Behavior Influences Behavior

I spent the first four days of last week at CPI Nonviolent Crisis Intervention training. I am now a certified NCI Instructor.  

The NCI course is focused on developing skills to minimize crisis situations as well as respond to them when necessary. It was beneficial and I hope that we can get more in our district trained soon.

One of the key points in the training is a concept called Integrated Experience. In layman's terms, this means "Behavior influences behavior." Think about that. Behavior Influences Behavior. Simply put, the way we behave can influence the way our students (or spouses, coworkers, family, etc) behave.

Let me give you some examples. Let's say you are teaching and your keep raising your voice. What do your kids do? Usually raise their voice. If you are talking softly, but with authority, your kids will usually talk quieter as well.

When I am at home with my teenage son, I will sometimes get frustrated and raise my voice at him. He responds by raising his voice back. What do I do? "Don't you raise your voice to me!" This only causes him to raise his voice again.

A student is visibly anxious, slumped over, tapping their feet. Their teacher approaches them and says sternly, "Sit up straight and stop tapping! You've got work to do." The student jumps back and shouts, "Leave me alone."

Picture the same situation. This time the teacher approaches, bends down, and quietly says, "You look like something is bothering you. How can I help you?" The student says they are not feeling well and asks for a drink of water. The teacher sends them out and they come back and go to work.

In each of these cases, the adult's behavior directly impacted the child's behavior.

As educators, the way we respond to a situation can either help defuse it or cause it to escalate. The course goes into this in detail, but in a nutshell, our behavior is often the deciding factor in how a situation turns out.

One of the hardest things to do as adults is reflect on a situation. It is difficult because we have to turn the spotlight back on ourselves. What that light points out may be hard, even discouraging, to look at. But, if we are going to get better, this is something we must do.

To put this into practice, take some time to think back on several positive interactions with kids (or adults) this week as well as several not so positive ones. Ask yourself some simple questions: "How could my behavior have impacted how the other person responded?"

For a positive situation, ask, "What did I do that helped this interaction turn out positive?" "What did I learn that I could apply in the future interactions?"

For negative ones, ask yourself, "What did I do that may have impacted the negative behavior?" "What could I do differently next time that might change the outcome?"