While most educators get a lot of satisfaction out of their jobs, challenging behaviour by students can make the role difficult. Every student is different, and the reasons they act out in class are different too.
However, there are a number of ways to deal with challenging behaviour in the classroom. While teachers are heavily trained in managing behavioural issues, it’s always great to refresh your skills, which is why Anglicare Victoria have outlined several methods for dealing with challenging behaviour in the classroom.
Understand why children display challenging behaviour
Children often misbehave in the classroom because there are problems at home or in the schoolyard, due to behavioural conditions like ADHD or autism spectrum disorder, or because at home bad behaviour gets them what they want.
Whatever the reason a child behaves the way they do, it’s important to understand the reasons before trying to correct their behaviour. If a child misbehaves because they find it hard to trust adults, for example, then you can work on gaining their trust and respect.
Use positive instead of negative commands
When you want to change a student’s challenging behaviour, it’s better to use positive commands rather than negative ones. As an example, instead of the negative command, ‘Billy, stop talking to James’, a positive command would be ‘Billy, you can talk to James during recess time’.
This sounds more fair, and it gives Billy permission to talk to James, just not during class. Positive commands can be an effective way of gaining trust and getting students to see reason in your instructions.
Be proactive about fostering relationships
Many children who display challenging behaviour have poor relationships with other adults. Teachers should be proactive in fostering good relationships with these children. Many teachers find it helpful to spend two minutes at the start of each day talking to a troubled student about their interests, like sport or movies. Each day, a little more trust will be built.
Services for children with challenging behaviour
If you’re a teacher who’s concerned about the challenging behaviour of a student which is possibly caused by deeper troubles, there are available services in Victoria. Anglicare Victoria’s Meridian Youth and Family Therapy program is one of them. Our Meridian program provides short, medium and long term support to help assist with a myriad of student-related issues, including school withdrawal, bullying, anxiety, behavioural problems, grief and loss, social isolation and many others.
It might be worth establishing a meeting with the child’s parents and suggesting the benefits of our Meridian program, or calling up Anglicare Victoria and explaining your concerns.
Anglicare Victoria is here to help
Teachers deserve to teach class in a positive environment and students deserve access to services that can assist their learning. The team at Anglicare Victoria is here to help children create positive school habits, offering therapeutic services through the TEACHaR support program. Contact Anglicare Victoria if you’d like to know more about how we can help you.
