student behavior and SEL Q&A
My entire life I have been fascinated and deeply interested in human behavior. One of my earliest memories is sitting on our bright coral couch as my mom and dad overly-explained to my two year-old self that they had chosen to get a divorce. I remember wondering why my mom was crying and my dad wasn’t. I can still see him kneeling down in front of me, emotionless. What appeared to be emotionless at the time, I now know was his initial response to trauma. It’s my initial response too.
His coping strategy for dealing with the trauma? Drinking. He was an alcoholic and instead of facing and working through the experiences that caused his heavy feelings, he drank his way through them. While it always seemed like he didn’t have emotions, to me, he did, and he was constantly in an active state of trying to suppress the pain.
I have often wondered: is it that our students don’t have the emotional regulation skills to process their experiences or is it they haven’t accepted or experienced a safe connection, typically in the form of a trusted relationship, that must be present in order to build resiliency?
This is my sixth year working with the group of students who are viewed as the “most challenging” within each school I’ve worked in. Having experienced a traumatic childhood and healing, only to develop ptsd from the education system as a teacher– I am a firm believer safe connection is the answer. In the presence of safe connections, academic risks and failing can occur, as well as accepting the expectations that are unwritten within all the different types of relationships. Safe connections allow for vulnerability. The healing and self-love a person can develop from being vulnerable, being seen, and being heard is enough to develop self-love for yourself. It shows that while the world might tell you, time after time, you don’t matter, someone sees that you do.
We could whole-heartily care for a student, give it our all, day after day, and never have them view us as a safe connection. In my experience, student’s begin to see us as a safe connection when they come to us with a need (typically in the form of a non-preferred communication style… aka big behavior(s)) and we support them by modeling our own strategies (and values and beliefs) and support their journey on finding a heart-filled solution that activates their resiliency.
Trial and error is the name of the behavior intervention game 🙂
Q + A from February instagram Story
Question: what is social-emotional learning?
Answer: Well, to me, it’s honoring our experiences as humans. It’s being able to talk about and learn from the adversities in life and find meaning and purpose within those experiences so we can live a productive and joyful life.
Others in education might describe it as a structured way to universally teach and build an awareness and understanding of our emotions and feelings, regulate our emotions, develop friendship skills, and build our self-awareness.
Question: Do you use an SEL curriculum?
Answer: I don’t. Every once in a while, I will pull parts from resources I have enjoyed using in the past like Dojo-Big Ideas, Flocabulary, Sanford Harmony, MindUp, and Zones of Regulation.
I use more strategy based ideas, then create resources and tools that help support generalization and data collection. For example, I teach “emotional regulation” by using aspects of cognitive-behavior therapy to guide them through their thoughts, feelings, and how those contributed to their actions as situations arise, while helping them better understand themselves and really reflect on why they are doing what they’re doing. I use this tool I made to help guide us and document our process.
If I had a general education classroom, I would definitely use Sanford Harmony to teach SEL. Best part? It’s FREE!
Question: How do you integrate SEL curriculum when learning is so jam packed with other learning?
Answer: Honestly, by focusing on building your own self-awareness about your emotions, feelings, and reactions, to help model the skills you want to see for your students. I am not the biggest fan of SEL curriculum for a variety of reasons. The number one reason being a teacher is the best resource for SEL learning. They are paying attention to everything we do—I do so much thinking aloud in my classroom. I’ll be writing something on the board and say, “I have absolutely no idea how to spell *word* but I’m going to s-t-r-e-t-c-h it out and try my best. If I get most the sounds right, someone will know what I’m trying to say and the meaning of my words is more important than the conventions.” I do the same when they are trying to hurt my feelings. “you’re the worst teacher.” “I can tell you’re having some intense feelings. You don’t have the power to hurt my feelings, only I get to decide which words I let in. When you are saying things when you’re upset, I know to turn the power off.” I say this in front of my entire class. When they are hurtful to each other, I will tell students to turn the other students power off, and visualize turning it off with a switch in their head.
I guess to make a long response short—find SEL opportunities in your academic instruction and share your thought process 🙂 or choose SEL books and make text-to-self connections, and turn the stories’ themes into writing prompts. I love using read alouds to teach SEL concepts.
Question: How do you get your students to respect you and the class?
Answer: By showing them trust and respect is a choice that they have to make. I’m really honest with my students that everything in life they do is at their own free will, but there are certain expectations we have to have to support the well-being of everyone, but that I will respect them as a human and they will learn how to respect others. I’m really honest and real with them. I also only use natural and logical consequences and hold them to whatever that may be. When I say things, they know I mean it. I think when they can make sense of the “consequence” it helps build a classroom filled with respect and trust.
