How to Handle Student Behavior Like a Pro

As soon as we heard that shriek coming down the hallway , we sprung up , we grabbed our walkies , we took our earrings out and we went to the rescue . That was one of my very first school counseling jobs and I can remember thinking in the back of my mind oh dear Lord , please do not let me be the only one on campus when this happens .

I don't want to be responsible for this situation on my own Because , to be honest , I was a little terrified . This kiddo was unpredictable .

We weren't sure what his move was going to be , and I wasn't especially practiced in behavior intervention and I think , too , you know , when we show up to intervene in behavior concerns on campus , because it's so unpredictable and because there are so many moving parts to the process , it ends up feeling super overwhelming .

Hey , welcome back to the School for School Counselors podcast . I'm Steph Johnson . I'm a full-time school counselor , just like you on a mission to make school counseling feel more sustainable and more enjoyable , because I want you to look forward to walking through the doors of your school each and every day .

I want you to feel accomplished and I want you to look forward to walking through the doors of your school each and every day . I want you to feel accomplished and I want you to feel confident . And that's what this podcast is all about your weekly masterclass on school counseling success , a deep dive into the information .

You need to feel like you have the knowledge and the expertise to do this amazing job that I know you were put on the planet to carry out .

Now , most of us know about behavior intervention all too well , in that we are very , very involved in it , and this time of year , as we're heading into spring , we're going to be noticing behaviors ramping up and y'all I can tell you from talking with the members of my School for School Counselors Mastermind it is everyone .

So we need to be talking about behavior intervention . We need to be sharing our approaches and supporting one another through what feels like a more and more difficult landscape . But here's the thing . I could dive into a bunch of tactics or techniques for behavior intervention . But there's two problems with that . Number one , you've probably heard that all before .

And number two , has it really been of great help to you ? You may have picked up a few things here or there that help in behavior intervention situations , but I'm also going to bet that you were left feeling like there has to be something more , especially when you're not in control of staffing on your campus .

You're not in control of who gets pulled to de-escalate behavior , especially when it's you , and so , instead of talking about all of these perfect world pie-in-the-sky scenarios for behavior intervention y'all , we're going to get real today .

I hope that you're looking forward to this , because we're going to have some real talk about behavior intervention for school counselors . Now , if you've been listening to the podcast for a while , you may have heard an old episode . I think it was about a year and a half ago .

Back in September 2023 , I put out a podcast episode called Unpacking School Discipline a surprising guide for school counselors , and in that episode , I compared school counseling behavior intervention approaches to parenting styles , and the ultimate outcome of that conversation is that we want to be an authoritative counselor . Do you remember your parenting styles ?

Authoritarian , authoritative and permissive . We want to be the authoritative counselor . We're giving firm , clear boundaries , but we're also providing a lot of empathy and love . But y'all that's hard when you're constantly called to de-escalate students in crisis or behavior meltdowns , and especially when you see the same students over and over again . It's exhausting .

And even if you have a great multi-tiered system or a great behavior RTI framework which most experts will tell you is the holy grail , it's still so tiring Between trying to maintain your own schedule , getting pulled away from your core counseling work and that constant feeling of being in the spotlight anytime you arrive in a hallway or a classroom to help with

intervention . It can be maddening . So let's talk about some of the things that are standing in your way . First is time . We all know in our work we are juggling a million things at once , but then often we're expected to drop everything and run across campus to help a student re-regulate and y'all . That never happens when it's convenient , right ?

It's never when you have nothing going on . It's when you're in the middle of a conversation , or you're working on plans , or you're trying to wrap up some sort of important task , or even in the middle of talking to another student . And then boom , all the walkies go off , Everybody starts looking for you and you're needed to go somewhere else .

The thing about this kind of behavior response is that the disruption isn't just in the moment , it's not just when the behavior is occurring and , you know , maybe a little bit after that it throws your entire day off , and if it happens often enough , you know , maybe it happens every couple of days , gracious , even every day .

I've had some situations where I've had students going off almost every single day . It is freaking draining . You feel like you're constantly spinning your wheels and you're never , ever going to be able to catch up .

One of the things that I see school counselors talk about most is having lots of small group counseling or counseling lessons scheduled , because we know students need consistency .

But then by the middle of the week you've only had one of those lessons or one of those groups , because the behavior calls keep rolling in and by the time the week is over , you're starting to wonder why am I here at all ? Why do I even try to schedule this stuff if I'm going to constantly be pulled away ?

That leads to your second obstacle , which is feeling like you're overscheduled . You start to get afraid to schedule small groups or lessons , or even individual kids , because you know eventually you're going to have to cancel somebody .

