Behavior management in your self-contained classroom
Do you want to know the most interesting Valentine’s Day present I got from a student? I’ll show you:
A flipped over desk which forced me to tidy the stacks of paper, sticky notes, broken toys, missing toy parts that had been scattered all over my desk.
I had two reactions immediately–I was shocked that J., a third grader, was able to pull the desk down like that and I was grateful that he didn’t smash his toes or anyone else’s body parts.
Then I needed to make a choice about what to do next. Would I put J. in a time-out? Would I make him help me clean everything up? Would I send him outside with his behavior assistant?
That all depends on why he did what he did. Fortunately, in this case, I knew exactly why he did it. He had gotten stressed out because something out of the ordinary had happened that morning.
Earlier that day…
Since it was Valentine’s Day, some kids from the high-school class that met upstairs had made Valentine’s for my students. Two of them came to deliver those Valentine’s.
J. was not having it. He did not appreciate their interruption of Calendar time.
However, he only expressed a little frustration by doing his characteristic finger-jab on the desk. Toward the end of Calendar time, after the girls had been gone at least 10 minutes, something else–I don’t remember what–happened that was the last straw, so he ran over to my desk and pulled hard on the back of it until the whole thing tipped over.
So because I knew that he was stressed out and was just trying to express his frustration, I told his behavior aide to take him aside to sit on a beanbag chair and cool off. I did not put him in time-out or make him clean up my stuff. That would have served only to make him more frustrated.
Why is behavior management important?
Behavior management can help you prevent situations like a massive desk flip-over. In a self-contained classroom this is especially important because one student’s behavior can be very disruptive and possibly dangerous to the whole class.
- Behavior is communication. I didn’t fully understand J.’s communication to me, so I didn’t prevent the big mess and potential toe-smashing.
- Behavior management helps students feel safe. They know that you will consistently deal with behaviors so they feel that they are safe from other students and safe from their own misjudgments. Believe it or not, J. didn’t want to turn the desk over; he felt like that was his only option to communicate.
- Behavior management helps students focus on academics. When they feel regulated, when they feel that you are understanding what they are communicating, they are able to focus on their learning.
Why understand why?
If you understand why behavior happens, you will know how to respond. When J. flipped over my desk, I knew that I needed to have compassion toward him, not respond by putting him in time-out or making him clean everything up.
If you don’t understand why behavior happens, you risk escalating the behavior and creating a worse situation. You also demonstrate to the student that you don’t understand them.
(See my other blog posts on behavior.)
So why do students behave inappropriately?
There are four main reasons for most behavior.
- Escape: The student wants to get out of doing something or get away from a situation, setting or person.
- Attention: They want attention from an adult or from a peer.
- Tangible: They want to access a physical item. This could be food, drink, a toy or any other item.
- Sensory: The last one can be a bit harder to understand. It is sensory stimulation. This is like when you feel fidgety and you start bouncing your knee. Other sensory needs that could be at play are hunger, thirst, feeling hot or cold, or sleepiness.
Depending on the reason, there are various behavior interventions you can use to redirect students to appropriate behavior.
Step 1: Prevent inappropriate behavior from “working”
We want to show students that inappropriate behavior will not “work.” It will not get them what they want. These are the equations we need to teach students:
Appropriate behavior = get what you want
Inappropriate behavior = don’t get what you want
In the example I gave of J., he was anxious and wanted to escape the stressful situation. If it had been attention seeking, I could have put him in time-out so he would not get attention. If it has been to access something (a tangible) on my desk, I could have also put him in time-out. It would probably not be appropriate in any case to make him pick it up because that would serve to grant him escape from work, give him attention and give him access to things on my desk.
Step 2: Teaching appropriate behavior
When students want or need something, they do whatever they can to try to get it. Our job is to teach them appropriate ways to get good things out of life!
We all have wants and needs and I love giving my students what they need, when they request it appropriately! That’s why I always focus on positive behavior strategies because students are just trying to communicate and they may choose inappropriate ways to do so. (see High-Leverage Practice 9: Teach Social Behaviors)
Antecedent Strategies for Behavior Management
One of best ways to prevent behavior is an evidence-based practice called antecedent-based intervention. It involves eliminating the need for problem behavior.
Environmental set-up can help your students focus on what they need to do without getting distracted by other stimuli.
- Put only items that are needed for the activities that happen in each area.
- The furniture in the classroom may divide up the room to let students know where they need to be during different activities.
- You can use visual cues (like a visual schedule) or auditory cues (like a chime or song) to let students know what activity will be happening next.
If you want to see how you’re doing with setting up your class for success, download the Classroom Audit. See how you score in ten different areas!
After you take a look at the audit checklist, let me know how you did!
If you are ready to take your knowledge and pass it on to your classroom staff, check out this simple presentation on the Functions of Behavior that you can use for staff training:
