Parenting and Self-Esteem

MANAGING ANGRY, DEFIANT AND NON-COMPLIANT BEHAVIOUR IN YOUNG PEOPLE

TEACHER/PARENT AUTHORITY

Project calmness when approaching an escalating student/child: A parent/teacher’s chances of defusing a potential confrontation with an angry or defiant young person increase greatly if the instructor carefully controls his or her behaviour when first approaching the young person. Here are important tips: Move toward the student at a slow, deliberate pace, and respect the young person’s private space by maintaining a reasonable distance. If possible, speak privately to the student, using a calm and respectful voice. Avoid body language that might provoke the student, such as staring, hands on hips, or finger pointing. Keep your comments brief. If the student’s negative behaviours escalate despite your best efforts, move away from the student and seek additional adult assistance or initiate a crisis-response plan.

Relax Before Responding: Parents/teachers can maintain self-control during a tense situation by using a brief, simple stress-reduction technique before responding to a young person’s provocative remark or behaviour. When provoked, for example, take a deeper-than-normal breath and release it slowly, or mentally count to 10. As an added benefit, this strategy of conscious relaxation allows the educator an additional moment to think through an appropriate response--rather than simply reacting to the young person 's behaviour.

Keep responses calm, brief, and business-like: Because teacher sarcasm or lengthy negative reprimands can trigger defiant young person behaviour, instructors should respond to the young person in a 'neutral', business-like, calm voice. Also, keep responses brief when addressing the non-compliant student. Short parent/teacher responses give the defiant student less control over the interaction and can also prevent instructors from inadvertently 'rewarding' misbehaving young person with lots of negative adult attention.

Use non-verbal and para-verbal behaviours to defuse potential confrontations: When interacting with a defiant or confrontational young person, parent/teachers can use non-verbal and para-verbal techniques such as non-threatening body language, soft tone of voice, or strategic pauses during speech, to reduce tensions. For example, if a young person is visibly agitated, you may decide to sit down next to the student at eye level (a less threatening posture) rather than standing over that student. Or you might insert a very brief 'wait time' before each response to the young person, as these micro-pauses tend to signal calmness, slow a conversation down and help to prevent it from escalating into an argument.

BOUNDARIES

Do not get entangled in arguments: The careful parent/teacher avoids being dragged into arguments or unnecessary discussion when disciplining a young person. When you must deliver a command to, confront, or discipline a young person who is defiant or confrontational, be careful not to get 'hooked' into a discussion or argument with that young person. If you find yourself being drawn into an exchange with the young person (e.g., raising your voice, reprimanding the student), immediately use strategies to disengage yourself (e.g., by moving away from the young person, repeating your request in a business-like tone of voice (stuck record), imposing a pre-determined consequence for noncompliance).

EXPECTATIONS

Emphasize the positive in parent/teacher requests: When a request has a positive 'spin', that parent/teacher is less likely to trigger a power struggle and more likely to gain the compliance of the young person. Whenever possible, avoid using negative phrasing (e.g., "If you don't return to your seat, I can’t help you with your assignment"). Instead, restate requests in positive terms (e.g., "I will be over to help you on the assignment just as soon as you return to your seat").

DEMONSTRATE CARING

Listen actively: The parent/teacher demonstrates a sincere desire to understand a young person’s concerns when he or she actively listens to and then summarizes those concerns. Many young people lack effective negotiation skills in dealing with adults. Thus, these young people may become angry and defensive when they try to express a complaint to the parent/teacher -even when that complaint is well founded. The instructor can show that he or she wants to understand the young person's concern by summing up the crucial points of that concern (paraphrasing) in his or her own words. Examples of paraphrase comments include 'Let me be sure that I understand you correctly…', 'Are you telling me that…?', 'It sounds to me like these are your concerns:' When parents/teachers engage in 'active listening' by using paraphrasing, they demonstrate a respect for the young person's point of view and can also improve their own understanding of the young person's problem.

Validate the student’s emotion by acknowledging it: When the parent/teacher observes that a young person seems angry or upset, the instructor labels the emotion that seems to be driving that young person’s behaviour. 'Emotion labelling' can be a helpful tactic in deescalating classroom confrontations because it prompts the young person to acknowledge his or her current feeling-state directly rather than continuing to communicate it indirectly through acting-out behaviour. A parent/teacher, for example, who observes a young person slamming her books down on her desk and muttering to herself after returning from gym class might say to the young person, "You seem angry. Could you tell me what is wrong?" Once a powerful emotion such as anger is labelled, the parent/teacher and young person can then talk about it, figure out what may have triggered it, and jointly find solutions that will mitigate it. Emotion labelling should generally be done in a tentative manner ("John, you sound nervous…", "Alice, you appear frustrated…"), since one can never know with complete certainty what feelings another person is experiencing.

