Fundamental Supports for Successful Behavior Intervention

Ever found yourself in the middle of behavioral chaos, wondering where it all went wrong? In this episode, we create a "cheat sheet" for initial behavior intervention with strategies to support students without pulling them away from the classroom prematurely.

Mentioned in this episode:
ChildMind Institute's Hierarchy of Behavioral Techniques

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Transcript

Steph Johnson: 0:07

Hey there, school counselor, do you ever feel like behavior issues on your campus are just throwing you for a loop? There are things happening but you're not really sure how to address them, how you can intervene, or you feel like counseling just isn't getting the job done. That's a terrible thing to say on a school counseling podcast, but I'm here to tell you. I think sometimes there are some pieces that we miss in this big puzzle, and so in this episode of the podcast, we're gonna walk through some of those missing elements. They're things you already know about but so often overlook, and I think they will help you not only feel more in control of your work, but they're also going to help your students feel more successful, more confident and more able to regulate themselves. Hey, I'm so glad you've joined me this week and I will make a little confession. This may be a quick podcast episode. I'm recording it on the fly. At the last minute.

Steph Johnson: 1:10

We had a lovely snow day here in Texas, which doesn't happen often, so I took full advantage and had a little bit of extra free time this weekend, added to the big Super Bowl. I just watched the Super Bowl halftime show it reminded me that I'm getting older and then sat down to record this podcast episode for you and, as I said, this information is likely things you already know, but perhaps, if forgotten, perhaps they slip your mind in the heat of the moment, or perhaps you just need a little bit different framework to look at when we're dealing with behavior concerns in the classroom. I had the pleasure of attending one of my state school counseling conferences this past week. It was a wonderful way to kick off National School Counseling Week and one of the keynote speakers was Johnny Quinn. Johnny Quinn was the bobsledder that got logged in his bathroom at one set of the Olympic Games I can't remember which one, but and all around amazing athlete, was an Olympian, had a little bit of a football career going all kinds of things, and one of the things that he said just been passing really stuck with me. He was talking about football players and how much money they make, which is appropriate as I'm recording on Super Bowl Sunday, and he said the funny thing is these guys are paid these exorbitant amounts of money to play this game and really, nine times out of 10, they're running plays that we all learned in the eighth grade. The only difference is they know how to do them really really well and really consistently, and that stuck with me.

Steph Johnson: 2:57

It made me think about you and all of the things that we approach in our day, all the things we have to tackle and how having those fundamentals down, not having to reinvent the wheel every time a concern comes up, is really gonna be helpful in our work. Now, if they would only pay us a million dollars to do it right, wouldn't that be? That would be incredible, anyway, so when we have situations with students pop up on campus, when folks start looking to us for support, I think there are some fundamentals that we can suggest before anything starts heading up to tier two and tier three interventions. Sometimes we forget those basics and often those need to happen in the classrooms, which means we have to be good mentors for our teachers, we have to be great advisors and we have to learn how to give feedback delicately but directly, and that's an art, for sure. But let me just walk you through some of the things I think we often miss because we're so ready to jump in to help, to try to fix things, even though we know that's not our role. If you've been listening to the podcast, you know I'm a helper, I'm not a fixer, but we are primed and ready to jump in. We wanna make a difference and so we often neglect these fundamentals that could perhaps be making everyone's jobs a little bit easier. So I think, first we need to be looking at routines on campus and we need to be looking at routines in the classrooms. Are students being given warnings of time left to transition? Are they being warned when they only have 10 minutes left for an assignment, five minutes left until it's time to go, whatever it is? Some kiddos really need those reminders of time left for tasks. It helps them feel in control, it helps them feel like they know what's coming up next and it helps them manage their time.

Steph Johnson: 5:05

Positive behavior expectations in the classrooms that are specific None of these. I will be a good classmate. I will show respect, I will show responsibility. Those are great, but they're not specific. What are these specific positive behavior elements at play in each of the classrooms that they visit each day? Are teachers in those classes planning ahead? Are they prepared for their work? Is there a lot of downtime as they maneuver technology, as they find the things, as they hand out papers, or is everything prepped, streamlined and ready to go? More downtime provides more opportunity for misbehavior right.

