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Strategies for De-Escalating Student Behavior in the Classroom

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Strategies for De-Escalating Student Behavior in the Classroom

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De-Escalation Exercise for Upset Students

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De-Escalation Exercise for Upset Students

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Social & Emotional Learning (SEL)

A simple technique that takes just a few minutes can help an agitated student regain the state of mind needed for learning.

So often we find students in a stressed or anxious state of mind. The most telltale signs are inappropriate behaviors or outbursts, negative comments, and anxiety-ridden movements such as fidgeting, leg shaking, and fist clenching. These signals should raise immediate concern and indicate to educators that a response may be needed. The goal is to guide the student to a self-regulated mindset, but how does a teacher do that?

First let's review what is going on with a student in the middle of an outburst. Cortisol, which is responsible for keeping people alive in the face of danger, is being released. Often referred to as the stress hormone, cortisol plays a crucial role in our ability to protect ourselves. When we experience stressful situations, the release of cortisol helps us respond rapidly, but it comes with a cost, as it negatively affects the brain's ability to function at an optimal level.

Think of it like this: You're in the ocean on a surfboard waiting for the perfect wave. A short distance away, you see a shark fin pop out of the water, heading your way. Immediately two chemicals- cortisol and adrenaline-are released and you enter the fight, flight, or freeze response: You can fight the shark, flee by paddling as fast as you can, or freeze and hope the shark loses interest in you. Whatever your response, you find yourself in a moment of stress, anxiety, uncertainty, and fear due to heightened cortisol levels.

Now let's consider how this might look in a learning environment. At the end of a class, two students learn that they have received a poor grade on a science test. This is not a life-or-death situation like the approaching shark, but the physiological response is the same. The students' cortisol levels are high and they are anxious, a state of mind that doesn't support clear, conscious thinking. Upon entering their English class, the two students are visibly upset. One heads straight for their seat and begins to cry, while the other throws their book bag on the floor and punches the desk. For the teacher, recognizing these signs before beginning class is important.

The Stress Response and the Brain

The young brain can be confusing, complex, and often misunderstood, not only from the perspective of adults but more importantly from that of the students themselves. In order for students to understand how their brain functions, it's important to teach them about a few parts of the brain and their functions. To keep it simple, teach them about the amygdala, prefrontal cortex, and hippocampus.

The amygdala directs rapid responses when necessary-the fight, flight, or freeze response. When the amygdala detects a threat, it responds faster than the prefrontal cortex, which directs the ability to make decisions and problem-solve, and the hippocampus, which is responsible for remembering details and storing memories. The two areas of the brain most needed for academic work are thus bypassed. As a result, an anxious, stressed, or fearful state of mind can lead to poor decision-making, inability to think with clarity, and impulsive behaviors.

Learning how to calm ourselves is imperative for our well-being, and the following technique, which is designed to decrease negative impulses and emotions, can be shared with students. The goal is to lead them to more regulated thinking and learning.

A De-escalation Technique

Let's go back to the two upset students in their English class. They aren't ready to work, but the teacher can help by taking a few minutes to guide them back to a state of calm.

This process should take anywhere from four to six minutes and be centered on the student. I've provided a sample of what a teacher might say at each stage, but you should modify those statements so they feel natural to you.

If you have a paraprofessional or in-class support teacher, you can ask a student who seems upset to step out into the hallway or into an area of the classroom set aside for de-escalation. Or you can do this as a whole-class starter activity for anyone who might have something worrisome on their minds. Students can either choose this de-escalation technique-thinking over their answers instead of sharing them out loud-or engage in a warm-up activity connected to the class such as completing a journal entry or worksheet.

Give the student time to regain their calm: Say, "I notice you're really upset. Let's work together on breathing slowly for one minute in order to manage your impulses."

Direct the student to be aware of their thoughts and feelings: Say, "What's going on in your brain and body right now? Tell me how you feel and what you're thinking, and if you're ready to focus on moving forward with getting calm."

Have the student redirect their thoughts: Say, "Take a minute, close your eyes, breathe slowly, and think about something that makes you happy. I know you told me how much you love your grandma's fresh-baked cookies. Think about walking into grandma's house in a calm state of mind as you smell the cookies, taste the cookies, and feel the warmth of them right out of the oven."

