How to Flip the Stories You Share about Challenging Behaviors

When I started teaching, this is exactly what I expected – happy children, ready to do what Ms. Tiffany said. Instead, I got a different reality. I was a Twos teacher in a classroom with 12 children, 9 boys and 3 girls. And the boys were active – climbing on furniture, hitting, wrestling, and running EVERYWHERE. What happened to my “happy” children? Where did they go? I can’t tell you how many times I came home crying and ready to find another job. Can you relate?

Think about a child in your class who has challenging behaviors. Review notes you have written about their behaviors, reflect on conversations you have about them with other teachers, even write a description of something that happened last week. What do you see in the words you use to describe the behavior? Does the story that you tell include any positive comments, things that make you smile, or the child’s strengths and interests?

I know what you’re asking, “Why does this matter?” It matters because the words we use to describe a child's behaviors determines how we “see” their behavior, how we work with parents to find solutions, and most importantly how we interact with the child. If you talk about the child using positive and specific words to describe their actions, you see the child’s behavior as communicating a need and thus approach the challenging behavior from a perspective of “teaching”. In contrast, using words with negative meanings, such as aggressive, mean, defiant, bully, etc., lead to you seeing the child as a problem who needs to be fixed or punished. My point is the difference in how you respond to challenging behaviors is directly related to the words you use to describe what happened. This highlights the importance of recognizing the unconscious stories we tell ourselves about children’s behaviors. When we do this, we can “flip” the story and open our minds to the “see” the whole child, both their strengths and their struggles.  

The thing I have noticed when working with children with challenging behaviors is that we tend to “take a break” from the child when they are not engaging in challenging behaviors.  Responding to the challenging behaviors requires so much attention and energy that when the child is cooperatively following routines, we use that time to do the other things we don’t get to do while the challenging behavior is present.  However, this “break” sends an unintended message to the child:  

"If you want my attention, engage in challenging behaviors and I will come." 

To break this cycle, I follow the 2 minutes for 10 consecutive days strategy to build a stronger relationship with the child with challenging behaviors.  When the children is meeting expectations, I walk over and spend 2 minutes talking with them about what they are doing, listening to a story they have to tell, dancing to music, whatever.  It is all about spending time with them doing something positive.  You will learn a lot about the child as well, including interests, strengths, and what is happening at home.  All of this is information you can use to help support them when they are struggling later.  If anything, it helps you build the know, trust, and like factor into your relationship that is so vital to getting the child to want to follow your guidance. 

What you talk about is what you notice.  When working with children with challenging behaviors, it’s easy to focus on their challenges and miss their strengths.  Jeanine Fitzgerald in her book entitled The Dance of Interaction:  Discovering the Hero Within Every Child writes about how every child is born with a special talent waiting to bloom.  I believe this to be true as well.  The challenge for us as teachers is to begin to talk about the strengths of children with challenging behaviors as much as we talk about their struggles.  In this article, I discussed the importance of leading conversations about challenging behaviors from a strength-based perspective.  When you do this, you talk about the child’s interests, times of day when they are successful, favorite activities, supports for helping the child manage triggers, and celebrate each child’s baby steps along the way.  This allows us to see the child as a “seedling” who needs water to begin to sprout, rather than as a burden that is taking something away from the other children.

These are two small words with powerful meanings.  Some people will say that the meanings of these two words are similar, but I challenge that they are not.  In fact, the use of these words can directly impact how you respond to a child’s behavior because they have two very distinct meanings.  “Won’t” means will not.  This means that a child can do something, but chooses not to do it.  For example, “Sarah won’t talk” means Sarah has the ability to talk, but is choosing not to talk at the moment.  When you describe children’s behaviors be saying they won’t do something, you are telling yourself that they have the ability to do it, but are choosing not to do it.  The child is being uncooperative, stubborn, or shall I say defiant.

However, children usually have challenging behaviors because there is a social or emotional skill that they have not yet learned.  This means that they are not having tantrums because they won’t “control their emotions”, but because they can’t control their emotions.  By saying they can’t, you are helping yourself to identify the child’s learning need.  This simple change in wording starts the process of responding to challenging behaviors with a lens toward “teaching”.