Steph Johnson: 5:52

Are students being provided with two option choices? So often we want to say something like I need you to get to work on this, or it's time to get busy, when what we really need to be doing is giving two option choices, or when then and those are not just for elementary-aged students Schools can work well into middle school and high school for students and again, I know that you know these things, but it just bears repeating because these are things we often forget. Do we have good routines in place? Are we giving transition warnings? Do we have positive and specific behavior expectations at play? Have the teachers planned ahead and prepared Not only their lessons and materials, but have they planned ahead for behavior interventions? Are we giving options when possible? These are all important elements to put into play when we're struggling with behavior in the classroom Then. Are we positively attending to students? Are we talking through coping skills with them? Are we focusing on the behaviors we want rather than the behaviors we don't want?

Steph Johnson: 7:08

I see this a lot in schools where we have teachers that sort of get stuck on the misbehavior errors and those are the only things they can see. It's like their radar is constantly scanning for when is this going to go wrong? I'm waiting. When's the other shoe going to drop, when really we ought to be scanning for the opportunities to positively recognize students. Sometimes that goes a long way and we know it takes many positives to erase one negative comment. So if students are getting negatives throughout most of their day, they're going to come away beaten down. They're going to come away feeling why even try, nobody likes me, it doesn't even matter anyway. So these are some things that you can watch for. You can help model in classrooms to really get teachers on board with being proactive in classroom behavior concerns.

Steph Johnson: 8:06

Another thing that can really help us go far in this behavior game is making sure that the instructions given are clear and straightforward. Teachers need to give instructions that are very clear. Get your worksheet from yesterday out of your blue folder and in that directive. It is straightforward, it is clear and it is also a one-step direction. How many times have you walked in your classrooms and heard teachers give these long strings of expectations where you feel like you have no idea what to do by the time they get finished? I often hear this even as young as kindergarten, hearing teachers say okay, when we get to the classroom you're going to go in, you're going to put your lunchbox away, put on your jacket, put your snack on your desk and then line up for recess. Holy smokes, y'all. That's a lot to remember and that doesn't only affect five-year-olds, that affects everyone. We need to make sure that our directions are one at a time, let's leave no room for question, let's make sure everybody is on the same page and, if at all possible, we need to really encourage our folks to avoid again those negative comments throughout the day. No, don't stop instead of providing a positive feedback. Thanks for sitting in your chair. Now turn around and face the front of the classroom. Different approach, and again, these are things that you already know. I'm not trying to blow your minds here, but I do want to remind you of the fundamentals.

Steph Johnson: 9:51

So often we are called to go into classrooms to really help and identify what's going on. If someone's asked you to go in to do, you know, a behavior evaluation or a behavioral observation. Personally, these are the things I'm looking for. First, are there routines? Are there transition warnings? Is everything planned ahead? Are choices offered? Are positive coping skills modeled and talked about? Are they talked about when the student is not escalated? That's an important piece of that puzzle. Is the teacher or the professional in the room focusing on the behavior they want to see, with clear and straightforward instructions that are given one at a time? Other things that may help, things like visual schedules, itineraries for the classroom for your older students, so that everyone knows what's coming up next. Everyone understands the expectation and how class is going to proceed that day. That sense of safety can be profound for so many of our students and it only takes a few minutes to have that up. So super, super important.

Steph Johnson: 11:05

And then, once we have all of those things down, once we have things humming along smoothly, things are rolling pretty well and we're still not seeing the results from the student's side of things that we want to see. That's when we can start looking toward some more intensive behavioral interventions. Maybe things like reward systems, behavior plans, consequences for misbehavior. All of those things can come later, but at the beginning we need to be sure that we have the fundamentals in place, and this is everywhere. This is in English and math and world history and athletics and music, anywhere they go. We need to make sure these components are in place. All right, I hope that was helpful to you. I'm going to link to something called the Behavior Hierarchy from the Child Mind Institute. If you are familiar with their work, I loosely adapted this podcast episode based on that, but I do want to make sure I'm giving them credit for their work so you can find that link in the show notes if you're interested in following up.

Steph Johnson: 12:16

And in the meantime I just encourage you not to go jumping into battle instantaneously. Give your teachers time and latitude to jump in. That's not to say you can't provide counseling in tandem with these things, but it's extremely difficult to implement things in the counseling room and have them generalize to the rest of the school campus if we don't have all of the rest of our folks on board. So hopefully that gave you some food for thought as you walk through your week this week. Hope it gave you some things to chew on, perhaps some things to list out. Make yourself a little cheat sheet of all the steps that you might start with before you start getting serious with more intensive interventions. We want to make this least restrictive for all students. We don't want to be pulling them for counseling if they don't need it. If we can provide these supports in the classrooms instead. That is definitely the best way to go. Alright, I'll be back soon with another episode of the School for School Counselors podcast. In the meantime, I hope you have the best week. Y'all take care.