Give the student positive feedback on becoming calm: Say, "Now open your eyes. How are you feeling? If you need more time to settle down, let me know. You should feel happy and excited about your work in getting to this point."

Give the student a little more time to refocus: Say, "Take a minute and do something for you. Go for a walk and get some air, or tell me about your baseball game the other night."

Have the student reflect for the future: Say, "The next time you're feeling this way and I'm not with you, what can you tell yourself in order to take charge of your thinking and behavior, and get yourself to a regulated place?"

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A De-escalation Exercise for Upset Students

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A simple technique that takes just a few minutes can help an agitated student regain the state of mind needed for learning.

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Developing Trauma-Sensitive Classrooms to Support Students and Educators

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Developing Trauma-Sensitive Classrooms to Support Students and Educators

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Responses to the various windows of tolerance levels

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Video Examples

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Editor's Note: There is a growing sentiment among those of us in education that student behavior is more escalated than it was prior to the pandemic. Recent surveys from The American Federation of Teachers and

The National Education Association show teachers name student behavior and the lack of disciplinary response to it as some of the top problems facing their profession today. Research has ideas for how we can address the behaviors we see as well as prevent them from happening in the first place.
Welcome back. Today, we find ourselves square in the middle...the middle of a series about how to de-escalate behaviors and bring back a little calm to your school day. Check out last month's article when you have a second. In the meantime, here's a quick recap of what we know so far.

The behaviors you see, refer, and document in SWIS land somewhere within the escalation cycle. That cycle looks like this: ¹

Everything starts in a calm place until something triggers a response. That's when we get agitated, fidgety and distracted. You might start to see some minor problem behaviors creep in here. When left unchecked, things accelerate and energy gets directed at other people. Behaviors like defiance or disrespect come into play as students turn their attention toward the adults in the room. The back-and-forth responses between us culminate at a peak where behavior could be described as destructive. Certainly, all learning has stopped. Once the peak behavior finishes, we start to de-escalate, go through a process of recovery, and eventually end up back at the beginning in our original state of calm.

When you think about this cycle do you wonder why de-escalation comes toward the end after a behavior reaches its peak? It certainly makes sense to focus on de-escalating after a crisis, but wouldn't it also make sense to infuse de-escalation strategies throughout the entire cycle? An intervention at any point has the potential to stop behaviors from escalating and return to a place of calm. What do those de-escalation strategies look like?

When behaviors escalate, odds are high there's a power struggle underway.

‍Prevention: Strategies to use during the calm and trigger phases of the escalation cycle.‍

Escalation: Strategies to use during the agitation and acceleration phases of the escalation cycle.‍

Crisis: Strategies to use during the peak phase of the escalation cycle.‍

Recovery & Restoration: Strategies to use during the de-escalation and recovery phases of the escalation cycle.

De-escalation Strategies Before a Crisis

The folks at The Center on PBIS recently released a new practice brief called Strategies for De-escalating Student Behavior in the Classroom and it could not have arrived at a better time. ² The brief's authors share practical, research-based strategies for de-escalating behavior at any point in the escalation cycle. Not only that, they assert "all students...can benefit from a universal approach that promotes a consistent response to behavioral escalation by all staff that is not overly reliant on exclusionary practices and intrusive crisis responses." They agree, you guys! De-escalation strategies work for everyone no matter where they land in the escalation cycle.

Here's how it works.

As behavior intensifies through the escalation cycle, the calming strategies you use shift to meet the current need. This is what the authors call the de-escalation cycle. It has four phases.

The de-escalation cycle starts with prevention. Prevention strategies align with the strong, Tier 1 systems and practices you use in your classrooms every day. These are things like teaching expectations, investing in building relationships with students, positively reinforcing the behaviors you love to see, and correcting behavioral errors when they happen. Additionally, prevention includes teaching everyone the strategies they can use to regulate their own behaviors, before they escalate, while they're in a calm neutral state.

The foundational work you do here is critical; it also doesn't guarantee behavior will remain calm 100% of the time. We're all human and bound to react at some point.

