Teaching a Borderline

[Seylon]

Hi,

I'm giving private lessons to a borderline, and it is hard, for her and for me. I'm looking for some informational resource to help us. She is a grown up, however I thought that in this patenting forum I might find more teaching oriented experience.

Some of the common behaviours include:
* she gets very emotional, raises her voice, shuts off in despair
* she loses confidence in herself, becoming sure she's capable of nothing. Just 10 minutes ago she successfully did a complex assignment, but now she cannot do a 2+2
* sometimes it looks like an understanding block on her side, no matter how simple are the steps
* there is a big load of shame for not understanding
* sometimes she asks me to continue explaining without really following me
* often she states it is my responsibility, I am the teacher, I am to make her understand
* she often blames me for the sound of my voice, my pace, not being organised enough, creative enough
* and then bursts with appreciation and gratitude.

A typical response to a question "did you get the last part" might sound like "no, I do not understand it. I DO NOT UNDERSTAND IT. Any of it. How many times can I repeat? Do you like hearing me saying how stupid I am?  I do not know what is the part that I don't know, otherwise I would tell you, don't you think so, genius? Whatever, it is all pointless. Go on, I do not care"

So I guess some general methods like validation may be applicable here, and I should stop repeating "you are not stupid" and say something like "this is a tough material for everybody, and you probably head a hard day at work, so no wonder it's hard for you now"

Can you point me to a useful resource or share some positive experience of a technique?

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[wendydarling]

Hi Sylon

Welcome to the parents board   That is hard. What subject are you teaching? Is the learning attached to a personal goal, say for work?  You've summarised the behaviours well. I think it's a matter of trying out approaches and skills, they take some time to master, if it doesn't work people often try a 're-do' you can practice on anyone.

To the right   are tools and lessons, as you'll see there is validation and here's The power of validating questions

Lesson 3 in Lessons: What can a parent do  has more information on tools for solving problems and diffusing emotions.

I can see pace being important, too much information to quickly can be overwhelming, regular bite sized breaks with perhaps some slow breathing exercises.

I'm sure others have good advice and ideas.

Does she practice skills to manage her BPD?

WDx

[Seylon]

Thank you wendydarling,

These indeed look like good general advice, and I will read them thoroughly, though I am looking for something more teaching oriented.
To answer your questions:
The subject I am going to try to teach her (3rd time) is a hard course in her computer science MSc - she does OK with the other courses by herself, but is nowhere near passing this one particular course, despite knowing the study book by heart.
Regarding the pace - sometimes the right pace just doesn't exist. She loses focus too quickly, and begs to go faster, but then she cannot follow up when i do skip the easy steps.
Unfortunately she wouldn't accept dealing with the BPD (or getting diagnosed, actually). The diagnosis is really my speculation, it is just that when I sometimes do try and validate her emotions it works like a miracle, way beyond what I could expect. She did go to NLP meetings, where they actually taught her some relaxation and mindfulness techniques, that seem to help.

[Bright Day Mom]

Hi Seylon,

First I want to commend you for being such a caring tutor / teacher - going the extra mile to reach out for ideas is wonderful.

I would put into place some things that would be included in an IEP, frequent breaks, slower pace, lots of praise, etc.   

Instead of saying "you are not stupid", try speaking in "I statements" (i.e.  I know  you are smart!). 

[Tattered Heart]

How amazing that you are helping this woman. How did your teaching her come about?

* she gets very emotional, raises her voice, shuts off in despair
* she loses confidence in herself, becoming sure she's capable of nothing. Just 10 minutes ago she successfully did a complex assignment, but now she cannot do a 2+2
* there is a big load of shame for not understanding

This is pretty typical BPD behavior. I would suggest when she does this check out our lesson on Validation and Don't Be Invalidating . Use lots of postive reinforcement when she is doing well.

* sometimes it looks like an understanding block on her side, no matter how simple are the steps

I'm not sure that this is necessarily a BPD trait. Could there be an undaignosed learning disability of some sort?

* sometimes she asks me to continue explaining without really following me

Do you think this is a stalling technique because she doesn't want to learn or is she getting distracted?

* often she states it is my responsibility, I am the teacher, I am to make her understand

This sounds like a type of blame shifting. Our tool called SET might be best used here to be empathetic towards her but to also share the truth with her about what her responsibility in the relationshp is

A typical response to a question "did you get the last part" might sound like "no, I do not understand it. I DO NOT UNDERSTAND IT. Any of it. How many times can I repeat? Do you like hearing me saying how stupid I am?  I do not know what is the part that I don't know, otherwise I would tell you, don't you think so, genius? Whatever, it is all pointless. Go on, I do not care"

Validating her when she says something like this would be very helpful. Maybe even instead of saying ":)id you get that last part?" could be changed to "Can you explain to me what you just learned". This is a softer more empathetic statement that doesn't put as much pressure on her. And if she does start going on about how stupid she is, validate that it's understandable to feel frustrated about not understanding something. And maybe share a brief story about a time that you didn't understand.

[Seylon]

Thank you for the support.

Currently she backed off and would not answer my questions regarding the course or the assignments. From my experience, in a month or so she will get stressed about not having any progress, and then will ask for help again.

Validation and SET are indeed very helping in a general communication, however for some reason, this particular subject promotes a very high and frequent emotional response. Ideally I would have her to take some emotion disabling pill before the lesson, so that the trigger to this course will be discharged.

I guess, what I look for is IEP for borderline instructions set.

[Tattered Heart]

I guess, what I look for is IEP for borderline instructions set.

Let us know if you find anything so we can have this resource in the event someone else has the same question.

[isilme]

It's probably far less coding, but I worked with my BPD H on teaching him certain things I've taught myself about graphic design, as well as web and database construction.  And yes, he shuts down and claims to be stupid when he can't immediately figure out a problem or organizational structure.  That said, he has also, once he's realized he CAN do it, set up some fairly complex systems and actions to make tasks simpler for himself and his coworkers.  When motivated, he took to HTML and CSS to learn to program simple slide shos from scratch, so I know he can do it, when he is not blocking himself.  I see his issues mostly as a square-peg-in-a-round hole problem.

When I've gotten stymied on how to accomplish a task, like programming a simple php based sql search query, I have gotten stuck, and so I tend to let my mind wander while the subconscious sorts it out, and will experiment and try even crazy thing as far as my understanding of the mechanisms work.  I look for alternatives, different ways to achieve the same end goal, and even take breaks as needed.  I have different methods for accomplishing the same tasks as H, but since I worked in more deadline-oriented jobs, I value speed and efficiency over being, well, fussy and super meticulous.  I learn and use shortcuts, and do certain things instinctively, and allow the program to help as much as it's supposed to - why am I going to measure where the middle is when I can click "center"?

H would rather smack the problem with a hammer until it conforms to his wishes, he will spend hours simply setting up margins on a file.  He likes to use the menus in lieu of shortcuts, and he will agonize over millimeters of spacing.  He does not even trust auto bullets or hanging indents and makes things harder by insisting on doing it manually.  In the event, he simply can't get it to work, will quit, give up, and leave it for months.  I have observed how he works long enough to see how HE needs to absorb the information, and try to adjust my methods to suit how he will need to see it.

I have not done MSc coursework, but I would hazard a guess that your student is hampered by even needing to ask for help.  I like the suggestions of "explain/show me what we just went over".  I do this when teaching graphics to novices at work.  Or, I "drive" the keyboard and mouse, but make them tell me what to do.  I am not sure if this would work with your student, but when they get the "answer" right, it makes them feel so good, that they were able to do it without me telling them step by step how. 

[Seylon]

he shuts down and claims to be stupid when he can't immediately figure out a problem or organizational structure.  That said, he has also, once he's realized he CAN do it, set up some fairly complex systems and actions to make tasks simpler for himself and his coworkers. 
... .

H would rather smack the problem with a hammer until it conforms to his wishes,
... .
In the event, he simply can't get it to work, will quit, give up, and leave it for months.  I have observed how he works long enough to see how HE needs to absorb the information, and try to adjust my methods to suit how he will need to see it.

Thank you isilme, I can definitely relate to that. My student also insists on getting things done in a very specific way, clinging on a familiar approach.  But sometimes she's just making a good progress, solving problems independently.