The Unteachables Podcast

#76: What to ACTUALLY say to calm students down. 4 steps to resolving bubbling behaviours quickly, so you can get back to teaching.

• Claire English • Season 5 • Episode 76

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In this episode, I dive into one of the toughest challenges we face as teachers—how to manage a classroom full of students when dysregulated behaviours start bubbling up and escalating. I talk about the key things to remember when students are dysregulated and can’t reason with us, and share my CARE Framework—a practical approach for responding to these situations. The goal? For you to be equipped with actionable classroom management strategies that are aligned with your values of compassion and kindness.

What I discuss in this episode:

  • The challenges of managing escalated student behaviour, especially when juggling other expectations placed upon us as teachers.
  • Why reasoning or punishing doesn’t work when students are in fight, flight, or freeze mode.
  • The importance of depersonalizing student behaviour by understanding it as a search for safety.
  • The CARE Framework for responding to escalating behaviours:
    • C: Communicate the emotion you see in the student.
    • A: Affirm and attend to the student’s feelings.
    • R: Reassure and support the student to reduce fear and anxiety.
    • E: Empower the student with choices while setting clear limits.

Resources mentioned in this episode (all accessible from within The Behaviour Club:

  • The CARE Framework for de-escalating student behaviour.
  • Masterclass on de-escalating big behaviours
  • SEL lesson on understanding the brain
  • Regulation toolbox for students
  • Phone conversation prompts for tough discussions with parents and carers.
  • PEACE process for when behaviours bubble over.

Have a question, comment, or just want to say hello? Drop us a text!

TAKE THE QUIZ! What is your teacher type, and what does this reveal about your classroom management?

Join The Behaviour Club for no-fluff monthly training, a supportive community of like-minded educators, and done-for-you resources.

Browse my resources on TPT - All things SEL made with love.

The Low-Level Behaviour Bootcamp! - Strengthen your teaching presence and tackle low-level behaviours!

Purchase my book - ‘It’s Never Just About the Behaviour: A holistic approach to classroom behaviour management


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Speaker 1:

So it is so tough, it is so challenging and you just can't explain it to somebody who hasn't been there. You can't explain it to somebody who is not a teacher in front of those students in a room. Oh hi, teachers, welcome to Unteachables podcast. Congratulations. You have just stumbled across the best free professional development and support you could ask for.

Speaker 1:

I'm Claire English, a passionate secondary teacher, author, teacher mentor and generally just a big behavior nerd, and I created the Unteachables podcast to demystify and simplify classroom management. I want this podcast to be the tangible support, community validation, mentorship, all those pretty important things that we need as teachers to be able to walk into our classrooms feeling empowered and, dare I say it, happy and thrive, especially in the face of these really tough behaviors. So ready for some no-nonsense, judgment-free and realistic classroom management support. I've got your teacher friend, let's do this. Hello, wonderful teachers, welcome back to another episode, another week of the Unteachables podcast. It's so nice of you to join me here. If this is the first episode you're listening to, then welcome. It's lovely to have a new teacher on board. What I do here is just try to demystify the whole classroom management debacle because it's really tough and there are so many moving parts and it's so difficult to kind of get a grasp on what actually moves the needle when it comes to behavior. Difficult to kind of get a grasp on what actually moves the needle when it comes to behavior because it's convoluted and it's nuanced and you won't find any BS here. You're not going to find any teacher judging and teacher blaming and teacher shaming, nor will you find any student blaming or shaming. This is just a safe space to come and learn some strategies that are actually going to help you with your classroom management and do so in a way that is really aligned with your values of compassion and kindness.

Speaker 1:

And today is just the perfect example of that, because I'm going to be talking about what to actually do in the classroom and how to speak to students who are really bubbling up with their behaviors. They're really dysregulated. Things are escalating. What do we actually say to students who are getting ready to explode? And, as a teacher, dealing with escalated behaviors can be one of the most challenging aspects of the job.

Speaker 1:

For a very long time, I taught at a school specifically for students with really complex social, emotional and mental health needs. That meant all of these huge behaviors that we do see from dysregulation. It manifests in those behaviors lots of aggressive behaviors, lots of volatile verbal exchanges, more fights and assaults that I can count. So it really was, as a teacher, just constantly on that balance beam of okay. Are things actually settled enough right now for me to start this content? Can I teach this lesson, or are there other things bubbling up right now that I need to address? Will you know, mark, come in late again swearing and shouting at me or throwing chairs around or chucking pens around, and then let's put that aside for a second.

