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Misbehaving kids are like someone playing with matches in the hopes of starting a fire and seeing what happens next! Most kids have no idea where their misbehavior will lead them. They jump in feet first (usually mouth first!) and then watch to see what happens as a result. Think of the classroom as a place where misbehaving kids sit and light matches through the day, waiting to see if the teacher will catch fire and cause a rumpus. Think of teachers (and parents) as carrying around a back pack of gasoline. The hose used to deliver the gasoline is our adult mouths and the words that we use back to kids when they strike their matches (being rude, disrespectful or non-compliant). Look out!
We cannot control kids striking matches. But we can control the gasoline we carry around on our backs and how we use our mouths when talking back to misbehaving kids. I spend a lot of my time coaching teachers and parents to stop pouring gasoline on a match! It only blows up in your face.
The key to managing misbehaving kids is to learn how to blow out the match not pour gasoline on it.
This requires self-discipline on the part of the adult. When a child is being rude, disrespectful and belligerent it is so difficult to keep your composure and not strike back, especially with your words. But this is what is required if we are going to help misbehaving kids learn to change their behavior from destructive to constructive. Often teachers and parents feel it is unfair that they are ones who have to exercise self-discipline first in the face of an undisciplined child. I get it. I agree. But unfortunately, it is the way it is. If the child was more self-disciplined he or she wouldn't be misbehaving in the first place!
In the moment when the child is misbehaving he or she needs the teacher or parent to exercise good judgement, self-discipline and self-control. There is short lived satisfaction in striking back at a difficult child with sarcasm or reprimands. The long term benefit and the enduring change that comes for a misbehaving child is when the adult holds their fire and tries to help the kid out of the mess they have created. This is why adults (parents and teachers) are so valuable in the lives of children. We anchor for them stability and self-discipline when they do not have it for themselves. Imagine a child whose life is full of mistakes, rudeness, misbehavior and defiance and they have no one who is holding steady for them and helping them learn how to be self-disciplined? It is a sink hole with no escape.
The next time you are with a child who is lighting matches of misbehavior - you be the one who holds your fire, does not pour more gasoline on their match, but instead learns how to blow out the match.
If that is the case....then what do you say to a misbehaving kid that blows out the match they lit?
Stay tuned to a future blog for that technique! In the meantime start watching and observing this dynamic of kids lighting matches and adults pouring gasoline on the match.
Remember...
Self disciplined children come from being in relationship with self-disciplined adults.
Lou
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