Individualized Discipline That Works

We use a simple animal story to show why one-size-fits-all teaching fails and why kids need to be seen for their strengths. I walk through why students misbehave, how to spot what motivates them, and how faith and wisdom can guide a calm, consistent discipline plan.
• the moral of individualized instruction and recognizing achievement fairly 
• core behavior principles like habits reinforcement and escalation before improvement 
• primary needs and social needs that can trigger misbehavior 
• checking my classroom management style for reactive versus proactive patterns 
• teaching procedures expectations and group work skills to prevent problems 
• Dreikurs social discipline and the drive to belong 
• four mistaken goals behind behavior: attention power revenge helplessness 
• using my own feelings as cues to diagnose student goals 
• how special education and home stress can mix multiple behavior goals 
• skillstreaming as direct teaching of missing social skills 
• using rating scales baseline data intervention plans and consistency 
• seeking the Lord for wisdom and showing kindness in discipline 

If you have ideas for future episodes or questions you'd like me to explore, you can reach me anytime at admin at educatemewell.com and be sure to keep an eye on educatemewell.com.

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Transcript

Welcome And A School Parable

Tonya 0:04

Welcome to Educate Me Well, the podcast that brings faith and education together. Hi, I'm Tonya, and I'm so glad you're here. Once upon a time, the animals decided that they must do something heroic to meet the problems of a new world. So they organized a school. They adopted an activity curriculum consisting of running, climbing, swimming, and flying. To make it easier to administer the curriculum, it was decided that all of the animals should take all of the subjects. The rabbit, at the top of the class in running, had a nervous breakdown because of so much makeup work in swimming. What a climber the squirrel was, until he developed frustration in the flying class, where his teacher insisted that he start from the ground up instead of from the treetop down. The eagle was indeed a problem. He beat all the others to the top of the trees in the climbing class. However, he insisted on using his own way to get there. The duck was excellent in swimming, in fact, far better than his instructor. But he was very poor in running. He had to remain after school and drop swimming in order to practice running. He kept this up until his feet were badly worn, and he was only average in swimming. But average was acceptable in school, so nobody worried except the duck.

The Case For Individual Instruction

Tonya 1:54

As you can imagine, the moral of this short little story is that instruction has to be individualized, or that we have to recognize the achievements of all individuals on their level. And so when we're talking about our topic today , which is discipline for children, we have to recognize the needs and abilities of each child. The Bible tells us in Proverbs 22:6 that "If we will train up a child in the way he should go, even when he is old he will not depart from it."

Misbehavior Always Has A Reason

Tonya 2:35

In order to train up children, well, we have to know why they misbehave when we need to apply discipline. And so we have to think about human behavior. And some of those principles of human behavior we know are that all behavior has a reason. People don't do things just because. They do things because of a reason. And they may not know what the reason is. It may be just in the back of their head, or they may be acting out of habit, but all behavior has a reason. And there's a reason why people and children act the way that they do. All behavior is movement. Something's gonna happen. All movement causes permanent habits. They can either go forward or they can go backward, they can do well or not do well. And then no habit is sustained if it loses its benefits. So we know that if children have a reason to misbehave, if it's reinforced, then they're gonna continue to do that. And then when changing negative behavior, it's always going to get worse before getting better. It just takes work.

Needs That Drive Student Choices

Tonya 3:58

If we think about it, everyone has major needs, and I guess we would call them primary needs that they have every day. We all have them as humans. And so if we think about children, we have to think about those things first. The first things that will cause them to misbehave were if their main primary needs have not been met. And those primary needs are things like hunger, thirst, sexuality, air, rest. They want to escape from pain, or maybe they just need to eliminate waste. And then there are some other needs that kids have that aren't as important as the primary needs, but they are important to them. And so once the primary needs are met, we need to look at the child individually and say, are they an inquisitive child? Are there some things that they need to know? Maybe they're not acting up, maybe they just have some things that they would like to know, and they don't know how to go about asking for it. And then there is a need to associate with others. Some kids are more social than others, and they may have that need that they just got to talk. You know, they just got to be there and associate with somebody else. And then we'll go into some other needs here in a minute that when we go into the model of discipline that I'd like to talk to you about, then we'll go into that.

