Virtual Teacher

Are you having more negative interactions than positive interactions with a disruptive and acting-out student? Your ability to influence and to persuade a disruptive student toward appropriate classroom behavior is contingent upon the bond, or rapport, established between the child and you. By applying basic child guidance principles, you can shift the balance from negative interactions and comments to positive interactions. Some guidelines follow. Develop the Ability to Distance Yourself from the Acting-Out Behavior Increase your tolerance threshold to disruptive and acting out behaviors; downplay mild disruptive behaviors and allow behaviors that deviate from what is standard or “appropriate.” Do not personalize the student’s behavior, and avoid reacting emotionally. Emotional reactivity to what the student says or does is the number one reason why interactions between teachers and students turn into conflict, and the main reason why a conversation turns into an argument. R...

These are dramatic times for teachers. In educating children, we have a difficult and demanding role. Like no other, our profession is responsible in ensuring that children develop emotionally, socially, and academically. As society evolves in complexity, so does our role. With so many social and emotional issues affecting directly a student’s potential for learning, we can no longer guarantee our success in educating children relying only on academic expertise. The fact is that, like adults, in coping with modern society’s pressures and demands, children are paying a heavy emotional toll too. At alarming rates, more and more children and adolescents are experiencing all kinds of stress and trauma reactions, and at all levels of severity. This can turn into a chaotic scenario for teachers if it catches us ill-prepared. Since children’s affective and emotional status strongly influences how they perform in the classroom, it is imperative for teachers to become acquainted with how s...

Watch Your Language! Ways of Talking and Interacting with Students that Crack the Behavior Code For teachers and school staff To buy on Amazon, click here .

Watch Your Language! Ways of Talking and Interacting with Students that Crack the Behavior Code by Carmen Y. Reyes, The Psycho-Educational Teacher , is a comprehensive resource (360+ pages) of skilled language-based interventions aimed at improving classroom behavior by improving the way teachers and students relate, placing special emphasis on those strained interactions with students exhibiting habitually disruptive patterns of behavior. Founded on theory and principles in interpersonal communication this interactional approach is rooted in the belief that teachers’ ways of talking play a crucial role in influencing how students behave. In other words, students’ behaviors are a reflection of both the words that teachers use and how we say those words to children. A core belief in interpersonal communication is that high expectations that are goal-oriented influence positive behaviors while low expectations lacking a behavior or academic goal influence negative behaviors. This innov...

Click on the link to read the full article: Creating an Emotionally Healthy Classroom Environment | Edutopia Great Resource in Reading Comprehension! Check it out on Amazon

Forman (1993) defines coping skills, or coping efforts, as sets of information and learned behaviors that children can use purposely to bring about positive outcomes in potentially stressful situations. Coping techniques teach psychological, social, cognitive, affective, and behavioral skills that children and adolescents can use to deal with potential stressors. According to the author, knowing and using coping skills can prevent or reduce a variety of academic, emotional, behavioral, and health problems in children and adolescents. On the other hand, the inability to handle potentially stressful situations or stressors may result in emotional, behavioral, and/or physical health problems. Coping skills are a way of promoting general, emotional, and social competence in children, and we can divide them into two major categories: a)      Problem-Focused. Acting on the stressful stimuli to change or to solve the problem. Using problem-solving techniques, we focus th...

To read the article, click on the link: Education World: Classroom Management Basics

To read the article, click on the link: How To Turn Around Difficult Students (Part 3) — Smart Classroom Management

To read the article, click on the link: NEA - Avoiding Power Struggles with Students

To improve our ability in disciplining children, we do not need flamboyant techniques or procedures; we just need better communication and persuasion skills. Generally speaking, persuasion is the process of communicating with children using just the right words to get the positive outcome we want. Most specifically, in persuasive discipline, we use specific language patterns and ways of talking to shift the child’s attitude and mind-set from noncompliance to compliance. Here is a partial list of persuasion-based techniques that parents, teachers, and tutors can use to improve child compliance (for the complete list, see Reyes, 2013):  Persuasion Technique 1: Assume that What You Want is True If you talk and act as if what you want is true, your child will believe you. When we assume something, we are sending the message to the child that he or she already wants to do what we are requesting; for example, asking, “Do you want carrots or celery?” assumes that the child wants and...

To read this article, click on the link: 10 Reasons To Smile, Breathe Easy, And Not Let Stress Get The Best Of You — Smart Classroom Management

School staff and caregivers can help children understand how their internal self-talking or private speech influences the way they feel and behave. Knowing and reciting positive and optimistic self-statements help children feel happier and display improved self-control. Anger-prone, distraught, and/or impulsive children can be trained in monitoring their private speech and thoughts. Once the child recognizes the body (e.g. muscle tension and sweating) , thoughts (e.g. “I hate Mr. Evans!”) , and action (e.g. cursing and kicking) signals that cue an agitated state of mind, he can interrupt himself before acting aggressively and/or impulsively, and then the child self-corrects to calmer behavior and thoughts using his customized self-dialogue. Anger-prone and/or impulsive children can use specific self-statements or self-instructions to stop their habitual ways of thinking and to direct more positive responses. Self-coping statements to guide children in (a) handling anger triggers, ...