Speaker 1:

On top of all of that, there's that immense pressure to get good results and have your students making X amount of progress from point A to point B. And you know, when you're sitting across from your head teacher at the end of the year, they're not going to be saying, okay, well, how did you deal with the behaviors? Necessarily, they're going to be looking at the data on the page and saying, well, why didn't you get the results that you were supposed to get for your students? Why didn't you get one year of progress? Or whatever they say to you. So it is so tough, it is so challenging and you just can't explain it to somebody who hasn't been there. You can't explain it to somebody who is not a teacher in front of those students in a room. This also then comes with the inevitable struggle of us dealing with this in a classroom and being heightened ourselves and stressed ourselves. So we actually then can't do the work we need to do with de-escalation because we've got behaviors bubbling up, we've got the inevitable pressures of getting results for our students. You know we're human beings so we're triggered by things. It really is a lot.

Speaker 1:

So today I wanted to talk about how to start to de-escalate escalated behavior, specifically what to actually say in the moment to a student when their behaviors are bubbling up and how to bring things down before we get to a point of a fight or a chair being thrown at the wall or a book being ripped up. How to really start to bring things down when things are being escalated. So these are like really practical strategies, really practical steps. I really wanted to share this with you today because it has been something that's come up a lot. But what I want to start with first. I will be giving you kind of the how to what to say, handing you that kind of structure, but I wanted to start here first.

Speaker 1:

When it comes to escalation, there are three things that are so important for us to know and remember that shape how we naturally need to be responding to it. When we know these three things it becomes kind of a no brainer how we need to respond to it anyway. So of course I'll give you the strategies, but this is just as beneficial knowing these things. And that's the beauty of classroom management in the way that I teach it, because it just makes sense. This is what people should mean when they say research-based it is. In practice it makes sense.

Speaker 1:

So the first thing is that in the moment when students are escalated, they aren't able to reason with you. I'm talking on a neurological level. Their brains are essentially in shutdown mode. They are operating in fight, flight or freeze. Any attempt of us trying to reason with them or punish them is not going to give us the desired outcome that we would like in the lesson. Of course we want them to be able to engage, get into the work and, you know, let us get on with the rest of our teaching. But if we approach them in a way where we're trying to reason with them, maybe we're trying to, you know, negotiate some kind of consequence, it's not going to work.

Speaker 1:

The second thing is everything that we do as human beings when we're in an escalated state is about trying to get back to safety. Whether it's through shouting, crying or withdrawing, these behaviors are all about seeking safety or returning to a place of security. This can help us come at that situation from a place of compassion and curiosity. It can help us to depersonalize the behaviors that we're seeing in front of us, even when they feel really personal. I hate the saying like just don't take it personally, because there's so much else around that that we need to know to support us. To not take it personally because it can feel so freaking personal. You know, when someone's shouting at us, calling us a BRTCH or whatever it is. This is still a clean podcast, by the way. I think I've done like 80 something episodes. I'm not swearing Um, but everything is about them trying to return to a state of safety. So depersonalizing it for us helps us then stay really regulated and calm. So remembering that the behaviors that we're seeing is them feeling unsafe.

Speaker 1:

The third thing the third thing we need to remember about students who are escalating or human beings in general. This applies to all of us Like thinking about my you know, my husband and I we're getting into a bit of a tift. But the third thing and I say this to my husband all the time actually don't tell me to calm down. Nobody calms down when you say calm down ever. Just think about it. Has anybody actually calmed down because they were told to? It just doesn't happen. When you're telling someone to calm down, all that's doing is invalidating the reason why they're in a dysregulated state to begin with. You're taking that away and saying you've got no reason to be acting like this. You just need to calm down.

