Teachers

As a classroom teacher and school counselor I found that listening and validating feelings helped me learn all kinds of really helpful information that proved crucial in supporting students. Students open up and share when they know you care. By listening and validating feelings I learned what my students were thinking and feeling, and this helped me understand better how to help.

Imagine you are a student on the first day of school, and the teacher presents some pre-established rules for classroom behavior. Does this excite you, or do you listen with boredom?

Now imagine you are a student on the first day of school, and the teacher says, "I need the help of everyone to create guidelines for behavior in our classroom that are respectful and encouraging for everyone. Let's brainstorm for ideas?"

What are you thinking and feeling now?

Many teachers use circle time, morning meetings, or what they may call class meetings. Most of these meetings are “teacher generated.” In other words, the teacher decides what should be discussed or follows a program with suggested topics designed to teach children about these topics. Positive Discipline class meetings are designed to be “student generated,” and to “focus on solutions,” meaning that it is the students who put their concerns on an agenda (although teachers can too) and then everyone brainstorms for solutions. Through this format, students learn from the inside out by being involved, instead of from the outside in—lectures or lessons taught by others. The root of education is educaré, which means “to draw forth.” When adults “teach” by “drawing forth,” students feel capable, belonging and significance, and more motivated to follow the solutions they help create.

Nothing can change your mood from sad to glad more quickly than gratitude. Negativity changes to positive feelings the instant you focus on what you appreciate. Since this is such a profound truth, doesn't it make sense to teach this valuable skill to students—and to provide time and space for them to practice on a daily basis.

Research has shown that a connection at school is the primary factor for academic achievement.

From the book, Raising Self-Reliant Children in a Self-Indulgent World,
by H. Stephen Glenn & Jane Nelsen

Do you create any of the following barriers regularly with someone you love? Do you believe that if you worked at it you could use them less often? Let's look at an example as a means of understanding the barriers and builders. Suppose four-year-old Linda becomes stuck when her tricycle wheel runs off the sidewalk. There are several ways a parent could handle this situation that would decrease feelings of capability:

Where did we ever get the crazy idea that the way to make a child "do" better is to first make him or her "feel worse"? That is the premise of punishment; and it is truly crazy. Think of the last time you felt scolded and humiliated by another adult. Were you thinking, "This is so helpful. I really appreciate it. I will now do so much better, and I can hardly wait to consult you will all my problems." Unlikely. The truth is that children (and adults) do better when they feel better.

If you are a teacher, have you been teaching long enough to remember when children sat in neat rows and obediently did what they were told? If you are a parent, do you remember when children wouldn’t dare talk back to their parents? If you don’t, perhaps your grandparents do.

In many of our books we talk about "Positive Time Out." There are several points that need to be made regarding time out for children who have not yet reached the age of reason:

When a child is disrespectful to teachers or classmates, the first source to consider is the behavior of the adults in this child's life. Children who aren't treated with respect have no model for respectful behavior.