A few months ago, I was reading the book Effective Early Childhood Professional Development (Howes, Hamre & Pianta, 2012) and came across information that was so obvious but profound that it has shaped my practice ever since. It was something I already knew, but simply had not explicitly talked about or previously named. According to research summarized by the authors, “teachers’ feelings of low self-efficacy … were significant predictors of conflict with children…[and teacher] higher levels of personal stressors were associated with substantially lower levels of classroom behavioral management” (116-121). In other words, conflict with students is not just related to student behavior but is highly correlated with the teacher’s emotional state.

We tend to view challenging behaviors as a problem with the student, this suggests that our emotional state, or “emotional dysregulation” as the authors refer to it, impacts our perceptions of student behavior and our likelihood of engaging in conflict with students. Research indicates that there are substantial discrepancies in the ways that teachers, parents, and independent observers rate children’s disruptive behaviors (Howes, Hamre & Pianta, 2012) suggesting that the identification of a behavior as a problem behavior, while seemingly objective, is actually heavily influenced by perception.

Furthermore, for many teachers, responding to students’ challenging behaviors is emotionally intense. According to the authors, those teachers with low self-efficacy (i.e., who report feeling overwhelmed, feeling a lack of control, and feeling uncertain about how to make “on-the-spot” decisions) are less likely to be able to remember a positive strategy for responding to problem behavior and, most concerning, less likely to pay attention to and reinforce positive and compliant behaviors by other children! As Howes, Hamre and Pianta (2012) put it, adults who are experiencing unease or dissatisfaction “have difficulty disengaging their attention from emotionally negative cues and re-orienting their attention to positive cues in the environment…” (pg. 118).

Seeing this spelled out in black and white made it clear that an adult’s emotional state impacts the ability to recognize challenging behaviors accurately and interact with students’ positively.  So what does this mean in the context of the classroom?  Here are some things I’ve been thinking about.

First, we need to remember that challenging behaviors occur within the context of the environment. Rather than seeing problem behaviors as just the student’s problem, we need to recognize that factors such as our emotional state and the culture and climate of the school contribute to the occurrence of the problem behavior and to our perception of the behavior. Reflecting on our practices and the environment can help us to develop more effective and comprehensive solutions that will benefit the student as well as the class and school as a whole.

Second, we need to ensure that teachers are supported and receive ongoing meaningful and relevant training and coaching, so that they feel confident in their ability to manage a classroom and respond to behaviors that may be perceived as difficult. According to Fox, Dunlap, Hemmeter, Joseph and Strain (2003), “many early educators report feeling ill-equipped to meet the needs of children with challenging behaviors” (48). However, when teachers develop a strong sense of self-efficacy, they will come to view difficult behaviors as welcome challenges where they can use some of the tools in their toolbox to help students learn new skills.

Finally, we need to consider how we can manage our emotional reactions to problem behaviors effectively. One strategy is to try “reframing” the challenging behavior. When we reframe problem behaviors, we look at why the behavior might be occurring, instead of focusing on what the behavior looks like or the frustration we are experiencing (CSEFEL, 2013). For example, instead of thinking “his aggressive behavior is driving me crazy and I know he does it just to get under my skin”, we think, “I wonder if he’s pushing the other kids because they are too close to him and he doesn’t know how to ask for more space.” Thinking about behavior from the student’s perspective helps to de-personalize the situation and lead to a solution, like teaching the student how to ask for more space appropriately, rather than engaging in conflict with the student.

Give this a try the next time you encounter a challenging behavior at home or in the classroom. See if you can take a step back and restate what is happening in a way that makes the behavior less threatening and more manageable. It takes practice to develop this habit of thinking and it won’t happen overnight.  When we are able to manage our emotions and respond calmly and effectively instead of reacting (or over-reacting), and when we believe that we can turn challenging behaviors into teachable moments, it leads to a more positive learning environment for our students and a more pleasant teaching environment for ourselves. Practice makes perfect, so don’t give up!

 

References

CSEFEL: Center on the Social and Emotional Foundations for Early Learning. (n.d.). Retrieved January 15, 2016, from http://csefel.vanderbilt.edu/

Howes, C., Hamre, B.K., & Pianta, R.C. (2012). Effective Early Childhood Professional Development: Improving Teacher Practice and Child Outcomes. Baltimore, MD: Paul H. Brookes Publishing Company

Fox, L., Dunlap, G., Hemmeter, M. L., Joseph, G. E., & Strain, P. S. (2003). The teaching pyramid: A model for supporting social competence and preventing challenging behavior in young children. Young Children, 58, 48–52.