Wearing Your Calm with Defiance in the Classroom

I’m sitting at my desk, during my planning, while one of my fifth graders is currently holding a timer in his hand sitting in the hallway. It’s been 16 days in a row of hour or longer tantrums. There might be a million things running thought your mind right now. Maybe you’re building connections to past experiences. Maybe you are thinking i’m patient, maybe even crazy. Today, one strategy worked that I had never tried before. Tomorrow, it might not work, but the next time, it could again. **a couple days later**

Every day is a new day is one of my core beliefs. That means that every single day I start the day with a fresh outlook. I refuse to hold on to things that happened the day before. I judge each first-of-the-day interaction with each student as if the day before was a walk in the park.

When I reached out on my instagram stories, I received over 100 messages from teachers describing complex behavioral challenges that have been arising in their classrooms. Most of these challenges involved working with defiant students. 

If you’re looking for in-the-moment strategies to change or stop behavior, then stop reading…

For kiddos who exhibit defiant behaviors, I don’t think those exist… BUT… there are strategies that supports that can, over time, remove defiance.

To prevent myself from fully giving my control over to the hands of my little ones that want it, I try to think and plan being positive, proactive and, preventive. 

For a little kick-off, here is a defiant behavior resource that was created using information from The Behavior Code, also know as a behavior teachers, behavior bible. *Thanks Kalene for the name change*

Wooh! That was a lot of jargon over-flow! If you’re having challenges with any student in your class, these are my go-to’s that, within a couple weeks, alleviate a lot of the behavior i’m experiencing.

Morning Connection

Before I teach any academic or behavioral content with my students, I make sure I connect with each of my students. When experiencing behavioral challenges in our classrooms, it’s important to build a sense of belonging and community for our most vulnerable students. I’ve had a variety of different connecting experiences from when I co-taught 6th grade block, to pushing-in to elementary classrooms, and leading small groups. In all settings, in my experience, a students behavior can fully derail without a genuine and warm connection upon starting the school day. My favorite ways to connect with students in the morning are:

1. “What is one thing you are excited about today?” This helps me gage where their emotions and feelings may be. Sometimes I get the, “Nothing!” response and follow-up by asking if there’s anything I can do at school to create some excitement. Sometimes they will give me something and sometimes they wont. If I receive my kiddos typical defiance response of, “You are stupid. School is stupid” I will usually tell them I’m going to try and even if I fail, I will keep trying. I will immediately walk away after that.
2. Personalized notes, on any form of paper, have been one of my favorite ways to build a connection with very defiant students. I swear, if they come in having a bad weekend or bad night, and I’m all bright and bubbly all up in their business, the chances of a desk being shoved increase. During longer weekends or holidays, I will often write little notes and leave it on their desks, and wait for them to connect with me.
3. Door greetings! This was my absolutely favorite when I had an actual class and not just groups. We would greet the students at the store with a funny question, secret-handshake, or dance move!

It is so hard to have 5 positive interactions to 1 negative interactions with our students, making having a positive morning connection, that more important for all of our students. Mornings are totally chaotic, but, there’s a high chance your day will be less chaotic, with positive morning connections for all, but especially, your students who are communicating defiantly.

Embedding Choice

I don’t know who are bigger control freaks: us or our defiant students… hence why power struggles usually don’t end well for anyone. Most research points to defiant students are often seeking control in their life, making control the unmet need. If we want to decrease negative behavior and increase positive behavior, we have to help that student meet their need.

I do this by embedding choice within assignments and our classroom environment. For example, last year, I had 5 students who refused to do ANY classwork in ANY setting. I had these wonderful and engaging culturally relevant lessons planned out and each time the papers ended up on the ground.

I decided to create a list of all the literacy options that I felt, met some sort of learning objective. In the form of a word-sort, I presented the options to the student and asked him to sort out his favorite 5.  We glued them on a piece of paper and that was the start of our literacy journey. I’m not even kidding– they do about 95% of the classwork I assign them, without choices, now. Using a choice board is definitely more of a tier 2/tier 3 support, but if you have students who are refusing to do ANY classwork, I definitely think you should try!

A little tip– be proactive about embedding choices to start with and not after you’ve realized they’re not doing what you want. If they’re embedded, you still have the control. These are my favorite ways to embed choice in all learning environments:

1. Choice Boards– can be used in all settings! Click here for an example 🙂
2. Allowing multiple ways to answer a question. On worksheets, I will put a little box for “write my answer” or “tell my answer to a friend or teacher.”
3. Flexible seating– it gives kids control in their environment
4. Teach the skill, give different choices for application. For math: worksheet or ixl/dreambox? For reading: newsela article or story book? For writing: different prompt options, pencil or pen, write or type

Social-Emotional Learning

If you haven’t read my social-emotional learning post, you can read it here! It touches on a lot of my favorite resources that would address a wide-range of tier 1 behaviors that were shared. Social-emotional learning is so important for all students. I hope there have been a lot of Sanford Harmony Kits Requested. For students who have difficulty with decision making, regulating emotions, or problem solving, I would recommend trying some of the following resources:

Calming Kit and Strategies – Great for students who are disrupting the classroom environment by blurting-out, being out of their seat, leaving without asking, emotional dis-regulation, or “bully” like characteristics. When you download this resource, there is more explanation. This resource also includes: self-regulation sheets, taking responsibility sheets, and data tracking.

Emotion Sort – Helpful activity for students who have a difficult time processing their emotions, responses, and what’s causing their reaction. After I’ve completed this sort, I will move on to my control activity. My Circle of Control Sort

My Thermometer– Great emotional-regulation tool for all students. Creating a thermometer helps students build self-awareness around their feelings, thoughts, and emotions. It provides common language for our students to express how they are feeling and what they need, before blowing up.

Behavior concerns addressed: aggression, tantrums, work-refusal, anxiety, and disrespect.

Up next: impulsive behaviors

I can’t wait to hear what strategies you’ve tried and which ones you are having success with!