Students lack self control in school.  They are continually challenged with tasks like waiting their turn, raising their hands to speak, staying in their seats, walking in the room, keeping hands to themselves, and remaining calm no matter the setback.

As teachers, it can be extremely frustrating because we are constantly repeating ourselves, remodeling, teaching logical consequences, and focusing on those student’s behaviors instead of the lessons we intended to teach.  I know. I am there on a daily basis.

As you know, self control is not just a classroom skill, it’s a life skill. It helps people to manage their actions so they can get things done (part of a group of skills called executive function).

 

So I challenge you as a teacher to press in a little further.

Ask yourself, WHY are our student’s lacking self control?

 

Their Brains

Research suggests that most human brains take about 25 years to develop!  The last part to mature is the prefrontal lobe (where that rational part lives).  The pre-frontal cortex part of the brain manages all reason and logic, problem solving, as well as focus.  That means when you are dealing with 5 and 6 year olds, you are in the trenches with them as their prefrontal cortexes are still developing!

Even though you feel like you are going to pull your hair out, a lot of their actions are actually perfectly developmentally appropriate behaviors. They just aren’t quite there YET.

Shelly Stasney over at This-N-That Parenting gives lots more info about this amazing brain research in this post.  This is where a great deal of patience, understanding and compassion comes in.  Even as grown adults we sometimes have trouble tapping into that rational powerhouse, am I right?  Kids have only been on this planet a few years in the big scheme of things, so sometimes we just have to cut them a little slack.

 

Their bodies

In the Every Classroom Matter Podcast, Vicki Davis and Dr. Brad Johnson address why we still ask students to sit still and learn when their bodies are incapable of doing so. Did you know only one in twelve students have the core strength of students from the 1980s?  Aside from burning energy, core strength actually affects the same part of the brain as executive functioning and helps students to focus and increases achievement!

Physical activity is a huge part of self control, which I want to really explore in another post!  Stay tuned.

 

Understanding self regulation

Ok, so we know students are lacking physical and impulse control, but they are also lacking emotional control.  What’s the difference between controlling oneself and regulating oneself?  Evan Weinberger wrote a great post explaining the difference.  He says, “Self-control is all about inhibiting impulses and emotions; self-regulation focuses on reducing both the intensity and frequency of those impulses.”

Weinberger’s main idea was, “when we look at misbehavior through the lens of self-regulation rather than self-control, we are better positioned to recognize the difference between misbehavior and stressed behavior, an important distinction to make if we want to deal with them effectively.”

Furthermore, when we help kids learn to self-regulate, we are giving them tools to cope with those stressors.

To echo this point Barbara J. King wrote a blog post about why self regulation matters the most.

My take away from this post was that, “All too often we confuse our needs with the child’s. We seek to make children more manageable, rather than self-managing.” Wow.  As teachers we have a need for a quiet and well mannered class where Johnny isn’t spinning in circles or Sally isn’t crying about things we find insignificant or Bobby isn’t getting angry and throwing crayons.

We think we need to get all the kids to simmer down so that we can manage them.  When in reality we need give students the tools to learn how to manage themselves and their own emotions (as we come along side them to support them). Here are some helpful hints on getting a calm down corner set up in your classroom today.

 

Their Big Feelings

So the heart of the matter, why are students dealing with such big emotions at such young ages?  King responds that, “the stress that children are under today has become far too great, and for that reason, we are seeing so many problems in mood, behavior, and attention as well as a sharp rise in physical health problems.

To understand why this is happening we have to recognize the many different kinds of stress that kids are under, hidden as well as overt, and learn how to distinguish between misbehavior and stress-behavior.

But the second part of the answer is that our own stress drops dramatically when we shift from trying to enforce compliance to reducing the causes of challenging behaviors and teaching kids how to do this for themselves.”

 

Get to the root of the problem.

We have to identify the root of the problem and not only focus on the huge branches we see.  We have to identify the stressors(roots) that cause those big feelings(branches) so that we can work to reduce them.

It’s helpful to collect data on a student, reflect on their true needs, and then try to redirect their behavior.

For example, Mary Ann Buckley, author of Sharing the Blue Crayon says, “sometimes a student’s lack of self control is actually her attempt to create a sense of control. She may feel inadequate in a situation, an immaturity causes her to to act impulsively.  She may shout out, get physical with others, misuse materials or become defiant.”  We have to take time to look at the behavior, gather data, and reflect.

If Billy keeps jumping up to run across the room, does he really know the expectations? When Jane keeps talking to her neighbor, has she had an adequate time to talk?  Bob keeps bebopping around; has he had enough movement breaks?  More on these ideas as we continue to dive into this topic.

I honestly think this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to this conversation.  Please comment with your thoughts !

If you are not already apart of my Sunday Social Emotional Email List, join here.