COOPERATIVE PROBLEM SOLVING & RESPONSIBILITY

Ask open-ended questions: If a parent/teacher who is faced with a confrontational young person does not know what triggered that young person’s defiant response, the instructor can ask neutral, open-ended questions to collect more information before responding. You can pose ‘who’, ‘what’, ‘where’, ‘when’, and ‘how’ questions to more fully understand the problem situation and identify possible solutions. Some sample questions are "What do you think made you angry when you were talking with Billy?" and "Where were you when you realized that you had misplaced your science book?" One caution: Avoid asking ‘why” ‘questions (e.g., "Why did you get into that fight with Jerry?") because they can imply that you are blaming the young person.

Offer the student a face-saving out: Young people sometimes blunder into potential confrontations with their parent/teacher s; when this happens, the parent/teacher helps the young person to avoid a full-blown conflict in a manner that allows the young person to save face. Try this face-saving de-escalation tactic: Ask the defiant young person, "Is there anything that we can work out together so that you can stay in the classroom and be successful?" Such a statement treats the young person with dignity, models negotiation as a positive means for resolving conflict, and demonstrates that the instructor wants to keep the young person in the classroom. It also provides the young person with a final chance to resolve the conflict with the parent/teacher and avoid other, more serious disciplinary consequences. Be prepared for the possibility that the young person will initially give a sarcastic or unrealistic response (e.g., "Yeah, you can leave me alone and stop trying to get me to do classwork!"). Ignore such attempts to hook you into a power struggle and simply ask again whether there is any reasonable way to engage the student's cooperation. When asked a second time, young people will often come up with workable ideas for resolving the problem. If the young person continues to be non-compliant, however, simply impose the appropriate consequences for that misbehaviour.

State parent/teacher directives as two-part choice statements: When a young person's confrontational behaviour seems driven by a need for control, the parent/teacher can structure verbal requests to both acknowledge the student’s freedom to choose whether to comply and present the logical consequences for non-compliance (e.g., poor grades, office disciplinary referral, etc.). Frame requests to uncooperative students as a two-part statement. First, present the negative, or non-compliant, choice and its consequences (e.g., if a set work assignment is not completed in class, the young person must stay after school). Then state the positive behavioral choice that you would like the young person to select (e.g., the student can complete the seatwork assignment within the allotted work time and not stay after school). Here is a sample 2-part choice statement, ‘John, you can stay after school to finish the class assignment or you can finish the assignment now and not have to stay after class. It is your choice.’

Have the young person participate in creating a behaviour plan: Young people can feel a greater sense of ownership when they are invited to contribute to their behaviour management plan. young people also tend to know better than anyone else what triggers will set off their problem behaviours and what strategies they find most effective in calming themselves and avoiding conflicts or other behavioral problems (see attached sheet).

PRAISE AND RECOGNITION

Give praise that is specific and does not embarrass the young person: Defiant young people can respond well to adult praise but only when it is sincere and specific, and is not embarrassing. Ideally, the parent/teacher should deliver praise as soon as possible after the positive behaviour. Praise should be specific and descriptive—because vague, general praise can sound fake and does not give the young person any useful information about how their behaviour meets or exceeds the parent/teacher’s expectations. For older young people who tend to dislike being praised in a highly public manner, the teacher can use a more indirect or low-key approach (e.g., writing a note of praise on the young person’s graded assignment, praising the young person in a private conversation, calling the young person’s parent to praise the young person).

TYPES OF PRAISE

Evaluative Praise is top-down. It is the mum/dad acting as a superior patting the child on the head and saying well done, you are very clever/ well behaved/ terrific. (Comments like these are not helpful and encourage the recipient to constantly seek approval, create anxiety and defensiveness).

Appreciative Praise is different as it combines detailed feedback on what the child has done plus a statement of appreciation. This then allows the child to pat himself on the back and feel good.

Give problem students frequent positive attention: Parents/teachers should try to give positive attention or praise to problem students at least three times more frequently than they reprimand them. The parent/teacher gives the student the attention or praise during moments when that student is acting appropriately--and keeps track of how frequently they give positive attention and reprimands to the young person. This heavy dosing of positive attention and praise can greatly improve the parent/teacher’s relationship with problem young people.

POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT

Reward alternative (positive) behaviours: The parent/teacher can shape positive behaviours by selectively calling on the child/student or providing other positive attention or incentives only when the child/student is showing appropriate social and academic behaviours. The parent/teacher withholds positive attention or incentives when the child/student misbehaves or does not engage in academics.