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RE: Paradigm Shift for Dealing with Difficult Behavior
it sounds to me that it was not only "allen" who was in a state of defense/pushback. you were both in that state and you were clashing. what's cool is that your training, or maybe your own inner feeling, caused you to step back a moment and come at the situation from another angle. congrats!
but, as you have learned something more about the kid and his trigger, have you given more thought to your reaction and your trigger?
Great question, sorry I didn't see it sooner. In this particular position, yes, I was feeling pushback, more from a state of frustration than defensiveness, though. I didn't go into the full play-by-play of how it all went down, but the first step was really me just letting him throw his tantrum and ignoring his behavior of trying to get attention until he calmed down. No conversation was possible until I stepped away and let his nerves cool, as I wasn't about to "reward" this crying wolf kind of behavior.
As for my triggers around his behaviors that I was interpreting as avoidance strategies, any pressures I felt were a result of the way my working relationship was structured with his parents, and my projections of their expectations. That shifted over time, too, and talking with them about situations like this helped me understand that they weren't necessarily holding me to the very high bar I was setting for myself in terms of my goals for my time with Allen.