Adventures in Tutoring Daily Challenge – Day 11

How did the “Adventures in Tutoring Daily Challenge begin? You can find out all about its start right here.

And, here we go with Day 11’s challenge:

From reading the previous blog post, you know that today’s challenge has everything to do with revealing the strategies I’ve used to address the following distractions — other children, other noises, breaks, and my student’s own demeanor and attitude — during tutoring sessions.

So, without further ado, here are my go-tos in pivoting during a session when I need to get a child back on track with the instruction I’m delivering (after the child has been distracted by something):

Other Children

I have been known to ask my student to kindly tell the other child(ren) to please not disturb him or her while the tutoring session is going on. (Sometimes, the “other” child may not be aware that instruction is taking place and just needs to know that my tutee is busy and can’t talk or play at this time. Then, the distractions stop.)

Other times, I may ask my tutee to tell the “other” child(ren) (doing the distracting) to come to the screen so I can talk to him or her and explain why we can’t have other side things going on while tutoring is taking place. And, sometimes that has worked.

If I’m in a tutoring setting where an adult is close by, I have asked the adult there with my tutee to get involved and to please kindly help remove distractions taking place. Or, I’ve also asked my tutee to move to a different area of the home or classroom where the attention of other children won’t be an issue. 

Other Noises

These types of distractions are usually somewhat easier to handle and just require some movement on my tutee’s part to a place in the home or classroom where the noise level isn’t as much of an issue.

Many of my students also wear noise-cancelling headphones or earphones/pods to help with dampening background noise.

If there are other devices creating noise in the background, I will usually ask my student to turn them off, if possible.

And, there’s not much that can be done about outside noises such as sirens, alarms, cutting grass, construction work, etc. But, these types of noises are usually short-lived or are not too bothersome during the tutoring sessions.

Breaks

Now, these distractions are interesting, because sometimes they can be helped and sometimes they can’t be helped. And, it may be hard to distinguish between the two. 

I’ve had children who were just antsy-pantsy and wanted to get up and move around, so the way to remove themselves was to ask to go to the bathroom. But, I’ve also had children who really needed to GO! Like to the bathroom — badly. And, I wasn’t going to hold them up from relieving themselves. It would make our session quite difficult to continue with a physically uncomfortable tutee.

Then, there are children who have severe bathroom issues that need to be attended to. Or, children have times when they may not feel well and need to excuse themselves during a particular session due to sickness.

With the public school and private school children in the brick-and-mortars, their onsite teachers won’t usually let them just leave and get up without permission, even if I excuse them to go to the bathroom. So, the children will usually have to wait until it’s their appointed time for a bathroom break or it’s an emergency.

The eating and drinking thing has been less of an issue in my experience; but if it happens where a child is being tutored from home and it’s alright with the parent, I will let a child have something to drink and/or to snack on if he or she asks– only if I know (from experience) that it won’t take away from our instruction together. (If the drink and/or snack is being paid more attention to than the tutoring going on, I will usually ask the student to make sure to have a drink and/or snack break before or after our session together.)

The onsite locations have also been known to allow their students to have drinks and snacks at certain times of the day and week; and if it hits one of my tutoring sessions, I’ve usually had no problems with the student being able to do work and have a drink and/or snack with him or her at the session. And, since it’s allowable through school procedures, I wouldn’t ask the student to do something outside of that. I just try to make sure the student keeps the focus on the activities we’re working on together.

Student’s Demeanor and Attitude

FACTS! We, as adults, have our “off” days; and so, I’ve come to realize that children are no exception to the rule. They are little mini-mes who come with complex personalities and feelings and attitudes and perspectives and such. 

And, I’ve come across a time or two or more, when one of my tutees wasn’t having it when it came to instruction for the day. I’ve had a child who was tired and literally fell asleep during a session or two — not because she was incredibly bored with my presentation (definitely not bored because I make reading look good – Hee! Hee!) — but because she was REALLY SLEEPY! I wouldn’t call that an attitude problem, but it resulted in a major distraction that hindered instruction on those days. 

But, what I mean when I say a child “wasn’t having it” is that the child wasn’t in a mode or mood to do reading work. He or she was in a sour mood, didn’t want to engage in educational activities, didn’t want to talk or cooperate on any level, logged off of his or her device or turned off the video or microphone, started playing with other buttons on the platform, etc. Just flat-out wouldn’t let him- or herself be instructed. 

Want to know what I did in those situations? 

Well, first of all, I never let them get out of hand. “Momma” had to come out in those cases. The tutee may have had a little talking to (outside of the normal realm of educator to child talk). And, the conversation might have veered on the side of some tough love stuff, but it was love, nonetheless. 

I want to set my students up for success. So, anything I can do to admonish them to do better, even in times when they aren’t feeling it, is going to be my mission to accomplish. EVERY TIME! I believe in letting my students know that they can do better than what they’re exhibiting in behavior during these down moments.

I place the emphasis on them, as individuals worthy to be taken into consideration. And, I encourage them to let me know how I can help and what I can do to assist them through what they might be feeling at the moment, while letting them know that I’m not going to accept the behavior they’re trying to dish out.

I let them know that I love them and appreciate that they came to the tutoring session (even though they aren’t feeling their best), but I came with my expectations of them. Just like they should come with their expectations of me.

Because my students know that I hold having a mutually beneficial learning experience (between the two of us) near and dear to my heart, then they usually know that “momma” is just trying to help them do better — ALWAYS and even in more ways than just their reading. 

Lastly, my other strategy to use in these situations is to just ignore the negative attitude that’s coming from the child and to pour on the sweetness (from my end) to where the child can’t help but to kick things into gear on a positive note. Sometimes, redirecting negative behavior by ignoring it and plowing through with a determination to have the student positively move in your direction is the best behavior management strategy to adopt. It’s worked for me on MANY, MANY occasions. Not all, but it’s definitely a strong go-to.