Essential Child Guidance Skills for Teachers -Disciplining

1. From the Psychoeducation forTeachers Series

2.  In psychoeducation, we believe that the classroom atmosphere or
affective tone facilitates or interferes with students’ learning.Teachers
consider managing student behavior to be equally one of our greatest
challenges and greatest skill deficits, many times unaware of how our
own behavior, what we say and do in the classroom, affects students’
behaviors.
 A teacher trained in child guidance understands that teacher behavior
strongly influences student behavior, often contributing to a classroom
climate that inadvertently fosters and creates disruptive behaviors. In
other words, teachers’ behaviors and overall classroom atmosphere can
accentuate and maintain classroom discipline problems, rather than
managing and solving discipline problems.
 Children too influence the behavior of teachers, creating exasperation
and frustration that we may reveal to the disruptive student through our
body language, low expectations, and negative messages.

3.  Many teachers find it difficult to handle and to react skillfully to
habitually disruptive students, which is understandable when we
take into consideration that most teachers feel they lack adequate
training in the prevention and intervention tools they need to stop
recurrent behavior problems. When we feel unsure of our ability to
manage habitually disruptive behaviors, we may overreact,
escalating minor disturbances into major ones, and
overemphasizing on behavior control and domination rather than
collaboration and problem solving.
 When managing habitually disruptive students, key questions for
teachers to answer honestly are:
o Does the way I interact with this student create misbehavior?
o How am I contributing to this child’s behavior?
o How am I sustaining this negative relationship?

4. Teachers need to be vigilant of
affective and interactional factors
that may fuel inappropriate
behaviors in the classroom such as…

5.  Creating on-the-spot penalties for
misbehavior rather than developing and
discussing consequences for negative
behavior with students before problem
behaviors happen. Students need to know
the consequences for misbehavior in
advance.

6.  Describing inappropriate behavior
rather than appropriate behavior, e.g.,
saying, “Stop playing with that pencil!”
rather than “Please hand me the pencil.”

7.  Using too many “stop” messages (e.g., “Stop
talking”) and not enough “start” messages.
Compliance is easier when we tell the child
what to start doing rather than telling the
child to stop a behavior.

8.  Giving negative directions that tell the student
what not to do (e.g., “Do not hit,” “Do not make
noises,” or “Do not color on the desk”) rather
than using positive wording that gives the
student an alternative and tells the student what
he can do to fix the inappropriate behavior. For
example, “Try hitting this toy if you feel angry”
or “You can color on this paper, not on your
desk.”The student may be willing to change his
behavior if he receives a good suggestion
(alternative behavior) of what to do instead.

9.  Using name-calling (e.g., “What a baby
you are!”), put-downs (e.g., “You are just
lazy” or “You better clean your act
because I have had it with your
behavior”), and/or threats (e.g., “You are
going to get it if you keep that up!”).

10.  Using aggressive “you” messages that
criticizes the child’s character or
personality, for example, “You have no
respect of anyone” or “You just never
use your head.”

11.  Using criticism that is permanent (e.g., “You are always
messing up” or “You never listen”), global (e.g., “Cindy is so
shy” or “Daniel is such a troublemaker!”), and/or internal
(e.g., “You kids are so selfish”).
 Constructive criticism is specific and behavioral, describing
the student’s actions or behaviors; negative criticism is
judgmental and concentrates on blaming the child for her
behavior and in finding faults in the child’s character.
 When criticizing a student with recurrent behavior
problems, we need to communicate our basic acceptance
of the child even when we disapprove of the behavior.
Simply put, we describe the student’s behavior as not
acceptable, not the student’s identity or character.

12.  Not giving choices to the student, for
example, “Either complete your work quietly
or go to the time out area for five minutes.”
With students with chronic behavior
problems, one effective child guidance
technique is to give the student two choices,
and asking the child which of the two choices
he is willing to do.