So, what do you do when things start to escalate?

The behaviors you notice before a situation hits its peak are part of the agitation and acceleration phases of the escalation cycle. While the behaviors you notice in the agitation phase are less intense than the ones you notice in the acceleration phase, the strategies you use to address the behaviors are similar. The focus is always on returning to a calm state and redirecting the behavior back to the task at hand. There are lots of ways you can do that. Here are four strategies you can try (along with some role-play from one of our favorite Instagram accounts, @mrmonroeandnala) when you need to intervene before a situation become a crisis.

Offer a Choice

When behaviors escalate, odds are high there's a power struggle underway. A student's behavior elicits a response from you. Your response elicits a bigger response from the student, and so on, and so on, and so on. Rather than continuing to ask students to do the one thing you need them to do, offer them two to three acceptable options for completing the task. When you notice a student hasn't picked up their pencil to start a task, offer them an alternative way to get started. "You can complete the worksheet independently or with a partner. Which would you prefer?"

Here's another way.

Redirect Their Attention

Sometimes we just need a reminder or a suggestion for how to get ourselves back on task and our emotions under control. Redirection is that reminder - a simple, quick, calm, respectful way of letting a student know what they've done wrong and what they could do instead. On last month's Expert Instruction episode, Dr. Kathleen Strickland-Cohen shared how she handles behavioral errors the same way she might handle an academic error - by reteaching. She assumes her student has simply forgotten the expectation, so she takes the moment to remind them. Something like, "Remember if you have an idea, raise your hand so you don't accidentally interrupt someone else's thought."

Redirection can also offer an entry point for students who are having a hard time getting started on a task. Here's an example of how redirection can work in that way.

Co-regulate When They Can't Self-Regulate

Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you're feeling frustrated, annoyed, upset, slighted? Do you ever just need someone to help you process those feelings in order to move on? Psychology has a term for that process. It's called co-regulation.

When someone is escalated, co-regulation looks like empathizing with them, acknowledging how they feel, and helping them gain more control over their emotions. An example of co-regulation given in the practice brief is: "I want to make sure you're okay. I see you're angry because your face is red and your fists are clenched. When I feel angry, I like to take three deep breaths and count to 10. Want to do that together?"

If a student hasn't started an assignment after you've asked, try offering them choice to try a different approach to starting the work.

When someone is off task, re-direct their attention back to the task at hand in a calm, neutral way.

When you notice those physical signs of escalation, help them regulate their emotions by empathizing with how they feel, modeling expectations, and maybe even reminding them of the ways they know how to calm themselves down.

Co-regulation can also be a nice way to recruit some grace from your students. Here's an example of how Mr. Monroe identifies his own emotional state and asks for some grace from his class.
Our series isn't finished yet. Be sure to check out this month's podcast episode on October 18 about how to respond when things continue to up the escalation cycle.
Remind Them of the Strategies They Know

Did you catch in the co-regulation example from Mr. Monroe how his students reminded him how he might use their de-escalation strategies to calm down? Well, that's called "prompting a regulation routine" and it's the fourth strategy in our list.

No one in the history of time has ever calmed down when they've heard someone say, "Hey. Calm down." A different approach is to prompt them to use the strategies you've taught for when they feel agitated and upset. A prompt might be to ask a question like, "Would it help to take a few deep breaths? I can do it with you." Another prompt might look like, "I was about to go refill my water bottle. You could come with me to take a break, grab some water, and try again." It also look like this.

When you notice behavior escalating, you don't have to wait for things to hit their peak before intervening. De-escalation strategies can happen throughout the escalation cycle.

This list of ideas is not exhaustive; it's a starting place. Use it to come up with the de-escalation strategies that feel natural to you and will work for your students.

1. Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, (2021, September), The Response Cycle, https://dpi.wi.gov/sped/educators/behavior-supports/response-cycle

2. Strickland-Cohen, M.K., Newson, A., Meyer, K., Putnam, R., Kern, L., Meyer, B. C., & Flammini, A. (September, 2022). Strategies for De-escalating Student Behavior in the Classroom. Center on PBIS, University of Oregon. www.pbis.org

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