Self-Control

Self Assessment Survey: Self-Control

On the Self Assessment Survey: Self-Control I scored, “You understand self-control but you may need to work more directly on it with your students.” This does not surprise me. I have always been very goal-oriented and very driven to reach my goals. I struggle to understand when my students (or others) do not put forth their best effort, work to recognize what is happening in the scenes to cause this lack of effort, and help students to find a way past that so they can work to the best of their ability. When one student is being unkind to another I often jump into action to stop that short-term behavior but must remember to take on the larger problem(s) that is leading that student to lash out.

Helping Our Students Exhibit More Self-Control!

Self-Control is one's ability to delay gratification and resist temptation. It requires strength of motivation, the ability, and the social emotional regulation need to collaboratively work with other students.

• Develop Awareness
  We must work hard to incorporate social-emotional learning activities into our curriculum to help students develop awareness of what self-control is and why it is important. Examining literature to find examples of excellent self-control or poor self-control and the benefits and consequences of self-control is an important step to understanding self-control.
  

• Comply
  We expect our students to comply and follow the rules because they know they are important. To help students with this develop your class rules with students, put it into their language, create a rubric to remind them of what complying looks like, and help them recognize the importance of complying.
  

• Goal Setting
  Goal Setting is an important step in learning self-control. Some teachers have students develop goals and a plan to achieve that goal. These teachers build in time to reflect on their efforts, recognize distractions to accomplish their goal, calibrate their failures to reach that goal, and celebrate their successes when the goal is reached.
  

• Transfer
  Students must recognize that they can Transfer the lessons learned about self-control and the successes that come from exhibiting self-control from one situation to another. Looking at current events to explore the benefits or consequences of poor self control is a good start but students must also recognize how this relates or transfers to their own lives and situations.
  

• Monitor
  Students must learn to Monitor their self-control efforts, to recognize self-control successes and failures, and reflect on how to improve next time. Teachers can model this monitoring by reflecting the times where they exhibit self-control or lose their cool. This honest look will model how we are monitoring and will help our students transfer this learning to their own self-control.

Recommended Resources: Self-Control

• "Marshmallow Test"

• "Self Regulation Strategies to Improve Student Classroom Behavior" by Portia Newman

• "Teaching Children to Check Their Own Behavior"