Part III: Teaching Lifelong Skills in a PBIS Framework
Beyond Rewards and Consequences
Reflecting, Repairing, Restoring
In Parts I and II of this series, we explored ways to help students develop self-awareness and self-regulation within the context of Positive Behavior Intervention Supports (PBIS). In Part III of this series, we look at how important these tools are for developing and, when necessary repairing relationships. Effective community building is the foundation of both PBIS and Restorative Practice, another framework that may be in place at your school. Restorative Practice has a strong focus on repairing harm, rather than punishing wrongdoing, that is highly effective for helping students develop lifelong skills.
In the following vignette, a teacher applies the principles of self-awareness, self-regulation, positive behavior intervention, and repair to help a student work through a behavioral outburst.
Young Alex has been sent to your office. Again. This time he knocked over a chair. Well, maybe he threw the chair. You kneel beside him, so you’re at his height, and ask what happened in a calm, curious voice with a relaxed face. His chin is quivering, his hands are balled up into fists, and he won’t look at you. After calmly waiting a few seconds, you hand him a clipboard with a reflection sheet [LINK] on it, and ask him to start by writing or drawing what happened. You return to your desk and answer a few emails. Alex looks a little calmer. “May I look at your paper?” You ask. “Mm-hmm” Alex whispers.
You see … mostly scribbles. The page is torn from the force of his pencil’s pressure.
You pause. And then, calmly,
“I sense that you put a lot of feeling into this drawing. Is that right?” “Mm-hm.” “Will you tell me about it?”
Words start tumbling out of Alex’s mouth, in between little sniffs. “We were writing and I hate writing I’m so bad at it and the teacher she made me write and the other kids could all do it and I broke my pencil and it’s so hard and I just … just got all hot and sweaty and mad.”
“So then what happened?” you ask, gently.
“I jumped up and had to get outta there.”
Both PBIS and RP offer valuable insights for how to shift Alex’s path away from school failure. In this context, we can see how self-awareness and self-regulation skills support children in learning how to exit in community through building and repairing relationships.
Teaching instead of Punishing
In both PBS and RP, the goal is not to punish a wrongdoer in order to change their behavior. Instead, both seek to understand the needs being expressed, and help people find safe ways to meet them. In PBS the principal goal is to understand and prevent the challenging behavior, by teaching the child alternative behaviors, and sometimes “engineering the environment” to help them succeed. From a PBIS standpoint, we would examine what happened before and after the incident to try to understand the function (the function of any behavior is to get something, avoid something, or to communicate).
In Alex’s case, it doesn’t take too much detective work to hypothesize that he is avoiding writing and avoiding feeling embarrassed or inadequate. His self-awareness is developed enough that he describes his thoughts and some physical sensations. Helpfully, he is able to articulate his feelings about his writing skills, so our hypothesis is supported. Now we know that there is strong self-awareness, and the basics of self-regulation are in place.
Teaching Academic and Social-Emotional Skill Gaps
Clearly, Alex needs more support around self-regulation (see part II) to learn safer ways to remove himself from an emotionally unsafe environment. But beyond that, because we dug deep into the “why” of his behavior, it’s clear that also has a significant academic gap. If Alex had simply been punished (referral, detention, suspension etc.), the cycle would continue and likely escalate in intensity, causing more and more harm to Alex and to his community and widening the academic gap due to time spent out of class. Instead, the adults have the opportunity to teach new skills and help Alex repair any harm.
Repairing Harm
Meanwhile, you’re wondering “but wait, he threw a chair! Isn’t he going to get in trouble for that?” Sure, if what you mean is “isn’t there going to be a consequence?” This is where RP comes into play, because this framework asks us to look at what harm was caused and to whom. In RP, a primary goal is for the harm to be repaired. The crossover with PBIS is that when the “wrongdoer’s” needs are understood, adults can help to find other ways to meet those needs that are safe or socially appropriate. Similarly, when a child learns to think about possible impact of their actions (potential “harm”) before they act, they develop self-regulation skills that allow them to be in community safely.
Returning to the story of Alex, the teacher goes through the standard Restorative Practice questions:
What happened, and what were you thinking/feeling at the time?
(Alex already drew his response to this question on the reflection sheet, and we talked about it above)
What have you thought about since?
“I been thinking about how stupid writing is.”
Who has been affected by what happened, and how?
“Um, well, I think some of my friends got scared and, you know, the chair. And maybe one of the thingies on the chair broke off. … I dunno if Ms. Juarez got mad or what but she had a pretty ugly face on when she sent me out, so I think so. And, me, I got kicked out of class I guess.”
What do you think needs to be done to make things as right as possible?
“I could check in with my friends, ask them how I could make it better and also try to fix the chair. I could try not to get so mad the next time we do writing. I dunno what to do about Mrs. Juarez though I think she’s sick of me.”
The PBIS concept of logical, or natural, consequences dovetails with the RP concept of repairing harm. Asking a child to identify who has been affected by what happened, and how, is one of the key restorative questions, and it prompts the child toward the next question of “what do you think needs to be done to make things as right as possible?” With these in mind, adult and child(ren) can work together to find consequences that are logical and natural because the consequences are in fact repairing harm. For example, if there has been property damage that can’t be repaired or undone, the individual can participate in restoring or repairing some other property (e.g. helping teacher take replace a bulletin board).
Repairing Relationships
Repairing the relationship with an adult can be extra scary for a child, and requires extra adult skill in seeing baby steps, and in seeing the possibility of learning and trying again. “This is where we are today; try again tomorrow!” It will be important for him and his teacher to repair, even if it’s an impromptu restorative conversation in the hall.
Alex has given us a lot to think about: getting him some writing support, learning other self-regulation strategies for when he’s frustrated; and rebuilding community in his class, including with his teacherSince Alex already demonstrates self-awareness, classic PBIS strategy of a self-regulation checklist with ideas for how to manage frustration could fit right in. Let’s assume writing intervention is in place, and self-regulation strategies are built in and encouraged for all students during writing time, and dive into repairing harm in the community.
Building Relationships and Building Skills: 80:20 Rule
Everyone wants to know what to do to respond to challenging behaviors, and no one likes the answer that most of the work goes into preventing challenging behaviors. There are several other Snippets available on building positive relationships: www.snipsf.org/tips-tools. Restorative Practice offers a model for using community circles to build and strengthen relationships, set expectations or agreements as a group, and of course practice self-regulation skills. When students are comfortable with circles, the circles can also be a safe space for solving problems and even repairing harm.
In Conclusion: Self-Regulation Skills Support Community
For all sorts of reasons (family factors, mental health challenges, brain differences, environment) children may arrive at school primed to react strongly to a challenge or frustration. When they do, the response is not about what an individual has done wrong, it’s about understanding what need is being communicated and finding a safer way to communicate and meet that need. When young people have stronger self-regulation skills, they’re more able to meet their own needs and be in community. When they can identify their frustration and use a strategy to calm their body, they’re able to listen to a peer rather than shut down or lash out. In turn, they are more able to work through the tough Restorative Practice questions, and the intense work of repairing harm.