Speaker 1:

As Laurie Dissel tells beautifully puts it there is not a human being in the world who does not settle down a bit when they've been heard, felt and seen. I hope I've said that right. I think it's heard, seen and felt. I'd go as far as to say that there's not a human being in the world who has ever settled down when they've been told to calm down. It's just not something that happens, but we do rely. I've I've taught people to calm down before I've. I've gone into that. You know that cycle and it's because we've been told to in the past as well. You know everything it's like inherited, the way that it's been embedded into uh, you know our approach. So if you do say calm down to people, I'm not saying that you're coming from a malicious place, by the way. It is just something that we've learned to say over time. So what do we actually do when there's a student sitting in front of us and you can see the behaviors bubbling up, you can see that they're restless, you can see that you know they're starting to shout things out, or just you can just sense that there's something going on, they're becoming dysregulated and you know that if you don't do something right now and nip that in the bud, it is going to explode.

Speaker 1:

I have developed something called the CARE Framework, and was I proud of that acronym? Yes, I was very proud of that acronym. Before I go on and tell you about the framework, I just wanted to let you know that in the Behavior club for July so the last month's focus area it was all about deescalating and regulating big behaviors. The care framework is just one piece of that puzzle and it's just one of the dozens of resources and strategies that you get, including that full masterclass. It steps you through a game plan of reducing, responding to and then resolving dysregulated behaviors and I'm not talking about just the ones that are bubbling up under the surface, I'm talking about those big, explosive ones as well. It has an amazing SEL lesson to teach our students about their brains, because that is so key in empowering students to make those changes in their behavior. Has a big regulation toolbox for students and so much more.

Speaker 1:

Even phone conversation prompts for you to kind of navigate those tougher conversations with parents and carers when there has been something that's happened in the classroom with their child being dysregulated. So really everything you need to start feeling confident and supported with these challenging behaviors. So I just wanted to say that as an aside, because there is a great deal of support there for you. If this is something you're really struggling with, if you're seeing this in a lot of your students and you think there's something that needs to happen to kind of break that cycle, to bring that learning in and to kind of feel more equipped and confident to deal with it, so that is all I'll say about that. If you are in the behavior club, so you can just go into the vault and click on the July de-escalating big behaviors section and that'll take you to everything I've just mentioned. Or if you're not in the behavior club and you would love to join and love to have access to this level of support, then you can head to the link in my show notes or the dash on teachablescom forward slash, tbc. I upload things every month and it's like a huge pack of learning and resources and it's just incredible. So, uh, if you do want to part, be a part of that, then you can head to the show notes and find out.

Speaker 1:

So, when addressing behaviors in the classroom that are bubbling up, those situations, those moments that are about to overflow, I follow the talking with care framework and I developed this framework to help teachers like you just be able to support students to return to a place of regulation so you can then get back to teaching. And here's how it works. So the C in care is communicate the emotion, so that student is over there, things are bubbling up. The first thing we do it's essential to communicate the emotion that you're seeing in your student and recognizing that it's always okay to have those feelings and the behaviors are just a manifestation of those feelings. Remember, we're always saying yes to the emotion, but that does not equate to us saying yes to the behaviors that we are seeing. Those two are very different. So the kind of things you might say is it looks like you're angry, am I right in saying that? Or I can tell something is up right now, what's going on. And by acknowledging those emotions you're validating their experience. And even before moving on to the A-R-E in care, this one simple step can actually be enough to help them feel understood and move towards de-escalation before you've done anything else, just with someone saying I can see right now that things aren't right, are you okay? Just that one simple step can do so much for that escalated student in your class.

Speaker 1:

The next step of the framework, the A in care is affirm and attend to the emotion. That's where Laurie Dessertel's wisdom comes to shine. You know just the act of acknowledging and validating a student's feelings. It does reduce the intensity of the situation. You can say something like it makes sense that you feel this way, it is okay that you feel this way. So first up, you're saying I can see you're angry, is that right? I can tell something is up, what's going on right now. It totally makes sense. You feel this way. It's okay that you feel this way. You're just letting them know that their feelings are valid, they're understandable, and it just takes the heat out of the situation and makes them feel more secure and makes them trust you in that moment.