And the worst part about it is you want to show up for these students , you want to build consistency , you want to provide that support , but every time you have to leave that and head toward a behavior concern , it chips away at your foundation of proactive , structured support for your students .

It's like you're constantly on defense instead of offense and then you start thinking , well , I mean , should I be scheduling things at all ? What's the point ? You could schedule some protected time when behavior calls are going to be handled by another staff member .

You could try to carve out an hour a day , maybe a couple hours , where you know you have some guaranteed student facing time . But I also know that that's not possible on a lot of campuses . This is exactly why I don't immediately schedule small groups at the start of the school year Y'all . I have to wait .

I have to see what behavior concerns have arrived on my campus , maybe which behavior concerns are kicking off again and what adjustment concerns I'm going to be seeing before I start scheduling a bunch of folks . Is that opposite of how we typically think of our multi-tiered systems of support ? Yes , it is .

But here's the thing If you're running a truly comprehensive school counseling program that's aligned with multi-tiered systems of support , you also know you're not going to be running a caseload of 1 to 700 or 1 to 800 , like so many school counselors are doing . So we're going to have to cut ourselves a break here a little bit .

Many school counselors are doing so . We're going to have to cut ourselves a break here a little bit . The third roadblock and this is a huge one , this is one we don't talk about enough is feeling incompetent . You show up to an escalated student issue , you are trying everything you know and it feels like it's not working .

And even worse , it feels like everybody's watching you and that pressure can feel super overwhelming . It's like you're on a big stage in the spotlight and everybody's watching you and whispering can they do it ? You know you've read the research , you've practiced the techniques ,

but still some days it feels like nothing's landing . I talk a lot about this kind of behavior hurdle in my masterclass called Behavior Intervention for School Counselors . We're getting ready to hold that masterclass again in the mastermind coming up on March 23rd . That's a Sunday , that's when we have our masterclasses .

And if you not only need a little additional behavior guidance , but you would also like to troubleshoot in real time y'all . This masterclass is where it's at . You can find out more information about that at schoolforschoolcounselorscom . Slash mastermind . But back to the point . What in the world do you do ?

What are some practical techniques you can use for de-escalation that are actually going to work in the real world ? Let me see if I can help you with some ideas . Can help you with some ideas . Number one walk slowly . That seems so silly , doesn't it ?

But I'm here to tell you I noticed a significant change when I started walking deliberately and intentionally to behavior calls .

I don't get in a hurry , I don't rush because on the way , as I'm walking at a somewhat leisurely pace , I'm grounding myself , I'm breathing deep , I'm preparing my mind so that when I arrive in that situation , I can arrive calm , cool and collected , without a bunch of stress hormones already flooding my body .

Collected without a bunch of stress hormones already flooding my body . If you can move intentionally , breathe deeply and arrive feeling composed , you're going to be calm and the student is going to be more likely to match your energy . You can also have a bank of go-to strategies . Now , this is nothing earth-shattering .

These are probably things you already know about , but what people don't tell you is sometimes simplest is best . We don't need a bunch of fancy techniques to intervene in behavior , because really your power is in your presence . Non-verbal cues , just a nod , a smile if it's appropriate , or sitting near a student without getting too close .

That can sometimes be more effective than walking in and barking orders or starting to give choices or starting to say if then or first , then all those kinds of things you're told to do . Sometimes the best thing to say is nothing at all , especially when a student is dysregulated because y'all their thinking brain is not online in that moment .

You can talk to them all you want , but they're probably not going to hear you . You need to reduce the audience . This is a confidence issue for a lot of school counselors . They feel , when they arrive at a behavior concern , that they don't have the authority or the right to tell people to move away .

You must claim that I have trained many school staffs on the fact that when I arrive to behavior intervention because you've called me , your involvement in the situation is pretty much over . I'm going to take it from here , because if you're calling me , that means it's gotten to a point that you can no longer handle that , and there's no shame in that .

But I surely don't want you hanging around trying all the things you've already tried before , trying all the things you've already tried before . So don't be afraid to be assertive and reduce the audience Along with that . Be ready to stop the barking chihuahua . What do I mean when I say that ?

A lot of times , when you arrive to classroom concerns especially if you have a teacher who has become dysregulated in the situation as well they meet you in the hallway or at the door and they start yipping and yapping like a chihuahua .

Let me tell you what happened First this , then that , and they want to give you this full play-by-play in this high-pitched , fast voice . That is going to do no one any good . The recap can wait . You do not need all the details to intervene in the behavior .

It's true , and I think sometimes we think , if we allow that play-by-play , it's going to give us some clue as to what we need to do next . But in my experience , nine times out of 10 , it only serves to worsen the problem . So stop the chihuahua .

