Ep. 69: Catch Them First — 3 Proven Ways to Prevent Misbehavior Before It Starts

Every teacher has that moment when they realize—“ugh, I missed it.” The chance to redirect before things spiraled. In this week’s episode, Audra and Caitlin flip the classic “Catch Them Being Good” idea into something even more powerful: Catch Them First. They share three simple, proactive strategies you can use to prevent behavior issues before they happen—so you spend less time reacting and more time connecting.

🔑 Key Takeaways
• Catch Them First: Don’t wait for misbehavior—frontload support and reinforcement before problem moments arise.
• Prime Your Students: Use pre-corrections or positive greetings to set expectations early.
• Be Specific: Genuine, detailed praise helps students know exactly what behavior to repeat.
• Timing Is Everything: Immediate reinforcement makes connections stronger and behaviors stick.
• Small Wins Matter: Even subtle acknowledgments (“Great job being ready!”) build trust and consistency over time.

📦 Resources & Links
• Related Episode: Ep. 68: 5 Quick De-Escalation Tips for Teachers → https://abainschool.com/ep68yt
• Related Episode: Ep. 57: The Crisis Cycle → https://abainschool.com/ep57
• Free Visual: De-Escalation Strategy Visual → https://abainschool.com/mja5

🤝 Join Us
💬 Share what you “caught first” this week in our Misfit Behaviorists Facebook Group → https://abainschool.com/misfits
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📢 Tag us when you try these proactive tips in your classroom—we love hearing your wins!

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• Caitlin | Beltran’s Behavior Basics
• Sami | B.A.S.S.

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Transcript

Ep. 69: Catch Them First — 3 Proven Ways to Prevent Misbehavior Before It Starts 

[00:00:00] Caitlin: if you have a learner who's constantly blurting out during your morning meeting, for example, maybe you're gonna greet that learner to your circle with some positive reinforcement or pre correction, whatever you wanna call it. "Hey, you, I love how you're ready to share today. You're gonna raise your hand and do a great job." 

[00:00:16] Intro: Welcome to the Misfit Behaviorist Podcast. Join your hosts, Audra Jensen and Caitlin Beltran here to bring you evidence-based strategies with a student-centered focus. Let's get started.

[00:00:28] Caitlin: Hey everybody. Welcome back to the Misfit Behaviorists. Today we are talking about, well, you've heard about Catch Them Being Good. I kinda wanna flip it into three little words, "catch them first." So basically, why wait for the behavior to start? We don't wanna fall behind. Let's get ahead of it. So I'm gonna offer three tips on how to do this. So I'm gonna jump right in.

[00:00:48] Tip number one is you wanna prime your student. So too often we are waiting until misbehavior shows up to respond. And I know we talked about this last week with deescalation and obviously we can't catch everything. We're going to have episodes of escalation and behaviors and things like that. But if we can catch students before it happens, we can set that stage for success. So an example being if you have a learner who's constantly blurting out during your morning meeting, for example, maybe you're gonna greet that learner to your circle with some positive reinforcement or pre correction, whatever you wanna call it. "Hey, you, I love how you're ready to share today. You're gonna raise your hand and do a great job." Audra, do you have anything similar, like a time you've caught a student being good even before the behavior started?

[00:01:32] Audra: I was just thinking about how much we've been talking about this lately and how important that catching things before, that prevention, the pre correction, all that stuff is so important 'cause none of us like that feeling in a situation where like, we've missed the opportunity to do that and now we have to deal with the aftermath. It's like, that's right. I was like, oh crap. Not again. Those are learning experiences though. You know, when you find yourself in that crisis moment. That's why it's so important to debrief afterwards with any staff who is involved in that. So how can we fix that so that we can go back to what you're talking about, that prevention, that catch it first, anything you can do beforehand is just vital 'cause nobody likes going home at the end of the day, all sweaty and I mean, I get all like drenched and nasty after one of those episodes and I'm like, okay, what did I do wrong in that situation? How could I have helped prevent that situation from happening? I think that's really important to think about.

[00:02:28] Caitlin: My colleague and I always used to say, and we both knew, we didn't know we were each doing this for years before we mentioned it one day, when you go home on your drive home, and she was like, it's one of those days where I didn't turn the radio on. I didn't put a song on. It was just silent the entire way. I was like, "oh my God, you do that too."

