Table of Contents Principals and Practices
Giving energy to something, even negative attention is actually reinforcing.
Celebrating Negative Behavior
I have many times observed classrooms, study halls, family situations where one student is fairly continually acting out and the teacher unintentionally celebrates this behavior.
“Johny, Johny, don't do this. Johnny, Johnny don't do that”.
“Johnny can’t you see that you are botheringSusie?”
“Johnny, you made Tommy cry.”
“Johnny, can’t you see the rest of the class is trying to do their work”.
“Come on Johnny, you can do better, why don’t you try harder next time.”
“Johnny, don’t do that again.”
“Johny, I said don’t do that I again.”
Johnny,I am really getting mad now.”
“I am Really getting mad.”
“I am REALLY REALLY getting mad.”
“THAT’S IT NO CELL PHONE, TV, CAR, VIDEO GAMES, FRIENDS OVER, FOR A MONTH.”
Well this might not appear to be a celebration! But, if we look at the connection of how our brain and nervous system responds to the world, each of our senses: sight, hearing, touch and proprioception, smell and taste,- receive stimulation, and convert this stimulation into electrical and chemical impulses. These electrical -chemical impulses travel through various brain cells and networks, through a highly complex network of interconnections and fire a cascade various networks through a hierarchy of sensation emotion feeling thought to further behavior.
In important driver or fuel for this whole process is sensation and energy. Each time Johnny flips himself out of his chair onto the ground, talks out of turn, makes intrusive noises, and manages to get the teacher and fellow students noticing him, pointing his eyes raising his or her voice level maybe moving towards him having the whole class of fellow human beings turning their attention and gaze and responses to Johnny.This attention becomes a banquet, the most exquisite celebration of his behavior. And any kid, worth their salt, will figures out that this sort of behavior gets him this kind of a celebration, He will continue this behavior and probably amp it up!!
He may get this banquet and at the same time feel guilty about it- so causing a ruckus may become a ‘guilty pleasure.’
In the same classroom where Johnny is doing his flopping, fidgeting disrupting dance, there probably are any number of children who are calm, centered, attentive present, respectful who are being starved for stimulation.
If they are starved long enough, they will notice that Johnny’s behavior is the way to get stimulation. Sometimes this leads to a competition of sorts, a race to the bottom who can get the most attention by acting the worst.
In my first years of teaching young students, I was in a particular class. We were sitting in a circle. One of the children seemed to be getting 'upset'. He crawled over to the corner. One of the two classroom aids went dutifully chasing after this child. The aid was lavishing this student with maternal care and nurturing.
Do you think that this brought this child and class back into order and good formation? No, within about two minutes of this happening, two more kids looked sad and started crawling over to the same corner. Now that there were three kids in the corner acting 'upset'. The second aid, went over to the corner to lend a hand and began lavishing care and concern. Now I was sitting in the circle with four kids, who were both completely distracted by what was going on and watching longingly for this intense bonding connection that was happening over in the corner. Within another couple minutes even with my best efforts to engage these kids, this 'Celebration of these kids' upset', was too much for my students to miss out on. My four remaining students went over and joined the two aides in the corner leaving me alone in the circle.
With some supervision of these aides, and some setting clear intentions for myself, the next week as the same upset child went for the corner, we just kept an eye out for safety and otherwise ignored that behavior.I turned to those children who are in the circle, gave them great eye contact. I said to them quite sincerely, "It is wonderful you're able to stay in the circle and focus on this music, even when one to your classmates is having a hard time". "Good job", "Air High Five!". "Celebration, Rhythm". So now with our upset student in the corner, as she could see the rest of the circle enjoying themselves participating and having fun. She eventually crawled back to the circle and resumed to class. This was giving energy to the Time In and the Time In became more attractive.
