Essential Child Guidance Skills for Teachers

1. 18 CHILD GUIDANCE
PRINCIPLES TEACHERS CAN
USE TO REDUCE HABITUALLY
DISRUPTIVE BEHAVIORS IN
THE CLASSROOM
A Psychoeducation for Teachers Skill-Building
Guide

2. Changing Behavior is a Teaching
and Learning Process
 Therapeutic teachers believe that behavior change is
primarily a teaching and learning process. To be effective and
long-term, behavior change strategies must include cognitive
(thinking), affective (feelings), and behavioral aspects. We
also believe that we all have a choice for changing behavior,
and that all students, including students that exhibit habitually
disruptive behaviors in the classroom, can learn new and
more positive ways of behaving. In the therapeutic
classroom, educating disruptive children about the motivation
behind their behavior plays a vital role. Once children
understand that they choose their behavior, they also
understand that they can change their behavior. Therapeutic
teachers believe that strengthening children’s coping and
social problem solving skills is healing. The therapeutic or
child guidance model is one of social problem solving and
socio-emotional growth rather than disciplining and
punishment.

3. The Teacher-Student Relationship
is the Glue
 When teachers consistently and systematically
follow child guidance principles, they can
influence the direction of any exchange with a
student to move the child away from confrontation
and disruptive behaviors and toward restoring a
climate of learning in the classroom. The teacher-
student relationship is the glue that binds the
behavior management interventions to successful
outcomes. Simply put, teachers’ interactions with
students are our most powerful behavior change
tool. Through rapport, benign confrontation,
optimistic messages and high expectations,
therapeutic teachers defuse disruptive behaviors,
generating positive behavioral responses in
students. Next, the principles…

4. One size does not fit all. The process of
behavior change must respond to the
unique socio-emotional needs of the
disruptive student.
1

5. Relationships with students are dependent
on language. For therapeutic and growth
promoting relationships, we need to use
positive and constructive language.
2

6. Positive messages and high expectations
generate positive emotional and behavioral
responses. Critical and negative messages
generate negative behavioral responses.
3

7. By changing our messages and
vocabulary from critical to supportive and
positive, we shape children’s behavior
and get better class control.
4

8. We can reduce disruptive behaviors
by communicating positive
expectations. What we expect
influences what we get.
5

9. Approaching classroom situations
differently can change students’
behavior and the classroom
atmosphere.
6

10. Responding differently to disruptive behaviors in the
classroom empowers the teacher. Our greatest power is the
power to choose how we are going to react to our students’
disruptive behaviors. We can treat difficult and disruptive
behaviors as a challenge or as a threat.
7

11. Therapeutic teachers see students’ disruptive
behaviors as an opportunity to help children
develop more productive and effective ways of
thinking, feeling, and behaving.
8

12. The disruptive student does his behavior, but he is not
his behavior. Disruptive behaviors are dysfunctional
behaviors, not a fixed personality characteristic. In other
words, the behavior is the problem; the child is not the
problem.
9

13. Disruptive behaviors are actions
capable of change.
10

14. Positive and therapeutic relationships
with adults shape children’s social roles,
problem solving skills, and decision-
making.
11

15. Some rapport with children arises
naturally, some we have to create.
12

16. Teachers can enhance children’s socio-
emotional growth. Students that exhibit
disruptive behaviors can grow socio-
emotionally and can improve themselves.
13

17. We can teach self-control and self-
management of behavior. In the therapeutic
classroom, the long-term goal of discipline is to
develop self-awareness, self-direction, and
self-control.
14

18. Students engage in fewer disruptive
behaviors when they believe that they have
the skills to control (self-manage) their
behavior.
15

19. Students are empowered in
behavioral change and self-control
when they believe that their effort
makes a difference.
16

20. Self-management of behavior stems from the
child’s personal understanding and decision-
making skills, rather than founded in external
controls and reinforcement.
17

21. Students have the resources they need to
improve their behaviors. The therapeutic
teacher’s role is to notice those resources and
to ally with the child during the process of
changing behavior.
18

22. Psychoeducation for Teachers
 The guiding principle in child guidance is that
all therapeutic interventions are essentially
verbal interventions, most specifically, carefully
crafted ways of talking to gradually shift a
distraught or troubled child from a state of
agitation and helplessness into a more
resourceful state of resolution

23. Connect with Psychoeducation for
Teachers Online
 FACEBOOK PAGES AND
GROUPS
 PSYCHOEDUCATION FOR
TEACHERS (Page)
 https://www.facebook.com/ps
ychoeducationalteacher
 FREE OR CHEAP
TEACHING RESOURCES
(Page)
 https://www.facebook.com/fre
eresourcesforteachers/
 WE TEACH THE WORLD
(Group)
 https://facebook.com/groups/
222247571474300
 BOOKS IN CHILD
GUIDANCE
 THE
PSYCHOEDUCATIONAL
TEACHER
 https://www.amazon.com/aut
hor/thepsychoeducationalteac
her/