Calm Parenting Podcast - 3 Ways to Help Disruptive Kids in the Classroom

Episode Date: October 4, 2023

3 Ways to Help Disruptive Kids in the Classroom Consequences and behavior charts aren't working. So Kirk shares three practical ways to help with disruptive behavior in the classroom. Share this with teachers. If you get the Calm Parenting Package, we will share specific programs with your child's teachers for free to help them. If you want us to train your school's teachers via Zoom, we can do that easily. Email [e-mail] for more information. Learn more at https://celebratecalm.com Want to finally stop the power struggles AND enjoy your strong-willed child? Kirk shows you exactly how with 30+ hours of content delivered directly to your phone, iPad or laptop. Visit https://celebratecalm.com/products to purchase the Get Everything Package. Kirk is available for Phone Consultations. Click here to learn more. This episode of the Calm Parenting Podcast is brought to you by Hello Fresh. Go to https://www.hellofresh.com/50calm and use code 50calm for 50% off plus 15% off the next 2 months! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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are blurting out and not following directions and you don't know what to do. Well, good. In this bonus episode of the Calm Parenting Podcast, I want to show you how I would approach this in the classroom, right? And I want to give you how I would approach this in the classroom, right? And I want to give you some very practical things, and I hope you'll forgive me. I didn't script this all out. This is just based on a lot of experience, and so I'm going to try to make it very, very practical, but also very short. Feel free to share this with your child's teachers and to just implement this yourself if you're a teacher. So welcome, this is Kirk Martin. I'm founder of Celebrate Calm. You can find us at CelebrateCalm.com. If you need anything, reach out to our son Casey, C-A-S-E-Y, at CelebrateCalm.com,

and he'll help you out, right? So if you need any of our programs, need help with anything, just reach out to us. That's what we're here for. So I get this really great email from a mom, and she's like, hey, we've got a classic kind of strong-willed child in third grade, right? And the school happens to have a pack of about seven boys, including my child, who are creating behavior challenges, right? They're blurting out, noise-making, disrespect, defiance, general non-compliance, right? Problems at recess, all the main things. And when we do teacher training, we go through this very, very practically how to handle each of those different issues. And so the mom goes on

and it's like they're holding parenting meetings, but here's what the teachers have been doing, right? Tally marks by each child's name on the board when they do something good or the teacher erases them when they do something wrong or they get five wooden clips on their name tag that she takes away when they do something wrong. Right. Send them to the office, make them eat lunch, eat lunch away from their classmates, losing recess, right? All of those things. Look, and the mom said here, like, it's basically the same stuff the previous teacher did, which obviously didn't work, right? And it just makes the compliant children look more compliant and fearful. And the strong-willed children, right, they begin to loathe school because, look, here's what kids begin to realize, especially strong-willed kids, is that I'm never going to succeed in this, right? I can't win. Nobody's giving me tools.

Nobody's showing me how to do things differently. By the way, nobody's even explaining why I'm doing these things, right? Let me give you a quick one. Blurting out, right? Because we're like, stop blurting out. That's rude. Well, sure. Is that behavior rude? Yes, it's rude behavior. But is the child intentionally trying to be rude? Not usually. Usually what's happening is this, right? These are kids with very busy brains who don't have good short-term memory. And they're also idea kids and they get

this idea in their head, but they're afraid they're going to forget. So they blurred it out so they don't forget. And if we as the adults, both parents and teachers could come along and say, hey, Jimmy, you know what I love about you? You're an idea person. You've got all these great ideas. You've got this great brain. It's always thinking of ideas, right? But one of the things that you do struggle with is you struggle with short-term memory. And so you're afraid you're going to forget things. And so you blurt it out. And that's unacceptable in my class. I don't want you doing that. Now watch, I'm going to add to this, but see in this example, I didn't say you're being rude. Stop it. I explained to him what's going on in his brain. And when you explain that to the child,

it does a couple things. One, it helps him reinforce, you're not just a disrespectful bad kid, because some of our kids internalize, I'm dumb, I'm stupid, I'm a bad kid. You're also speaking truth. And so when they hear that, they're like, yeah, that's what happens. I get all these ideas and they run through my brain and I don't want to forget them. So I blurt out, now someone finally understands that I'm not trying to be a disrespectful little jerk, right? Now I have someone who understands, yes, that's what's going on. And then their next question is, okay, so what do I do about it? Because look, taking things away doesn't, think about it, it doesn't address the root issue. The root issue is, I'm afraid I'm going to forget this really cool idea that means a lot to me. And so now nobody's addressing that.

They're just saying, if you keep doing that outward behavior, you lose these different things. Well, they don't eat. There's no correlation there, right? It's like with some misbehavior, there is a correlation and maybe they're just doing it for a certain reason. So that would work. But in most cases, it doesn't. We have to get to the root. And so now the child's like, well, what do I do about that? And so a creative way, I'll give you two, would be I've had teachers do this. They put up on their desk a little box and it's called the idea box. And maybe it even has a little light bulb on it, right? To symbolize

ideas. Because look, and I want to affirm kids for this, ideas change society. Ideas change entire course of history. We want kids with ideas, right? And so a teacher can say, hey, you know what? I love your ideas. They're really interesting. So here's what I want you to do. I'm going to put a little notepad in your desk or on your desk.