In another class with middle school age boys who seem to have some attention and
regulation problems or challenges, I noticed if I could focus my energy I'm the
one who see most centered and stable, the other students would tend to move
towards that more centered state. Depending on the level of relationship that I
have with students and the circle And their relationships with each other I'm
often able to be very direct about with feedback about his emotional state.
"Johnny I just really like how you were sitting, giving me such good eye contact
, How your posture is nice and strong. You look like you're ready for anything." I
have many times observed classrooms, study halls, family situations where one
student is fairly continually acting out and the teacher unintentionally celebrates this behavior.
"Johnny, Johnny, don't do this. Johnny, Johnny don't do that".
"Johnny can't you see that you are bothering Susie?"
"Johnny, you made Tommy cry."
"Johnny, can't you see the rest of the class is trying to do their work".
"Come on Johnny, you can do better, why don't you try harder next time."
"Johnny, don't do that again."
"Johnny, I said don't do that I again."
"Johnny, I am really getting mad now."
"I am Really getting mad."
"I am REALLY REALLY getting MAD."
"THAT'S IT NO PHONE, TV, VIDEO GAMES, FRIENDS OVER, FOR A MONTH!!"
This might not appear to be a celebration, but, if we look at the connection of how our brain and nervous system responds to the world, it is!! Each of our senses: sight, hearing, touch and proprioception, smell and taste,- receive stimulation, and convert this stimulation into electrical and chemical impulses. These electrical-chemical impulses travel through various brain cells and networks, through a highly complex network of interconnections and fire cascades of various networks through a hierarchy of sensation, emotion, feeling, thought to further behavior. This large dose of stimuli activates and reinforces the nervous system. In the end these dysfunctional behaviors are reinforced! essentially, they are Celebrated!
In important driver or fuel for this whole process is sensation and energy. Each time Johnny flips himself out of his chair onto the ground, talks out of turn, makes intrusive noises, and manages to get the teacher and fellow students noticing him, pointing his eyes raising his or her voice level maybe moving towards him having the whole class of fellow human beings turning their attention and gaze and responses to Johnny.
This attention becomes a banquet, the most exquisite celebration of his behavior. And any kid, worth their salt, will figures out that this sort of behavior gets him this kind of a celebration. He will continue this behavior and probably amp it up!!
He may get this banquet and at the same time feel guilty about it - so causing a ruckus may become a 'guilty pleasure'.
In the same classroom where Johnny is doing his flopping, fidgeting disrupting dance, there probably are any number of children who are calm, centered, attentive present, respectful who are being starved for stimulation.
If they are starved long enough, they will notice that Johnny's behavior is the
way to get stimulation. Sometimes this leads to a competition of sorts, a race to
the bottom who can get the most attention by acting the worst.
If your observe many group and simply watch the Amperage, the amount of Energy
that is given in response to behaviors,- the most Amperage usually goes to
negative behavior.
This dynamic doesn't come out of adult waking up one day and deciding, "Gee I don't have much to do to I think I will encourage and celebrate negative behavior". No This tendency comes for a long evolutionary development. In order to survive humans and our evolutionary decedents evolved to quickly and energetically respond to potential danger. Going into a state of high alert and quick action saved many a being when there as an odd sound, an unusual movement something that was not quite right, for that something often was a predator or natural danger would could take a life. Quick energetic response was effective. This is called 'the Orienting Reflex' or 'the Startle Reflex'. Our ancient automatic nervous system has not caught up to the stimuli and demands of a modern class room.
To build an effective positive group culture we need to reverse this. We have to deliberately retrain ourselves to respond instead of react. Make sure the intentions, rules, and expectations are clear.
Honor, energize and celebrate with students who are following the expectations and rules while they are following them.
If a student breaks a rule- give a consequence. One main consequence is withdrawing our energy them.
By momentarily withdrawing our energy, we are essentially saying, "Your strategy for engagement and connection is inappropriate; I will give you my energy when you use a more appropriate strategy."
If that doesn't work they may need to loose the privilege of doing a particular activity.