There are a host of reasons for why people do what they do. It can become very easy to become frustrated with student behaviour sometimes. We find ourselves wondering “what were they thinking?” when they did something that stepped outside of the school expectations. There is a lot of research and experts who put forth the idea that misbehavior often isn’t actually a choice, but rather a lack of regulation skills on the part of the student. In thinking this way, I think it naturally changes our approach to working with student behaviour in a more positive and productive way.

We often tell adults that it's ok to have a bad day, we have compassion and understanding when people act in a manner that is not their best selves, who then realize it, and apologize for it. We fully recognize that we can step outside our norm and act in ways that really aren’t our true character. We are all human and, as humans, make mistakes and have our good days and bad. So why then do we often assume students will always behave in their best frame of mind during every interaction?

Adults, who have had a lot more practice and skills development in self and emotional regulation, sometimes show very little tolerance for a student who is still learning it. It is interesting to watch a staff meeting where teachers are correcting, or checking their phones, late to the meeting, or having side conversations, who then seem to be very upset when students are doing the same in their classrooms (I’m not calling any teachers out for doing this, just drawing attention to the discrepancy).

It is almost as if we have an expectation of students to master these skills, and then as adults decide we are ‘grown up’ enough that we don’t always need to demonstrate them. Teachers who say they cannot sit at a desk for too long seem perfectly fine to have a student sit there for five hours a day and then when a student struggles, they believe that student is making a choice to misbehave and disrupt their classroom rather than them too hitting their limit of tolerance for too much inactivity.

By shifting the focus to believing students have unmet needs and are still developing critical regulation skills in some areas, more powerful and meaningful interventions can be applied. A student who constantly speaks out is having trouble regulating (skill) but also is seeking connection (need). The teacher who builds in a time of the class for that student to have a spotlight, perhaps they are responsible for providing a review of the last day, or reminding the teacher of a task to be done, handing out materials, etc, now has a support in place to help develop the skill, and an outlet to fulfill their need. And really, what does this take? A little flexibility on the teacher’s part and some skill development with the student.

We also tend to use ‘Self Regulation’ far too broadly sometimes when we say that a student can’t self regulate. In his book, Self-Reg, Dr Stuart Shanker discusses the 5 domains of self regulation (biological, emotional, cognitive, social and prosocial). A student who needs emotional regulation may be very different than one who needs cognitive regulation and our interventions would be very different. Breaking down and exploring these skills is similarly to breaking down the various subsets of mathematics or language arts. Factoring is different from Geometry, and a student could be amazing at factoring but struggle in geometry. We wouldn’t simply say they were bad at math (or at least I hope we wouldn’t!). We would say they simply need some extra attention and interventions targeted towards geometry. Similar to how a student may need a little extra support in regulating themselves in certain situations.

In taking a skills development approach we also stop assuming that our students already know expected behaviours, or that they can meet them at all times. This has bothered me for a while though I have certainly been guilty of making that assumption in the past. We tend to think that students in the regular prescribed curriculum all have the same set of knowledge and thus the same set of skills. Yet, experience has shown time and time again that a class of students has a wide spectrum of strengths and currently developed ability (which is how things like Universal Design for Learning and Differentiated Instruction came about). 

But in spite of all this understanding and commitment to addressing this spectrum of ability, we often do not extend our understanding of student ability to include their social-emotional skills. We assume that all students can regulate themselves as well as we can, overlooking the benefit of our experience and additional neuro-development.

I think that in our calm minds we often know this, but in the moment we get caught up in what’s happening and try to juggle all the demands on us and so we react in ways that aren't in the best interest of the student, but might be in our best interest for the moment. This is why I think it is critical to get to know students and their needs, and plan as part of your instruction to build in things to meet students needs. Is it harder? Absolutely. But you are going to put in the time either way, either on the front end preventing issues, or on the back end trying to deal with issues and one is much more pleasant than the other.