[00:02:44] Audra: And just like the students, they get overstimulated. So when we're in those situations just like that, we're overstimulated. We've gone past that moment of calm and now we have to reel it back in and kind of recapture our own situation.

[00:02:57] Caitlin: Exactly. So leading into tip number two, and that's just using genuine specific praise. Really the key to me is being specific. These learners need to know exactly what behavior you're reinforcing, because chances are these learners, they're doing many things great and they're doing many things not so great each day. So we wanna be really specific and intentional with our praise. And so if we're just throwing out these kind of like, "Hey you, great job. Nice to see you," that's great, but we're not really doing it right.

[00:03:26] Audra: I was thinking so like your husband's done the dishes, right? And you walk in, and you're just like, "good job." No, but if you go and say, "oh my gosh, thank you so much for doing the dishes, that meant so much to me." It's such a difference than "good job."

[00:03:39] Caitlin: So different, so different. So again, just silly little examples. Like, you have that learner who every time they have to fill out their worksheet, it's like, "oh, where's my pencil? I dropped it. I can't find it." It's like, "Hey, whoa. Thanks for having your pencil ready. Look at you." You know, instead of just, "nice job. Here we go. Good job." I don't know. Do you think this is something we overthink or do you think it really is intentional with really noticing those, those exact right moments?

[00:04:05] Audra: I like that you're putting this in kind of the pre correction stuff, that we can make that praise in the preventative stage and not just the after stage. It's like, "I saw that you are getting all your stuff together perfectly today." Frontloading, those compliments and that reinforcement even before situations happen. You're reinforcing the behavior that prevents the crisis after.

[00:04:27] Caitlin: I feel like I use this with my old son a lot when, so I'm like, "all right, let's go," and he starts getting ready as opposed to the ninth time asking, i'm like, " let me just take a minute and tell you how mature you're acting this summer. I can see a major difference these last few months." And like the dishes example, just, "oh, this is different and new." Like I, I'm taking this seriously because I'm being so intentional with it. So that's the hope. Anyway, that's the goal.

[00:04:49] And so tip number three is just that timing is everything. We know the research speaks for itself is frequent, genuine reinforcement predicts the positive outcomes, but that timing really does matter. We wanna catch them first or as early as possible and that's what flips the trajectory. The longer we wait, the less it's gonna connect. Use any of the examples we've done so far, the dishes two weeks later, like, "oh, I think you did the dishes last week and I forgot to tell you." Like what? Like no one's paying attention. We've moved on. So just that really quick, intentional word of encouragement, reinforcement before that behavior derails can really change your next 20 minutes, your next work session, your next morning session.

[00:05:32] Audra: I think there's something to be said too, like that gentle touch, just walking by a student and just a tap on the shoulder or something that makes that connection and that happens before behaviors. Like you see somebody doing something that is normally hard for them, give 'em a little tap on the shoulder. It doesn't always have to be verbal. It can just be, you know, soft, gentle hug.

[00:05:51] Caitlin: I love that you pointed out that specific example too, because thinking of a learner who always had a hard time at lunch and he always wanted to like, "and I'm getting ice cream, right?" Like, he never had money so it was always like a big to do. So sometimes if he didn't have a problem at lunch, everyone would sort of go, "it's fine, everything's good, everything's good." And we would be like afraid to rock the boat and say anything. But like really it's so important to acknowledge that moment. Even if it was just a little " Hey, what a great lunch today. You're coming so far" or something like that. So make sure we're not holding our breath and crossing our fingers and waiting for it to be over. We really do wanna acknowledge those little moments, which are big moments for our guys.

[00:06:25] So I guess the challenge being, just thinking about before that misbehavior even starts, beat it to the punch. Yes, catch them being good, but also catch them first. Like, what can you catch first today? What can you catch first this week? So maybe try it this week. Pick one specific thing to be really intentional about and let us know. What happens in your classroom? Hop into our Facebook group, the Misfit Behaviorist podcast. We'll start a discussion post on this, but feel free to share what you've shared and let us know, and otherwise we'll be back with the new topic next week.

[00:06:56] Intro: Thanks for listening to the Misfit Behaviorists, and be sure to tune in next week for more tips and tricks. Don't forget to subscribe so you don't miss an episode.