Speaker 1:

The next step is the R, and that is to reassure and then support the student. Sometimes the fear of how they're going to be received, the fear of punishment, the fear of rejection because of the way their feelings are manifesting in these big behaviors, can continue to escalate them. They feel like they've ruined things. They feel like they're already in trouble. Providing reassurance and support can alleviate that fear and bring them back to a de-escalated state. So, for example, just really saying to them clear, plain and simple you aren't in trouble right now. I just want you to be safe. How can I help you right now? How about we go and do this? So just the simple act of saying you're not in trouble right now. You know I'm here to support you. We're going to do this together. It's okay. I just want you to be safe right now. I want the rest of the class to be safe. Reassuring them that they're not in trouble and that your primary concern is their safety is going to help them feel more secure, is going to help them feel less threatened, and offering support and a way to help them can provide a pathway back to calm.

Speaker 1:

Now the final part of the care is the E, which is empowering the student with choices and setting limits. You need to empower your student with choices while setting clear limits and boundaries on what the behaviors are that they're exhibiting. The feelings are always okay, remember, but certain behaviors are not. And by providing some choices on what they can do next, you'll give them a sense of control, which can be incredibly grounding for students. So, for example, would you like to go do this or go do that? You can go for a walk for five minutes or you can do this. Maybe you bring up a strategy that's always worked for them in the past. You can say your feelings right now, they're okay, but I can't let you do this, I can't let you throw that, I can't let you punch the wall, I can't let you do this unsafe thing. So setting limits ensures that everyone stays safe, whilst also giving the students some control over their actions. They've got some strategies. You're equipping them with some de-escalation strategies. It's all about balancing that empathy and those clear boundaries and giving them a path forward.

Speaker 1:

Just remember communicate the emotion, affirm and attend to the emotion, reassure and support the student and empower with choices and set limits. So the whole conversation might sound like I can see you're angry right now, am I right? You know it makes sense. You feel that way. It's okay. You feel that way. Look, you aren't in trouble right now, james. I just want you to be safe. Would you like to go and get a drink right now, or do you want to come and sit by my desk and we can start to work through things there? Your feelings are always okay, james, but I can't let you do this thing. So you can see how, even though I went through that for quite some time, the actual conversation in practice is like a really quick. It can be one minute long, it can be 30 seconds long, it can be less than that.

Speaker 1:

It's just about going through those steps and hitting those marks to make sure that when we are approaching our students who are in an escalated state, we're not coming at them with calm down, we are coming at them with. You know, this is how we're going to support you and this is the pathway out of it. And if that's too much to remember in the moment because it is a lot, you know, when we're dealing with an escalator student in front of us, we're often feeling really dysregulated ourselves and it's really hard to come back to a place of calm for us. So if you can't remember all the parts of the acronym in the heat of the moment, just remember that there's not a human being in the world who does not settle down a bit when they've been heard, seen and felt those beautiful words by Dr Laurie Dissertels. Sometimes this won't work. Sometimes students will already be past the point of that working to deescalate their behaviors. Some students you might not have the relationship with, some students might not trust you Like. It just might be really challenging for some students to come back. Maybe they're going up the escalation cycle so quickly you can't find a pathway out for them. So if this doesn't work and they keep escalating to the point of no return, I also cover that in the July month of the behavior club through that peace process. So if you're a behavior clubber you can go there, watch that video, download that prompt poster so you feel more equipped to deal with that in the moment.

Speaker 1:

And if you're not a member, come and join us. The value, the community. The support you get for just the price of a few coffees a month is just wild, and it's so beneficial and I am such an advocate for what we do inside the club and I am just so excited to bring this to you. So it would be a disservice for me not to talk about it on this podcast. And if you join now, I will always honor the price that you have paid initially to join the club, whether it's a monthly or annual subscription, and I think the price will go up because at the moment it's this is my full-time job and, uh, I think the price to join the club at the moment of this time of recording it's like $20. And that is just yeah, it's just wild for what you get. So if you're thinking about joining the club, there's no better time than now and I really look forward to welcoming you in.

Speaker 1:

As I said, I so back what I'm doing here and I've just modelled it off. Everything that has been effective and worked with my own not just classroom management practice, but the way that I'm offering support inside of the club is everything that I wanted to be able to provide for teachers and I've never felt so aligned with something that I've done in my whole entire life, so I really look forward to welcoming you in. So you can head to the link in the show notes or it's at the-unteachablescom forward slash TBC. That's just for the behavior club and I will see you there, hopefully. And either way, I will see you next week on the Unteachables podcast. I very much look forward to seeing you there. Lovely teachers, have a wonderful week.

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Claire English

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