Tim BELT McAllister1

Tim’s BELT

May 6th, 2021

EDUC-230

Professor Tau
Tim BELT McAllister2

General Description

I have a child in my fourth grade named Tim. He is such a sweet and intelligent boy with

brown hair and a contagious smile. During class and recess time, I have noticed Tim hasn’t made

many friends and he tends to get frustrated very easy. Due to this I decided to call a meeting with

Tim’s parents. I wanted to ask them what Tim’s at home was like and if he has any friends. They

told me that he stays in his bedroom all day and reads. But his father did mention something

about how they butt heads occasionally (but didn’t go into much detail). They also added about

how they both work so many hours in a week, and they are unable to spend a bunch of time with

Tim. This may be playing a huge part in why Tim is acting up when he isn’t receiving attention

because he feels that he is not being heard.

Strengths and Needs

On the day of May second, I began an observation for my fourth-grade student Tim.

While in class he is very attentive and loves to read books that are in high school level. Although

he is a decent student, when Tim doesn’t get his way, he tends to get an angry attitude which

makes it difficult to have him participating in group work as well as disrupts my teaching. He

also has a hard time socializing, especially those his age. We are six weeks into the school year,

realistically he should at least have one friend, or even a person who he talks to in passing. Tim

tends to get frustrated when he can’t express himself and worries about the quality of his work so

much so that he gets angry when his work isn’t completed to perfection.

Tim’s top academic strength is the fact that he is in 4 th grade, and he chooses to read high

school level books. When I brought up Tim to the librarian, she did mention that he is visiting
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the library every day and how he is by himself reading at a very high level for his age group. She

did add that she has asked him multiple times to go play outside but he continues to read. But

Tim’s behavior is starting to affect the other students. For example, we had the group project and

I placed Tim with three young ladies. They seemed to be having a conversation about cats and

dogs, but the girls weren’t paying that much attention to him. Tim had an episode right in front

of them and yelled at them which made them look very uncomfortable. I want to ensure the

students that he has no malintent and he didn’t mean to yell at the girls, it is just how he copes

differently than ours.

After seeing these little things, I think that once Tim grows a better relationship with his

parents and gets a friend then this should help his case.

According to Piaget’s stages of cognitive development, I believe Tim’s language and

literacy falls in the category of Formal Operational. This is because of his reading level at such a

young age and how easy it is to formulate conversation. Although he is shy, while he was in the

groupwork he was coming up with some great ideas, just nobody would listen to him. When it

comes to scientific and mathematical reasoning, I think he falls in the preoperational category. I

find this to be true because conversation is developing but he is still not understanding concepts

that he should be familiar with.

Behaviors

Tim’s behaviors are increasingly becoming an issue. Throughout the classes, he is not

socializing with other students, and I have noticed that this carries through onto the playground.

In the meeting I had with his parents they explained that they want him to get more involved

with children his ago so much so that they tried to convince him to play sports. On top of having
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a hard time socializing he also gets extremely worried about the quality of his work. If his work,

is not up to his liking then, he gets angry. If his work doesn’t look good or he doesn’t receive

attention from his classmates, then he throws a fit. Tim tends to get frustrated when no one pays

attention to his actions or listens to his thoughts. I have noticed when I ask him a question, he

would get shy and timid as if he were nervous to say the wrong thing. If people were to listen to

him more maybe his self-confidence will raise a little bit.

On the other hand, when Tim talks to adults, he tends to get a little shy. But again, if I

don’t give him a lot of attention, he tends to get angry.

According to Erikson’s stages of socio-emotional development, I believe that Tim is

sitting in the stage named ‘learning initiative versus guilt (purpose).’ In this model it states,

“Immobilized by guilt, he is: (1) fearful (2) hangs on the fringes of groups (3) continues to

depend unduly on adults and (4) is restricted both in the development of play skills and in

imagination (Erikson).” Numbers 2 and 4 specifically, are perfect descriptions of Tim’s behavior

because he would rather be by himself then with others and he refused to play on the playground

and play sports, he would just rather read a good book.

Strategies

Due to the growing concern of Tim’s behavior, we should come up with some strategies

to get his behavior in check and to have Tim make some friends. The general education teacher

tried group work to have him communicate with others, especially those around his age, and

because they were not listening to his feedback, he had an episode and snapped at all the group

members. Something that we can do to aid this behavior is to have one on one groups so the

other student is forced to just pay attention to him. Also, from what his parents and the library
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said about how he stays in his room and prefer to be alone, it leads me to think that he thrives in

quiet environments, so he is not overwhelmed with what is going on in the classroom. Which

leads me to think that maybe if we were to have him leave the general education classroom a

couple times a week and go to a quiet room with an aid, this would help him focus more.

But while he is my classroom, I can work on patience with him so that he starts to understand

that everyone gets their turn in giving their thoughts and answers. If I see him struggling on an

assignment, I can also bring in a student who is finished and proficient at the subject and help

him complete his work. This will help him become more comfortable with communicating with

the students.

Conclusion

Tim is a very bright kid and I only want the best for all of my students. I started noticing his

increasing worrisome behavior and I wanted to bring it to attention. But with the help of his

parents, aids and the librarian, we can keep a close eye on him and help him so he isn’t

struggling through school.

References

“Know What To Expect! The 8 Stages Of Social Development In Children.” Child Development

Institute, 23 July 2019,

childdevelopmentinfo.com/child-development/erickson/#gs.116g93.