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How to Help Children Who Are Disruptive in Class

More often than not, chastising a student for minor disruptive behavior, such as squirming in their seat or passing notes, will help to affirm the behavior for them. The disruptive student will recognize the attention their behavior brought, from you and his classmates, and will identify those kinds of problem behaviors as a way to get the attention they feel they need. Shifting your attention to praising positive behavior, while ignoring any negative behavior that can be safely ignored, can help attention-seeking children shift their energy toward more positive behavior.

Things You'll Need

  • Programmable timer
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Instructions

    • 1

      Make a list of negative behavior you will be ignoring and a list of positive behaviors you can acknowledge and praise students for engaging in. For instance, you might choose to ignore non-threatening or inappropriate talking, the inability to sit still and random noise-making while praising students for sitting up straight, engaging in their work appropriately and getting along with other children.

    • 2

      Set an audible timer, such as an alarm clock or cooking timer, to go off at random intervals during class. You can play with the timing, but once or twice throughout each lesson is a good place to start.

    • 3

      Pause your lesson when the timer sounds and praise students who have been behaving well while ignoring those who have been behaving poorly. This will reinforce the idea that engaging in improper behavior will no longer net the child any attention, but that acting positively will.

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