I have a “quiet room” in my classroom… aka a “safe room.” Safe rooms have historically been a part of self-contained behavior programs and are used when kids become “dangerous” or significantly dysregulated. I explained in the beginning of the year I would not be putting hands on them or using that room, at all. You better believe a few of them looked right at me and said, “yah right, it’s on.” That week (this was back in September) my entire classroom was destroyed, I had things thrown at me, and I even lost a toe nail that day. I stayed calm the entire time and sat through the storm, never once putting hands on, and explaining that the things being destroyed were just things and he was what mattered to me… while also explaining WE would be cleaning it up after and if he didn’t, I would invite people at home to help us.
We cleaned it up after and reflected about it later on in the day. My classroom hasn’t been destroyed since. This student shared that he was testing me to see what it would take for him to get forced into that room and he knew I would fail… but I didn’t. Kids test us to see if we are who we say we are. Our words and actions have to align especially with kids whose communication style is non-preferred in our classrooms, if we have them to respect and trust us.
Question: A student frequently refuses tasks and behavior will escalate to needing physical intervention.
Answer: Without knowing much about this student, the first ideas/questions that come to mind:
- Are there patterns within when this behavior occurs?
- Does the student’s behavior strategy work? Does the student have physical intervention and then gets out of doing the task? If this happens, ride the storm and show them they aren’t going to get out of the task.
- Allow them to choose a certain amount of time or problems on the task and then have them practice saying they are done. Increase the time or number of problems as they start to generalize and get used to the type of tasks.
- Does the student need physical touch? I’ve had a student who enjoyed physical intervention because it was like hugs. Once planned hugs were incorporate, there was such a massive decrease in the student’s behavior. Especially the behaviors that were causing physical intervention.
Question: Student with extreme ADHD, how do I help her without distracting the whole class?
Answer: In my experience, working with students who have extreme ADHD, finding what they are interested in and finding ways to incorporate those interests into the classroom activities is the number one strategy to help maintain their distractibility. Another strategy is really explaining the why and the purpose behind why they are learning what they are learning, while being flexible that they may need a quiet way to tap their pencil, or get up and walk around a little bit. Having ADHD-inattentive, it’s my brain that constantly needs stimulation and my body is typically calm. I’ve always thought the set of strategies for hyper and inattentive ADHD would be different. Having multiple “hyperactive” students in my classroom has made me realize the “root” need for engagement and meaningful mental stimulation might be the same but the way we express the need for mental stimulation is different. I do it through daydreaming and appear to be lost in the clouds. My students will often be bouncing around or getting into things. We have very specific interests and need to be engaged and find purpose in what we’re doing in order to stay focused. The moment I engage them, their hyper-active ADHD symptoms disappear.
Question: How to de-escalate without giving in?
Answer: For my students, the easiest way for me to de-escalate them is by using distraction techniques. I try to break their fixation cycle and once that cycle is broken, they are usually a bit easier to reason with. A few strategies:
- Find something: I will ask them to find something yellow, or find 3 things blue.
- Academy Award: I’ll usually do something silly dramatic like walk into a wall and say I was distracted or fall over and ask for their help. Basically, I start acting and changing my behavior so they wonder what is going on.
- Hide-and-seek: if I am called to a classroom and need to get a student out, I’ve been hiding something they like outside of the classroom, this helps break their fixation as well.
Sometimes though, you have to ride the storm to avoid giving in. I will let kids throw tantrums and wait there with them, until they are ready to reason with me. Whatever it might be they are trying to get or avoid, I make sure they either don’t get it or don’t avoid it. If it’s a math worksheet they are refusing to do– you better believe that math worksheets pops up all over the place. My goal is typically trying to take the power away they believe their escalation holds then teach them a strategy to get what they want.
Question: Tips for working with students who elope.
Answer: Find out, or take your best guess on the why they are eloping. That’s always my first wondering. My second wondering is: how can I get them to stay? I usually ask them what they need in the classroom that will make it a safe and desirable place for them to be? Kids will usually be able to give you something.
A few other ideas-
- Teach them an appropriate way to elope. I have a kinder who has a running route. He knows if he feels the need to run, he has a place to run to. He has a visual and every thing and when he was calm, we practiced the strategy for about a week. This way, we at least knew where he was going. Teaching them a different way to do what they’re doing can sometimes take the power away from the behavior. He hasn’t eloped once they learning the route.
