The difference between reacting and responding to student behavior. A reaction is emotional and immediate, like shouting at a child running in the hallway. A response is purposeful and considers why the child is behaving that way, their history, and what they need. Building a team culture where staff help each other pause and de-escalate prevents escalation and keeps trust intact.
Welcome to the mini course, 10 Quick Wins for Behavior Change. We are starting off video 1 with one of my favorite strategies: identify the difference between responding and reacting. I love teaching this to teams because, oh my gosh, this can make such a big impact. Now, there's an important difference between a response and a reaction. A reaction is filled with emotion. It's from the gut. You don't think about anything else. You just react. You see a kid running in the hallway and you're like, "I am a teacher. No one will run in the hallway in front of me. Stop running!" Just react, right? A response is different. A response is purposeful. A response is thought out. A response takes into account functions of behavior, the child's learning history, maybe a history of trauma. It takes sometimes a little bit of self-restraint, right, to respond. Your goal is that every day you respond more than react. We're human. We're going to react sometimes, but I want every single day when you walk to the parking lot, you to know that, hey, I responded more than I reacted. Now, if you're ready to really level up this strategy, if you're like, Sasha, I got this, the next level of this is getting your whole team on board and making this the culture of your team to call each other out. Of course, respectfully, but make it okay to identify when a team member is reacting and be like, hey, Do you need a break? This job is hard. We get frustrated. So if you see someone that needs a break, tell them they need a break and let them do the same to you. Tell them, talk about this with your team. Hey, if you see me reacting, feel free to jump in and be like, hey, maybe you need to take 5. I would much rather have a team member take 5 minutes wandering the hall to cool off than react or overreact to a student. That can cause escalations. That can cause increases in challenging behaviors. That can cause a breakdown in rapport and trust. I don't want that. So let's avoid that. Take that break, give people the offer to take the break and identify that as a team. All right, stay tuned for video 2 where we'll think about if the behavior is actually a problem.