Reactive Versus Proactive Classroom Management

Tonya 5:46

But ask yourself, what is my management style? How do I manage my classroom? Am I reactive or am I proactive? I got this from a book called Classroom Discipline with a Christ-like touch. It's by David Reynolds, and kind of wanted to go over it with you just for a second because it's really important to see how you manage your classroom. Evaluate yourself and ask yourself, am I reactive or am I proactive? A reactive management style would focus just on discipline procedures and on intervention when infractions occur. And then they put their emphasis on consequences, on punishment for misbehavior, on rewards for good behavior. On the other hand, the proactive management style focuses on training children to work together in groups, on understanding what is expected in the classroom, what are the classroom norms, and then on prevention of misbehavior. And the emphasis would be on direct instruction of classroom and school procedures. So important. I cannot stress that enough. It is so important to teach procedures. And then also emphasizing modeling group work skills and then defining expectations and goals. All of that is so important. So ask yourself, which style am I? And we're going to talk about these things some more. I wanted to tell you though, I have seen, you know, my mentor teacher when I was in college. I was interning and I was getting ready to be a teacher. I had not gotten there yet. I was a student teacher and I was almost there. And she was a very eccentric, but a cool teacher. But she told me one time, she said, I am afraid of them. I'm afraid of the students. And don't ever let them get the upper hand. And so at times she could be very reactive and kind of mean to me. I thought it was just a little mean how she acted when a student challenged her. She just didn't know how to handle it, evidently. But otherwise, she was a very cool, very good teacher. And so, you know, it's really important to look at each student, even if you just have to sit down and just sit there and think about the student and what is motivating them. You know, ask yourself that. What is motivating them? And why are they acting the way they are acting? And what can I do about it?

Dreikurs And The Need To Belong

Tonya 8:46

There are so many different models of disciplining students. And I went back for this podcast episode and looked at one of the books that I had in college called Solving Discipline Problems by Charles Wolfgang. And it has just tons of discipline models that we studied. But the one I really like is the social discipline model of Rudolf Dreikurs. And the basic assumptions on or on motivation, you know, as I was saying earlier, sit down and think about what is motivating that child. He said that people are social beings and they desire to belong. And people are decision-making organisms, and all behavior is purposeful and directed towards social goals. People do not see reality as it is, but only as they perceive it to be. A person is a whole being who cannot be understood by some particular characteristics. A person's misbehavior is the result of faculty reasoning on how to gain social recognition. Dreikurs said there were four main subconscious goals that motivate most misbehavior. And that is attention getting, power and control, revenge, and helplessness or inadequacy. Sometimes students feel unable to gain attention or power, and they don't think they're equal to other people, and there may be things in their life going on that they don't have any control over, and they feel just that lack of control, and they may be hurting and unable to get what they need, and so they want power, they want to get it for themselves. And the fourth thing is helplessness or inadequacy. The student with this goal has given up on the possibility of being a member of or gaining any status in the group. And sometimes we've heard of learned helplessness, and sometimes that's what students do. They feel so unsuccessful that they just give up almost, you know, and don't even try. And sometimes they don't feel cared for, they don't feel equal to, or maybe they feel like they're being treated wrong, or or that they just can't do it. They're not able to. And so that is the fourth one. The way a teacher can determine, according to Dreikurs, how or which one of these that the student could possibly be working toward or feeling is the teacher needs to ask themselves, do I feel annoyed? And that would be someone, a student who is trying to get attention. Or do I feel beaten or intimidated? That would be because a student is trying to get power. Or ask yourself, do I feel wronged or hurt? And you might want to suspect revenge as a goal there from the student. Or the teacher could ask themselves, do I feel incapable of reaching this child? And if that's the case, then helplessness may be the goal of the child.

Reading Behavior In Real Classrooms

Tonya 13:15

And I really think, you know, thinking back in my years of teaching special education, and I know that sometimes students with special needs are different, and I'm going to talk to you about another discipline model that would help with some of the things that they deal with here in just a second. But when I think about, especially one student I had, he was so difficult, and actually had the gen ed teacher in tears at one point, and she got angry at me because I was just trying to help, you know, and you know, it was hard. It was hard on both of us. And so he had a mixture, I think, of several of those. And it's it's like he would go into one at one time, and then at another, he would go into another, and then into an another time, he would go into another. And it was just like sometimes he wanted attention, but a lot of times he wanted power, and it was because of his home situation. He just felt out of control that he didn't, he was not able to control the things that were happening to him and what had happened in the past, he was afraid of happening in the future again, and so he needed control, and at the same time, he wasn't getting the attention he needed, and so he needed some attention. And then he just didn't want to work a lot of times, and and it was because he was so far behind, he had a very good brain, but he was so far behind because of all the things that had happened to him in his life and the moving and the just the things that had happened to him. And so you can see he had some learned helplessness to a certain degree as well, and so sometimes students will go in between these different situations. And so you have to stay on top of your toes and just think about what's going on right now at the moment at this time, and how can I help? I will say it doesn't do you any good to know what is involved in different models of thinking as far as discipline is concerned, if you don't know how to solve it or how to ask the right questions and apply the right solutions to the problem. There are a lot of different models out there for learning how to discipline children, but you just have to go by what your management style is and what you feel comfortable with, and work at it and work that model and learn how to do it, and you'll become good at it over time.

