I think it would be almost impossible to have a career working directly with children and never find yourself facing a child’s emotional or physical escalation, what might be perceived as ‘defiance’, or their rejection of you! These are some of the most extreme behaviours a teacher can find themselves managing and yet my early teacher training did not even mention how best to deal with such things. It’s always assumed teachers somehow pick up the ‘magic wands’ required for supporting children’s self-regulation and surprisingly little focus is given on behaviour management as there are always just so many other agendas in education.
So it is unfortunate that in recent years there is no doubt that some children have become increasingly dysregulated, and their behaviour more challenging. It’s no surprise considering the strain we have all been under in the past three or so years. We’ve felt it and therefore, so have our children.
And I’m not just talking about the impact of Covid. The world seems ever more frantic and pressured with less time and capacity to care. This has undoubtedly increased vulnerability and ‘need’, leaving me considering any beneficial changes in approaches we could make – including how we support children’s behaviour.
I am glad to say we left the antiquated methods of ‘bullying’ children into compliance behind us decades ago and we generally work more collaboratively with children. But my consideration of the recent increased vulnerability of children, along with working for 10 years with children who really struggled to regulate (in a Pupil Referral Unit) has led me to consider how emotional intelligence could be usefully employed when it comes to supporting children’s behaviour. And the first place I have been focussing is on the adults…
When a child presents us with what may appear to be challenging behaviour, we often react automatically, with little awareness of our own ‘back-story’. By ‘back-story’ I mean being aware of what the child’s behaviour is triggering in us, what our automatic ‘go to’ response is, and even awareness of the fact we are responding repeatedly in the same way. We might not even have considered that we could change our response. When I explore these reactions with teachers, many emotional and thinking responses become more conscious. For example, some adults report a panicked adrenaline rush when facing escalations. Other adults become very fearful of colleagues’ judgements when faced with a child’s non-co-operation, and some adults feel rejected and react defensively when they believe a child is rude to them. In making ourselves aware of what is going on for us when faced with testing behaviours, we can start to better manage our responses and have more flexibility in how we address what is happening.
Once we have considered our own unconscious and automatic reactions, we are then in a much better position to pay greater attention to what might be going on for the child. We can use a variety of tools to speculate about the emotions and thoughts that are troubling a child when they are not co-operating, escalating or dismissing us rudely. This reduces the chance of us simply locking horns with the behaviour and actually can enable us to uncover the root cause of it. It’s all about dealing with the underlying reason, not the symptoms and it’s finding out what the child’s behaviour is really communicating. Obviously, when working with lots of children, this is not possible with every single interaction, but when you find yourself managing the same behaviour over and over again, it’s time to move away from being reactive to being proactive.
Let’s consider, for example, a child who struggles to enter the early years setting on a regular basis. Quite often, in the name of expediency, we can find ourselves employing a number of tools to encourage the child over the threshold: goading, challenging, bribing, insisting and/or distracting. Sometimes these tools work, but they do not address whatever was triggering the child’s behaviour and the reticence might well reappear the next day, and the day after. When this happens, it’s time to step back from ‘repeat’ and speculate with the child about what they might be feeling (if you make a wrong assessment of the situation, the child will soon correct you!) Helping a child to recognise the emotions of a situation can make a child feel instantly understood and, as we know as adults, can in itself alleviate the intensity of any emotion. It also helps the child become more emotionally aware. This can also ultimately result in more sustained changes in behaviour.
The reality is, there are no magic wands when it comes to supporting children’s behaviour. What works one day won’t necessarily work the next and we often find ourselves in a flurry of reactive and flustered muddling-throughs. However, if we embrace a long-term aim towards both adults and children increasing their understanding of the impact emotions and thoughts can have on behaviour, not only does behaviour improve, wellbeing and resilience does too.
Molly Potter has spent many years teaching in both mainstream schools and a pupil referral unit for children with emotional and behavioural difficulties, helping them to trust adults, develop self-esteem and learn to self-regulate. Molly has also been a county advisor for all things PSHE (personal, social, health and economic) with a special focus on RSE (relationships and sex education) where she developed her keen interest in how best to help children navigate life’s tricky elements. Her own two children (and guinea pigs) roll their eyes at her openness when it comes to delivering the honest facts! Along with writing books, Molly currently writes teaching resources for different organisations, delivers training to teachers, parents/carers and practitioners, and gives one-to-one support to children, focused mainly on developing emotional literacy. Molly is the author of the Let's Talk series which includes the bestselling How Are You Feeling Today? and is perfect for helping adults start discussions with children to support their social, emotional and wellbeing.
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