Resources for Teachers
Mental health challenges can undermine a child’s ability to learn and behave effectively in the classroom. Identifying learning disorders as early as possible is crucial to getting children support that will enable them to thrive.
Child behavior experts say that the best way for teachers to manage behavior in the classroom is through praise. This might seem unlikely, and it probably won’t come naturally. When we see kids acting out or doing something disruptive, it’s natural to point that out. But research shows that paying more attention to the behaviors you do want to see is ultimately a more effective strategy.
There are different ways to do this. Instead of pointing out when a kid is misbehaving, a teacher might praise a child nearby who is doing the right thing. Or if most of the kids are following instructions, they might praise the entire class.
The important thing to understand is that kids thrive on praise. Even the kids who are acting out like to get praise. So when they notice their classmates getting praise for doing something, they’ll be more likely to do that same thing. Then teachers can immediately praise them for doing the right thing too.
For kids who often misbehave, teachers can praise them when they do something good — even something small. This is important because kids who act out a lot often start to feel like they are bad kids. But when teachers make a point of praising them, it makes them feel like they can get attention for being good too. They feed off that positive energy and are more likely to do more things that get them praise.
For this technique to work, teachers should praise kids often and consistently. It might sound like a lot of work, but after several weeks, kids’ behavior starts to improve. Teachers report that they can spend more time teaching and less time trying to get kids to follow directions. They also feel less stressed. And, as kids get used to following directions, teachers can slowly reduce the amount of praise they need to give.
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Hungry for praise
he key to the techniques used in the training is finding ways to redirect children positively, rather than calling out the child for the behavior you’re trying to discourage. If a child isn’t in his seat when he’s supposed to be, or is blurting out questions without raising his hand, or is poking the child ahead of him in line, the teacher will find a child near him who is demonstrating the behavior she’d like to see and praise him for it.
Like everyone else, the kids who aren’t behaving are hungry for praise, too, and as soon as he gets with the program, the teacher sends some his way—”Thanks for raising your hand, James!”
Or she may praise the class in general for the behavior she’s looking for—”I love how you guys have lined up, keeping your hands to yourselves!”—and the student who isn’t complying gets in line to get part of that public praise. And when he does she singles him out. “I see your hands by your side now, Collin. That’s great!”
In the classroom, the team tries to help target the behaviors that they’d like to promote. “And we show them how they can use all kinds of different reinforcement systems to be sure that the kid’s attention is on the behaviors that we really want to see amplified,” he adds.
What kind of thing might the coach be whispering in the teacher’s ear while she’s trying to use these interventions? “He’d be saying, ‘That’s good, so now can you add this? That’s great. Can you give that child praise over there? Have you noticed the students back there?’” explains Caver. “So it was pointing out something I might not have noticed, or a specific thing that I need to praise.”
The first few times it was like, oh, my goodness!“ adds Ruiz. “But it got to the point where even before they said it, we were saying it ourselves. And then when they weren’t even here, we both found ourselves saying the same thing at the same time, and saying it just the way Dr. Dave had said it.”
Seeing results
What effect did these efforts have on the classroom? Ruiz says it changed not only in individual students’ behavior but the classroom as a whole. “After a month or two months of using it consistently, you really see a huge change.”
“I think it’s had a tremendous effect on the class,” explains Caver. “The kids perform better when they hear more praise, I believe. We’ve just seen a lot more compliance to what we want, and our expectations. They feel the warmth and they feed off that positive energy.”
The teachers feel it too, they report.
“First of all, you’re less stressed, because you’re wasting less time getting the kids to follow directions, and spending more time instructing them,” says Ruiz. “And also, I think there’s a little more joy to the lessons. And you can actually get through a lesson and maybe do something fun.”
And while the intervention is not aimed specifically on improving academic performance, Ruiz says she sees benefit.
“Some of the kids who are not doing well academically, it’s because behavior-wise they’re not doing well,” she explains. “And it could be also vice versa—because they’re not doing well academically, they could also be acting out, because they’re not understanding the material at the moment. So when we can help them be successful behavior-wise, and pay attention more to lessons, they may also benefit academically.”
Focus on the positive
“The goal is to go from what we naturally do, which is to pay attention to the behaviors that stress us out,” explains Dr. Anderson, “and to pay a significant amount more attention to the positive behaviors we see our students engaging in, to the effort they’re putting in, to the moments of success or the moments of mastery.”