16): And I love that, you say channel that because it’s so often it’s old school thinking squashing it that they shouldn’t be like that. And no, we want to keep that part of that. And, you know, one of the other things I used to say is that, the characteristics I want my child to have in her twenties doesn’t really work 567, you know, adolescence years, you know. But it’s true. Like, I don’t want to break that from her, but she’s gonna do what she’s gotta do.
DR. BULLIS ( 00:47:46): That’s right. What you want to teach her is how to use her powers for good. Yep. Right. Yep. Yeah. Exactly.
FRANCES ( 00:47:56): Exactly. That’s my job. , so I just realized the time and we have been talking forever, which is great and it is fabulous. I know. Right. , but so I just wanted to touch real quick, like I know you, I think you said like, eight sessions is normal, like, as a parent, I’m like, oh, great. Another thing I need to do an hour a week, like, what is the time commitment in real, in reality? What’s the time commitment, financial resources that you need to commit to, to make a
DR. BULLIS ( 00:48:23): difference? Right. So, I mean, with me specifically. , I don’t really ask parents to commit to anything. , I probably should but I don’t because I feel like things happen and priorities shift. So, like I’ve had lots of people who I have an initial conversation with them, they’ll decide that they, maybe they like what I have to say or not, but it’s not the right time for them. It’s just too many other priorities. They’re too stressed out, they’re dealing with other things and then now and then they contact me a year later, two years later, you know, and they say, hey, I know I never followed up, but I’d love to, you know, now I would really like to work with you. And so I’m a firm believer that I respect people’s ability to prioritize and decide what they need to do first. So I’m never going to be angry or annoyed at somebody who says, look, you know, I can’t do this right now or I didn’t do my homework like last week or now is not the right time for me to start the point system because I have XY and Z happening. I’m like, yeah, OK, I get it. I understand that makes sense. So let’s do this when you feel like you can totally put some energy into it. OK, so to answer your question, I have a sliding fee scale. So for people who can’t, who, who don’t make a huge amount of money. You know, I do have a sliding fee scale that goes down to 100 and 25 an hour, but I don’t take insurance. , I am, you know, a licensed phd, the level psychologist. So I’ll provide invoices that are marked paid and it has all those codes that you need if you have insurance that you can submit that to and get reimbursed for. And those reimbursement rates are sometimes as much as my sliding fee scale rate. Sometimes I think even more. Although honestly, I don’t really know because I don’t deal with insurance companies. So there’s that, in terms of the amount of time commitment, I have seen parents, you know, for one session or two sessions depending upon what the issue. That is rare that that is enough to like, make a difference. But if we’ve got a child, for example, who is very young and the issue is tantrums and that’s really the only issue, then I’ll teach time out, that’ll take one session, maybe two sessions, implement it a third session to check in, make sure things are going well, maybe 1/4 session in another month. So that would be three sessions once a week, space apart and then another one a month later just to check in, make sure everything is great and now we’re done. But if you’ve got a 10 year old who has severe ADHD maybe some a lot of anxiety too and there’s, you know, layer upon layer upon layer of challenging behaviors, then we’re gonna spend maybe three sessions developing a point system, maybe a session working on discipline and then a bunch of sessions following up on that. So four to start seeing some positive change and once you get the implementation of the point system in place and then you have discipline in place, we’re gonna make sure that those are working and we’re gonna tweak them. And as soon as we know they’re working well, then we might identify specific behaviors that we still need to address. Just the point system alone will address a lot of stuff, right? But there may be other specific things that we wanted them begin to target and, and we can build an intervention around those things in one session. But if you’ve got 10 really problematic behaviors on top of the general stuff, that’s usually not the case. Usually it’s four or five. You know, then we’ll do a specific training session on that. Now, if you have a kid with anxiety, that’s a longer road because those kids need to learn how to face their anxiety and tolerate being anxious, which is something that kids are not motivated to do because it sucks, you know, anxiety is horrible and why would I want to face it when I can run away from it? I can have a tantrum and successfully avoid it. I can convince my parents to rescue me from the thing that’s making me anxious. So there’s a lot of work that goes into that. So those situations take quite a bit longer and we might meet, we might meet, you know, every other week we might do a half hour with the child every week just to sort of maintain that relationship and that focus on being brave. , it really that I modify depending upon what the family feels is best for their child and, and for them, and that’s usually a mix of, just parents sessions because we can’t set up point systems and discipline with kids there. They sabotage that. That, that’s not a, a productive use of time. But we might add kids for like a half hour to do the skills teaching bit like how do you calm yourself down? How do you face your anxiety? You know, or maybe we’re teaching them an intervention around saying hello and goodbye appropriately or, you know, who should do rules about hugging or, you know, all whatever huge range of anything in the world. But again, that’s gonna be really specific according to kids needs. Does that? Did I answer your question? Did you did? Yes,
FRANCES ( 00:54:01): you did. I mean, it, it, it, it’s the lawyer answer. It depends, you know, because it is and it does. But I like to hear that you listen to the parents and what the parents need and that 100% if now is not the time we get it. Like I tell my clients that also if now is not the time that you don’t have the capacity, that’s fine. We’re here, call us, you know, and then when you’re ready, we’ll get, we’ll get where we need to be. This is so awesome and I know we’re gonna put it in the show notes. But how can people reach you? Like if people want to do a consultation with you or want to learn more, where should they go? What should they do?
DR. BULLIS ( 00:54:38): Yeah. The best way to do that is to email me at Dr Teri B at gmail dot com. So that’s just DrTeriB@gmail.com. I do have a website, Behavior solutions for Children and families which is a great way to find out a little bit more about me and, and how I work, I have a side specialization in OCD, by the way, obsessive compulsive disorder. So I work with kids and adults on OCD, but that is the only thing I do with adults because it’s very behavioral. So it’s very much in my, in my wheelhouse. But email me is that’s the very best way I have contact buttons on my website. So that’s easy to people should not try to call me, say generally I don’t answer my phone if I don’t know who’s calling.
FRANCES ( 00:55:30): Right. That makes sense, but all of that information, it will be below in the show, not show notes. Thank you so much for coming on the show. This was like such a wealth of information. I hope our listeners gained as much as I did from listening and talking to you.
DR. BULLIS ( 00:55:44): Thank you and I will send you my hand out on point system. Thank you. All right, thanks, Frances.
VOICEOVER ( 00:39:23): You’ve been listening to Stress-Free IEP®. With your host Frances Shefter. Remember you do not need to do it all alone. You can reach Frances through ShefterLaw.com where prior episodes are also posted. Thank you for your positive reviews, comments and sharing the show with others through YouTube, LinkedIn, Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher and more.
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