Ways to Use Choice in the Classroom to Prevent Problem Behavior

Choices are an extremely powerful strategy for giving kids autonomy and preventing problem behaviors in the classroom. I am Sasha Long. I'm a board-certified behavior analyst and former special ed teacher, and I want to share some really important ways that you can provide choices in the classroom. This is such an easy thing to incorporate into your day and honestly can have huge, huge results. If you have students that struggle with defiant behaviors, with power struggles, with wanting to be in control, Give them choices. And I'm going to share tons and tons of ways you can incorporate choices into any classroom. First up, give choices when it comes to de-escalation. I literally talk about this strategy all the time because I talk about de-escalation all this time. When a child is overwhelmed, overstimulated, in meltdown mode, in crisis mode, the number one go-to strategy: choice. Let them pick how they're going to calm down. You don't know what's going to help me to calm down, and I don't know what's going to help my students calm down. Maybe they want to walk, maybe they want space, Give them those options. I love something simple like this that you can customize and even give limited options. Give options that you think are applicable or appropriate for them. Let them pick how they will de-escalate and support them in that. So that's a great easy strategy that we can use in those high stress situations. Another obvious time that I think we're really good at giving choices is when it comes to reinforcers. When our kids are working for something, when they get a reward, a special treat, whatever kind of reinforcement system you have, obviously they have to pick. What that is, right? That reinforcer is individual to that person. We don't know if they want to work for stickers or Play-Doh or iPad or a break. Let them choose what they are working for and give them that choice in an accessible way. I love something like a real photo choice board. You can take pictures of the preferred items and then students can pick what they are working for. Age-appropriate for all kids, but also really concrete and understandable. Related to reinforcers, we also want to be giving choices during break time. We can just have a general kind of like, these are things I can do in a break. I can put my head down. I can take deep breaths. I can daydream. I can get a drink of water. I like teaching this type of break as like a preventative break almost, teaching kids to identify their triggers or precursors. I'm feeling overwhelmed. I'm feeling annoyed. I can take a break to kind of take a moment, take a beat, and then come back to work. Same thing here. I'm starting to feel angry and I need a break. Labeling that emotion is the first step in emotional regulation. We're not telling kids not to be angry. But we can teach and support them on what they do with that anger. They can't throw things, they can't punch people, but they can get a drink of water or go for a walk or lie down. So having appropriate choices available for that break time, whether it's like a behavior break or just a general break, like a reinforcer break, we wanna give those choices. Another time that you can incorporate choice is when we're waiting. Waiting is something that's super hard for kids to do. It's super hard for adults to do. I actually think this is a really hard skill for us to teach, because we as adults no longer have to wait in boredom. We don't. When are you just like sitting and waiting and doing nothing? Never. Next time you're in line at the post office, next time you're in line at school pickup, look around. What's everyone doing? They're on their phones. We don't have to be bored anymore. We don't even know what it's like. So when your kids are waiting— there's a lot of times in the day that they have to wait— give them a choice of what they do. Maybe they can write in a notebook or draw or get headphones while they're waiting. We don't want our kids to just have to like sit there, wait and do nothing. That is going to cause problem behaviors. Boredom is at the root of problem behavior. So give options for what to do when you're waiting. You can even give options on how we want their body to be. How do you want— where do you want your hands? Where do you want your body? Do you want to sit at the table, stand, sit on the floor? Should we talk quietly? Are we going to be quiet? So give that autonomy, give that power and control This is a great kind of sensory strategy that acknowledges how people feel comfortable in their skin. For some people, sitting on the floor is uncomfortable, or sitting at a desk, they might have the wiggles and want to stand. So it's giving kind of those coping and sensory strategies to them and giving them control over that. Another time that we can wait, and I love, love doing this when I talk about escape behaviors, I talk a lot about looking at how the task is presented. And there's a lot we can do there with adjusting task presentation. We can give choices for what the child writes with. You want to do your math work in a purple crayon? Cool, do you. Great. Give choices on writing utensils. Give choices on the places you do your work. Do you want to sit at your desk? Do you want to sit on the carpet? Do you want to go to a comfy chair? Do you want to go to the board? Such a simple thing to incorporate. Give a little bit of choice. Have them decide where to work. We can even give choices on the order of activities. Let's say you have a mini schedule for your small group instruction. Maybe when they come to the table, we have a few of the things on the, on the table and we have them pick the order. Okay, we have to do a worksheet and a listening activity and read our book, but what do you want to do next? You can pick and let's pick the order. Do you want to do— do you think you want a break or do you want to do a game? Should we pick another book? Should we brainstorm? Like, you pick the order of our activities. Here's what we have to get done today. You can also do the same idea on a dry erase board or a Post-it. Write out, these are what we have to do. You put them in order of how you want to do it and give that autonomy. So the last thing that we can give choice on, and this is getting a little bit like meta here, we can give choices on the type of choice. So I like these two, um, choice boards. These are things I can make choices out of my day, and this is what type of choice I want to make. Because this might seem a little overwhelming to you, like, oh my gosh, there's a lot I can do. Well, let's just simplify here and start with giving your child the choice of what type of choice. Hey, we're about to start our language arts, or we're about to start our math. What choice do you want to make? Do you want to pick the order of activities? Do you want to pick where you work? Do you want to pick when you take your breaks? Do you want to pick, you know, who you're working with? Pick one of these types of choices. So you're not overwhelming with choice, but you're focusing in on what they're going to do. This is another thing to kind of remind, here are choices you can make in your day. So little kind of strategies that you can decide when you take a walk, or when you sharpen your pencil, or when you stretch. And give that control. Choice is all about giving our kids more control. When your students engage in defiant behaviors, things that might be labeled non-compliant, they are likely communicating to you a lack of control. And we wanna give some of that control back, and this is a super effective strategy at preventing and reducing problem behaviors. I'm Sasha Long, founder of The Autism Helper. Click follow on our YouTube channel for more behavior advice.