And whenever you get one of your cool ideas, just jot it down so you don't forget. And then you come up quietly. Don't make any noise. don't draw attention to yourself, just come up, quietly place that little piece of paper in the idea box. And every day when we get back from recess or back from lunch, I'll pull a couple of those notes out from ideas students have put in there and I'll read them and I'll give you an opportunity to share your idea. See, now you're giving them a different way to remember their idea and an opportunity to actually share it. The other one I like is, this is for younger kids, is to give them three talk tickets. And maybe it's

just three little tickets that you make up out of cardboard or paper, right? And it's a little talk ticket. And you say, hey, I get why you blurt out. But I believe that you're capable. I believe you're capable of waiting. And so here's what we're going to do. Every day, I'm going to give you three talk tickets. Every time you get one of your amazing off-topic ideas, I'm joking, but you know they're always off-topic, right? I want you to, instead of blurting out, I want you to hold up one of your talk tickets because watch what's happening. Instead of blurting out, whenever you tell a child, whenever you say no to something inappropriate, you have to give them something appropriate they can do. Just saying no to things has never worked since the beginning of time. Adam, don't eat from that tree, right?

What is he going to do? He eats from that tree. Human nature. So whenever you say no, you have to give them something to do. So I just gave them something to do, which is hold up the talk ticket. Now as a teacher, I say either, hey, go ahead, redeem one of your three, because you only get three a day. Share your amazing off-topic idea, right? And I can coach a child and say, look, you get like two minutes or

less to do this. You don't get to like hold my class hostage for like 23 minutes. But I can share your amazing idea or zip it because I believe you can hold it until after class and I may have them write it down on their pad. And so what I'm teaching them to do is actually slow their brain down, learn how to remember things, learn how to write them down on a piece of paper, on a post-it note, because I'm 57. I don't have good short-term memory. I don't even work on it that much. You know why? Because I've developed workarounds. I make notes. I send emails to myself. Why?

I don't want to put a lot of energy into doing things that I'm not really good at doing. Because if I spend all my time trying to memorize this and remember this, guess what? That crowds out all of the things that I'm good at doing. And I don't have as much energy doing those things. See, I would rather be wrestling with ideas and answering parents' questions and coming up with creative solutions to things rather than spending my whole day trying to remember what I'm supposed to be doing. And so I want to teach your kids how to do that. But see, there's an example of giving a child a tool to succeed. Because the truth is consequences and that endless parade of taking things away,

it just never works. You know those red, yellow, and green behavior charts? They basically reinforce failure. Because here's what your child knows. I'm never going to be on green for an entire day. I may hold it together well for five hours, but then blow it in the last hour of school when I'm emotionally, socially, and mentally exhausted in the afternoon. And so if I'm going to be on red today, I may as well just double down and make it

a really bad day and not even try. Because if you were rarely successful at something, which is what many of our kids feel like in school or in different situations, why would you bother trying really hard? It's dispiriting. So I want to give kids ways to actually be successful. And look, I deal in reality. Your strong-willed kids are always going to struggle. And so what they know is my best day is maybe a faint yellow, right? And so they're not getting to green because they're not naturally compliant rule-following kids. And so it causes kids to internalize failure and basically give up. And I say this to schools with compassion because it's really hard being a teacher nowadays when you have your entire classes kind of hooked on screens and watches really interesting video

games and videos. And now I have to stand up and teach them. It's a hard job. But what I tell schools is, look, if your approach hasn't worked for the first 6, 8, 12 weeks of school, it's not going to work now. Same thing I tell dads, right? You've been trying your tough discipline for the first 12 years of your child's life. It hasn't worked, so try something different. So if I were the school, here's what I would do. I'd focus, now this is dealing with kind of the ring of bandits, right? These seven boys who are basically just being normal boys, right?

I'd focus on one or two of the kids who are the leaders. I try to get the leaders first and I kind of pick them off, right? And I pull them aside and I'd actually expect them to be more responsible in my classroom, not better behaved. Now, this is a huge insight for kids, whether you're a teacher or a parent. I'm not really after good behavior. One, because I'm probably not just getting good behavior like a compliant child does. I'm actually after getting a child to be more responsible because strong-willed kids are often very responsible kids.