13.  Using vague commands, for example, “Knock
it off!” or “You need to fix your behavior.”
Effective commands are descriptive, and in
fifteen words or less tell the child what you
expect him to do to comply, for example,
“Pick up all the books from the tables and put
them on the shelves.”
 Do not expect instant compliance, and give
the student a period of five to ten seconds to
comply with the command.

14.  Using a very loud, fast pace of speech rather than turning
down the voice volume, dropping the pitch and using a
soft but firm voice (voice control technique). Remember
that how we say things add significantly to what we say.
 We can train ourselves to react appropriately to recurrent
disruptive behaviors by reciting a daily self-message until
the self-message becomes automatic to us, for example,
“I will remember to lower my tone and voice volume and
to speak more slowly. I am going to send an ‘I’ message to
this student, for example, ‘I am having difficulty handling
your behavior right now.We will discuss your behavior
later.’ ”

15.  Refusing to compromise with the
student, for example, “When you sit
on your chair, I will show you the
next activity,” or using the “When
you…, then I…” format.

16.  Failing to reinforce the student’s
compliance with the teacher’s
appreciation.

17. Focusing on what the teacher
wants and needs rather than
on what the student wants
and needs.

18. Focusing on the teacher’s
feelings while ignoring the
student’s feelings.

19.  Focusing on the student’s
weaknesses and negative behaviors
rather than focusing on those
strengths and positive attributes
that can help the child reduce
inappropriate behaviors.

20.  Bringing up old issues and
reminding the student of past
problems or negative behaviors
rather than focusing exclusively
on the here and now.

21.  Communicating low expectations regarding
the student’s behavior, and making negative
comments (e.g., “Here you go again…”).
Positive comments and encouragement are
scarce.
 Behavioral expectations may be unclear to
students, or the teacher does not enforce
rules and expectations fairly and consistently.

22. Trying to dominate the
student rather than
collaborating with the
student.

23.  Mirroring the student’s behaviors, for example,
yelling or being sarcastic.Teachers must avoid
reacting in a counter-aggressive way to
students’ aggressive and acting-out behaviors.
 With students with recurrent behavior
problems, it is extremely important that the
teacher appears stable, relaxed, calmed,
supportive, and able to establish structure.
 The external structure that the teacher provides
should help shifting the student from acting-out
and aggressive behaviors to mutual problem
solving.

24.  Failing to recognize the need to listen empathetically to a
student’s concern and troubled feelings rather than
responding negatively and acting defensively.
 An empathetic listener puts himself “in the child’s shoes”
and tries to understand the child’s behavior from the
child’s point of view, not from the teacher’s point of view.
An empathetic listener does not judge the child’s behavior
in terms of good or bad, right or wrong.
 An empathetic listener asks, “What is the need (social
and/or emotional) behind this behavior that this child
believes will be met by acting this way?” (Mahony, 2003)
The answer to this question helps the teacher guide the
student in problem solving and in finding alternative
behaviors to satisfy the child’s social and emotional needs.

25.  Mahony,T. (2003). Words work! How to
change your language to improve behaviour in
your classroom. Carmarthen,Wales: Crown
House.

26. Enhancing the communication pathway
between the teacher and the hard-to-
handle or troubled student enables the
teacher to say “just the right words” to
create the supportive and facilitative
atmosphere the child so badly needs

27.  FACEBOOK PAGES AND
GROUPS
 PSYCHOEDUCATION FOR
TEACHERS (Page)
 https://www.facebook.com/p
sychoeducationalteacher
 FREE OR CHEAPTEACHING
RESOURCES (Page)
 https://www.facebook.com/fr
eeresourcesforteachers/
 WETEACHTHEWORLD
(Group)
 https://facebook.com/groups
/222247571474300
 BOOKS IN CHILD GUIDANCE
 THE PSYCHOEDUCATIONAL
TEACHER
 https://www.amazon.com/aut
hor/thepsychoeducationaltea
cher/