- Celebrate and make a HUGE deal on the days they stay in the classroom in their reinforcement style (verbal, gesture, tokens, written notes, etc)
- Rearrange your classroom: arrange your classroom in a way that creates a maze and seat this student far away from the door that way you have enough time to block the door if needed.
Question: Consequences for behaviors like hitting, biting, kicking, when the antecedent is lower-ish cognitive?
Answer: When I think of “consequences” I think of logical and natural responses that occur after a behavior has happened. Consequences are positive and negative are usually the reason students maintain certain behaviors—the consequence is meeting a need.
I haven’t worked much with students who have lower cognitive abilities. With that being said, my first instinct still goes to what is maintaining this behavior? Do they get out of the work? Do they get connection? Whatever is maintaining it, find appropriate ways for them to get that need met. If it’s getting out of work, have the work follow them all day. Then, find strategies that alleviate the amount or complexity of the work. Sometimes I cut a worksheet into pieces and give kids one piece at a time. The consequences in this example would be: they didn’t escape the work and their teacher is trying something new (which may result in positive reinforcement for them).
A consequence that helps us take responsibility for our actions that is directly related to our choice, behavior, or action, is going to be the most effective for change in the long run. If I knew every time I didn’t want to go to work, I just had to kick someone when I got there… and I wouldn’t get fired, just sent home, I would totally kick people. If that changed and I then had to have more social interactions with the people I kick, I would stop doing it. It’s all about making the consequence make sense, meet the need, and sharing control and power.
Question: How do you take daily data?
Answer: I have three different systems for taking daily data to meet the needs of students in my program.
- Scheduled interval data is my daily data system: I fill out at the end of every schedule chunk. This is associated with their daily points and they lose points for specific behaviors. It’s also a way I track their IEP goal data.
- Narrative/A-B-C data: each of my students have a section for this in their IEP binders. This allows me to track and look for long-term patterns. I document any changes in their behavior, conflicts, reactions and responses, phone calls I receive about their behavior, etc. I always include the date and time that way I can look for trends.
- Check and connects: I use these for students who are or have been integrated back into their grade-level classrooms. They align to their IEP goals and their classroom schedules.
Question: Strategies for extremely defiant, aggressive, and disrespectful kiddos
Answer: When I start diving into finding strategies for solutions for these types of behavior, these are the 5 areas of need-roots I consider—in no particular order. Once I have taken a guess at what their need might be, I start designing interventions around that.
1) basic needs: clean, full tummy, food in the house, having a place to sleep, getting a good night sleep, being hydrated, having medical concerns treated, etc. Feeling like their physical health and well-being matter.
2) a sense of control: trying to gain power and influence within the relationships and experiences found within their environments. Feeling like their voice matters.
Our students want to know they matter– but how they accept that is different depending on what they need.
3) co-regulation: a person (or group of people) to model helpful regulation behaviors (I associate this with social-emotional and academics) and aware and communicative relationship dynamics. It’s modeling a sense that we not only have these skills, but that our social/academic well-being skills and the social/academic well-being of others matter, and that theirs is included. Kids watch everything we do. They learn so much from watching us.
4) safe connections: secure, trusting, and healthy relationships with adults, classmates, or family members where they feel like their experience and place within the environment is secure and matters.
5) neurodiversity’s: differences in the way brains react and respond to situations, that have been present from a young age and not caused by long-term trauma or stress. Examples: autism, learning disabilities, ADD, etc.
E-mail me with what you think their need root might be and I’ll re-answer this question! theteacherdresscode@gmail.com
Question: When you have many behaviors and they trigger each other.
Answer: I have done a whole class l lesson using domino’s before. I explain that’s how behavior is learned and how we each have different and unique needs. I model that sometimes when one of us gets knocked over, it knocks our classmates down too. Then, as a class, we talk about ways we can help keep each other up.
When there is a group of students, I will often pull them all together and discuss that each one of them is different, and explain that they don’t need the same thing. Like how 1 student might need breakfast in the morning because they don’t like their breakfast at home but the other loves breakfast at home and comes to school full… so when you give the first student breakfast in the morning and no one else, it’s not because you don’t want to give all the kids breakfast, they just don’t need it, because we all need different things.
The more we can develop students’ perspective taking skills and talk through their behaviors, the more likely we are to help them find an appropriate solution. I’ve found the most natural consequence is having to analyze their behavior and brainstorm their own ideas to solve it.
These are the guided tools I’ve created that help me address this very issue. I’m still on the path of discovery when finding what else works but once I do, I’ll share! Click here to download for free!
If you have any more questions– please leave them in the comments or send me an e-mail. I love talking about all things “behavior” <3
with kindness | ashley
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