They're great at doing adult jobs, but they don't always demonstrate just good behavior. Besides, good behavior is kind of vague, but if I get them to be more responsible, I will give a couple of these kids, pull them aside and give them more advanced missions or jobs in the classroom using their particular gifts. See, they're not naturally good at memorizing information or taking tests sometimes or just sitting still, but they're often very good at other things. So I

could pull them aside like, look, I could really use your help in my class doing X. And so I give them a job, right? And here's what schools always come back with, and I understand it. And it's kind of like this chicken and egg situation. Let's say that Johnny wants to be a crossing guard, right, in his elementary school. But the school, you know, reasonably, quite reasonably says, well, until he learns how to behave better, he can't be a crossing guard. And what I will challenge you with is this. With our kids, it doesn't work this way, right? Because he's never going to be that better behaved kid if he doesn't have a motivation to do so, right? And if he doesn't have the tools to do it. But if you trust him with the crossing

guard job, he will likely live up to the higher expectations because he's actually good at being a crossing guard, partly because they like a lot of order and structure. It gives him a chance to boss other people around, right? And having that responsibility will cause him to work harder in other areas in school because he won't want to lose that job. So he doesn't care about losing recess because he's not good at playing games with other people anyway, or he's going to steal, cheat, change the rules of the game. All those things are quit. So there's no motivation. But now if I've got this job that I'm actually good at, that I'm responsible with. See, I give him a job that he's responsible with because now he's responsible as the crossing guard.

Well, that's meaningful to me. I take that seriously. See, I'm good at that and I like doing it and it's an important job. But sitting still in class all day, not so great at that. But if continuing to be the crossing guard is dependent on me following some of those directions and doing well. Well, now I've got a motivation to do it, right? Here's the other thing. Giving kids a special mission gives them a focus for that energy. It gets them invested in the class. It also helps them form a more positive bond with the teacher. And I know for the teachers out there and the parents too,

these kids are difficult. I know it's hard when you're trying so hard to be a good teacher and a few kids keep derailing your lesson plan and your day. I know it's hard and you want to adopt that kind of negative tone with them hoping that they're going to change. But all it does is sabotage your efforts and it causes them to shut down and dig in even more. Try the positive bond, right? Relationships change behavior. Connection usually yields more compliance and cooperation, right? So now this child's doing a special job and a teacher gets to say, man, you're really good at this. Wow, that really helped me. Well done, right? Because if the teacher just cracks down, these kids will just up the ante, right?

Why wouldn't they? There's no relationship there. There's just rules. So when these couple kids begin doing their missions well, or if you want to make it for your child, when your child starts doing these missions well, or if you want to make it for your child, when your child starts doing these missions well, then I bring a lot of positive intensity affirmation. See, what I really want to do is change the brain. Because right now what's happening is I'm a kid, I want intensity, not just attention. I want intensity. What I learned from an early age is

when I do things wrong, my mom, my dad, my teachers come at me, give me their full attention. I get in trouble, but I'm getting a lot of intensity from that. So now when I give them, I create a success. When I give them tools to succeed, now I'm able to come and say, dude, that's like you killed it there. It was really helpful. I didn't have anybody else in class that I thought could do that, but you did. See, that will start to turn the tide in their brains, in their hearts, and in their behavior. And once I get a couple of the kids in this classroom going in the right direction, guess what happens?

The others begin to follow a little bit. You can slowly begin to ask the other boys for their help with special missions. And this is what I would do for the next two weeks. I'd seek to add things for cooperation rather than subtracting things for misbehavior. This is a typical thing that we all do, schools almost all do, and parents do is like, well, if you don't do this, I'm going to take away X. Well, eventually you're going to run out of things to take away. And I would rather begin adding things, right? Otherwise it will just spiral downhill even more.

So that's kind of quick nutshell how I would handle this. If you need help with these things, definitely go through the Calm Parenting Package. Look, if you get that, there's a program called ADHD University. Your kids don't have to have ADHD to benefit from this, but it just goes through what's happening in the brain and they give you lots of ideas for the classroom,

for home, how to help with homework, how to help with schoolwork. And here's what I want you to know. When you download those programs, it'll come to, you get an easy to listen to app on your phone, on your iPad, wherever, and your spouse can listen. Your teacher can listen. All you have to do is email and say, hey, I'd like to share this particular program, or you can share them all, I don't care, but this particular program with my child's teacher or teachers, would that be okay? And we'll be like, absolutely. Get your teacher's email address, and we'll send that to your child's teacher. That way,

you're all on the same page, and we're very compassionate toward teachers, because it's a brutally difficult job. And we also try to give them very specific tools and strategies to help in the classroom. We go through dozens of them. So if you want help in the classroom with that, get the Calm Parenting Package, download it, and then let us know. And we'll share it with your child's teacher or teachers. And if, by the way, you want us to train teachers, we do it in person, but we can also do it. I get a lot done because I talk so fast in an hour in an hour and a half I can do it by a zoom call as well so reach out to Casey C-A-S-E-Y at celebrate calm.com and inquire about that and we can get that set up and I can do that pretty inexpensively by zoom because I don't have to

travel and do that so thank you you for listening. I hope you found this helpful with good insight. Thanks for sharing the podcast and we'll talk to you soon. Bye-bye.