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~"Every family has a story. Welcome to ours."

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~"Every family has a story. Welcome to ours."

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This Is The Year: Our One Chance Inspire (Inspiring video for new school year)

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This year we have the once in a lifetime opportunity to inspire our students. We change lives. Wanting to give back and encourage my educational family I spent two weeks this summer producing this video with the help of family, friends, students, and teachers. Every year teachers put their whole hearts into shaping young people.

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5. Daily physical activity

Exercise is an important tool to help students manage both their physical and mental health. Exercise is an effective treatment for mild to moderate depression, anxiety, and stress. Exercise releases endorphins that make you feel good. It promotes neural growth and releases tension. It also allows students to focus on physical activity and interrupt negative thinking. As an added benefit, it improves memory, enhances self-esteem, and improves sleep.

Take your students for a walk through the halls; use the fitness facilities in your school. Even jogging on the spot and doing push-ups and jumping jacks can boost endorphins and reduce tension.

Participate in physical activity with your students. Be a role model for positive behavioral change. Build daily physical activity into the school day. Make moving a lifelong habit.

6. Mindfulness and breathing exercises

Mindful breathing is the process of focusing your attention on your breathing and nothing else. You concentrate on the process of your breath moving in and out of your body. The results of mindfulness are stress relief, decreased blood pressure, and improved sleep. It has been used to help in the treatment of depression, eating disorders, anxiety, and substance abuse.

There are many examples of breathing exercises that can be found on the Internet. Here we offer one strategy to get you started.

Balloon breathing:

Inhale fully. Place your hands on your belly and breathe in slowly through your nose.

Feel your belly fill up as if it's filled with a giant balloon.

Exhale fully. Open your mouth and blow all of the air out of your body.

Let your belly get flat like an empty balloon.

Repeat five times.

7. Catch them being good

Sometimes negative behavior is the only way that students can communicate their needs to you. It may be the only way they know how to get your attention. Instead of reinforcing the negative behavior, try to catch them being good. The goal here is to praise the positive behaviors and neutralize or ignore the negative behaviors.

Steps for catching a student being good:

Identify the negative or disruptive behavior (one or two behaviors).

Identify the times when the negative or disruptive behavior occurs in the classroom.

Identify fixed time intervals through the course of the day in which you will assess to see if your student is engaging in negative behavior.

If, at those fixed intervals, the student is not engaged in the negative behavior, praise them or reward them.

If, at those fixed intervals, the student is engaged in the negative behaviors, ignore the behavior (if at all possible).

Direct your attention to those students who are acting appropriately and give them praise/rewards.

8. Model prosocial skills

Prosocial skills are those behaviors that we engage in that benefit others. These behaviors include cooperation, sharing work, sharing toys, and emotionally supporting others who are in distress.

Students who have behavior disorders often have not developed strong prosocial skills. You can support prosocial skill development by:

Being a positive role model. The more that students see positive adult interactions, the more likely they are to engage in such activities themselves.

Talking through common social situations and providing feedback about appropriate social interaction.

Role-playing. Have students act out social situations and appropriate responses.

Encouraging structured social play between peers. Play is one of the best ways to encourage sharing, cooperation, and helping.

9. Offer choices instead of giving orders

Offering students choices instead of giving an order elicits their cooperation. Choices communicate that their EA/paraprofessional respects them and their opinions. It provides an opportunity for students to build responsibility and be empowered.

Use these guidelines when offering choice to your student:

Provide two positive options.

Be clear and specific.

Make sure that both choices are acceptable and feasible.

When your students are comfortable making choices, modify this choice by using the "First/Then."

You can use First/Then in this way:

Present the student with a work task that needs to be accomplished.

Give the student a choice of two options that they would like to engage in after the work task is completed. It could include:

Computer time

Time in the playground

Coloring/drawing

When the student has completed the work task, allow them to engage in the second "reward" task.

Using First/Then promotes delayed gratification. It enforces the idea that first work has to occur before they are rewarded with a choice task.

10. Alter the volume and cadence of your voice

Often we overlook how we can affect the emotional state of our students. Emotions can be infectious. When we are angry, aggravated, excited, anxious, or nervous, these emotional states can impact the state of escalation of our students.

If you notice that your student is escalating and becoming visibly agitated, try these techniques to control your own emotions:

Lower the volume of your voice and speak more quietly. As you speak more quietly, your student will have to become quieter to hear you.

Alter the cadence of your voice and speak more slowly.

Modulate your tone of voice and be calm and supportive.

Simplify your vocabulary.

Remember that as your student starts to escalate, they're starting to lose rationality. Speaking loudly and quickly will increase their agitation.

Final thoughts

We've offered some skills to develop in order to help you respond to escalating behavior. When you're in the presence of an escalated student, the first thing to realize is that you are actively managing the crisis situation. You are controlling your own behavior. You are making decisions that will impact how the situation unfolds.

Remember, the outcome of the situation will be impacted by the strategies that you use to de-escalate the agitated student.

Take a deep breath and calm yourself. Don't react to the situation. Use the strategies described above to respond to it. Use your tool kit to help support your student.

Jennifer Taylor is a long-time behavior learning assistance teacher. Michael Edward and Abu Jabbie are both experienced Educational Assistants. They work in a specialized program that's designed to meet the needs of students who have severe behavior disorders.

Jennifer has extensive experience teaching students with special needs and First Nations students. She has a master's in Education with a focus on School Improvement and Leadership, specifically looking at interventions that improve the school experience for at-risk youth. Jen has been a CPI Certified Instructor since 2007.

Michael has a nursing background and has worked extensively with individuals with mental health disorders. Michael has a bachelor's degree in Health Education from the University of Benin in Nigeria. He has worked in school, institutional, and group home settings. He has been a CPI Certified Instructor since 2015.

Abu Jabbie is a long-time EA who has worked in school, institutional, and group home settings. Abu immigrated as a refugee from Sierra Leone in 2004. He attended the University of Winnipeg and studied Economics. He is trained as a Child and Youth Worker.

Both Michael and Abu are skilled EAs who have the ability to connect with students to build therapeutic relationships.

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10 Behavior Management Strategies for Educational Assistants & Paraprofessionals | Crisis Prevention Institute (CPI)

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With these strategies, you'll build a go-to tool kit for handling and preventing behavior problems.