There are some really kind ways to do that in the moment , but again , you have to claim your authority , you have to be ready to do that and to be able to call the shots . During behavior intervention , I use a visual cue for staff member disengagement .

I have a special card that I wear on the back of my badge and I have made that available to my mastermind members as well . So all we have to do is flip that badge and be able to communicate what needs to be said without actually speaking any words .

And last , be ready to do what feels like nothing , and nothing is actually a big something , but people don't realize it .

If you're in a position to sit with a student calmly , to not make demands , to just remain grounded in your experience and wait for them to come around to you , those mirror neurons in their brain are going to kick in and they're going to begin to try to match your regulation state , regulation state .

So , even though we feel like we should show up and do something , sometimes the best thing to do looks like nothing at all . Be ready to do nothing , so to speak . So just a few ideas of what to do in the moment . And again , none of this is groundbreaking . All of the tactics that you're often told to do often just escalate the situation .

But if we can push past the fear of being judged , of people thinking we're just sitting there with them doing nothing , or the fear of asking them hey , you want to get out of here for a little while and wondering if the teacher's going to look at us and think well , it must be nice to go play games and have fun .

After something like this , you've just got to let all of that go . You have to be confident in your competence and your expertise and if you're prepared to explain the mechanisms if anyone ever calls you out on it , you're good . Because , my friend , there are going to be naysayers on every single campus .

I recently spoke at a school counselor symposium and one of the school counselors that attended told me a terrible story about a teacher who was actively seeking to undermine the school counselor's behavior .

Response they're everywhere , y'all , but we can't let them derail what we know needs to happen in the moment Nonverbal cues , reducing the audience , getting rid of the chihuahuas , being ready to do what looks like nothing , ready to do what looks like nothing , and then maybe at the end of it , you can do a quick review with the staff members involved what worked ,

what didn't , what could we do differently next time , but that only happens after everyone is re-regulated and ready to go , and ready to go Far and away . What I want you to take away from this podcast episode is that you do amazing work and if you're giving it everything you have , you are absolutely doing enough .

Hold tight to what you know about psychology and brain chemistry and behavior intervention . You know what to do . You just need to trust yourself . We are planting seeds for longer-term behavior changes . We're building trust in the moment , without giving a whole bunch of baloney commands , because our role in these situations isn't to fix it .

It's to model emotional regulation , to be a steady and safe presence for a child who is experiencing monumental difficulty , and sometimes the biggest win in these situations is that they didn't escalate any further than they already had . Y'all , this is a tough time of year .

We're past the newness of the school year , we're past the holidays , all of the big events , and you may have some longer stretches of time during the spring , without days off , without student holidays and things like that , and so the road seems long .

People are getting tired , they're getting testy and , as a result , we do tend to see behavior concerns tick up this time of year . So I've got a couple resources for you . Number one I am considering releasing something called the Behavior Breakthrough Kit .

The Behavior Breakthrough Kit is going to give you some additional resources for managing behavior intervention Because , like it or not appropriate school counseling duty or not so many of us are called to be part of these concerns , and sometimes we're the only ones that are called to be part of these concerns .

So I want to give you a kit that's really going to help you feel like you're on the right track . What if you had more in-depth behavior training ? What if you had a flow chart to help you decide where things need to go ?

What if you had a framework for decision making to determine whether or not you're involved with dysregulation or defiance , because I know that's something we question all the time . What if you could grab all of these things in a toolkit together to help you with your behavior intervention ? As I said , I'm considering releasing this .

I'm not sure if the interest is there , but if it is , if you think this could be something that could up-level your school counseling game , I am here for it .

You can go to the website schoolforschoolcounselorscom and at the very top of that home page you're going to see a link that you can click to enter your name and email address to jump on the wait list and if we get enough interest to finalize this behavior breakthrough kit , you are going to be one of the first to know .

Secondly , if you feel like you need some faster and more personal support , you know we're here for you . In our School for School Counselors Mastermind , we hold weekly case consultations and we talk every single meeting about these kinds of struggles .

My friend , you do not have to do this alone and , unlike other school counseling memberships where they throw a bunch of resources at you and tell you good luck , hope you make it , we're there each and every week supporting you through the implementation . We're not leaving you out to dry or making you wait a month until you can ask your questions .

We're there every week to support and to guide you through whatever you're experiencing on your campus . You can find out more about that at schoolforschoolcounselorscom . Slash mastermind All right y'all . Behavior intervention . It can feel sticky . It can feel scary just like I was so scared of my little banshee whale student that I had so many years ago .

But the good news is you've got this . We've got this and we can navigate this scary terrain together . I am so glad you joined me for this episode and I can't wait to talk to you again in the next episode of the School for School Counselors podcast . I'll be back with you soon and until then , take care .