Skillstreaming For Missing Social Skills

Tonya 16:13

Another model I wanted to mention was the skill streaming model. And I've seen this work really well in kids with special needs because a lot of times they lack the basic social skills, and you know, a lot of kids do today, and so parents are so busy, and it's so important to teach those skills of how to act, and so sometimes kids just really don't know how to act. They may be growing up in a home that has a different viewpoint than how you would respond in school. And so the skill streaming model is a good model. And what it does is it teaches overtly the behaviors needed to function properly at school and with others. It's very proactive. If you're interested in that, then I would I would look that up and take a chance on that. It involves role modeling, you know, it has skill cards and they model, and the teacher gives feedback and just over and over. A lot of times kids with special needs need repetition. And so that's a helpful model.

Practical Tools For Difficult Behaviors

Tonya 17:33

I wanted to tell you about another great resource that I have found has a lot of things in it, forms and just ideas for helping with students with difficult behaviors is a book called Practical Ideas That Really Work for Students with Disruptive, Defiant, or Difficult Behaviors. And it's for preschool through grade four. It's not for older students, but it's written by Kathleen McConnell, Gail Ryser, and James Patton. The book lists an ideas matrix on the first couple of pages, and it has four categories that it ranks the activities or the forums on. And these four categories are acting out/serious misconduct, and then non-compliance in the classroom, poor-peer relationships, and the fourth one is emotional adjustment problems. And then under each one of those categories, it lists out different behaviors, like for acting out /serious misconduct, it has things like verbally aggressive, takes property from others, leaves classroom without permission, physically aggressive, uses obscene language. And so then it will for that different for that behavior, it will give you several ideas and activities or forms that you can use to work on with the student. But in order for these to work, the teacher needs to evaluate the student's behaviors first. I would get a rating scale, and they have one in the book at the beginning of the book that you probably could use. It looks like a really good one, and it's got the cat four categories that they have, and so it would probably work really well for you to do that. You would need to do a rating scale first and evaluate the behaviors, and then next choose the idea that you would work, you think would work best for those behaviors. And then make an intervention plan, follow through, get you some get your baseline data starting out with what's going on, and then follow through with the activities. And as you go, mark the mark the behaviors down, keep a log, keep the data, and then that's going to show you whether that activity or or whatever is working. If you're not consistent with the intervention, it will not correct the behavior, and the behavior may get worse. And so I've seen teachers, I give them an activity out of this to use and make up all the things for them, the task cards and things like that. And if you don't follow through on the behavior and consistently carry it out, then it's not gonna work and it'll just backfire on you.

Consistency Data And A Faith Lens

Tonya 20:47

It says in Ecclesiastes 7 and 25, "I applied mine heart to know and to search and to seek out wisdom and the reason of things." And so if we will seek the Lord in this area of disciplining children, he will help us. And it's so important, especially if you're teaching in public school, that you learn and you figure out ways to help children because the Lord wants us to love them and to care for them. And you do not know what kind of witness that you will be in the public school system, if you're using it in that system, to other parents who have need, and they may be searching themselves at home and they have a need and just want their child to be treated with kindness and respect, even if they do have misbehaviors. Seek the Lord and search how you can help children. I hope this is given you a head start and given you some ideas to help you go look and research. You know, teachers are researchers, help you to get started researching. These models or additional ways that you might be able to help children with discipline and managing themselves.

Contact Info And Closing Encouragement

Tonya 22:10

Thank you for joining me today on Educate Me Well. I'm grateful you spent this time with me, and I hope the conversation encouraged and equipped you. If you have ideas for future episodes or questions you'd like me to explore, you can reach me anytime at admin @educatemewell.com and be sure to keep an eye on educatemewell.com. The website will be up and growing as new episodes are released. Until next time, keep making a difference in the lives of children.