From Gene Bedley’s National Seminar, “Discipline and the Difficult Child”

A large part of cultivating an environment of responsibility in a classroom is how the teacher responds to various comments from children. While it s impossible to respond to everything a child says, and we often choose not to respond because it would only fan the fire, it is important that our responses defuse and disarm hostility expressed by various students. This way you can move beyond the incident to train your children in the areas you select that will make them more responsible, respectful and compassionate. If a child can make you a cynic or cause you to respond in the same way they have, we will rarely see improvement. Some examples below ask for your responses if the child says ________.

1. You can t make me! You might want to respond with “You’re right! I can t really make anyone do anything.” And then I proceed to persuade the child with the benefits of his or her involvement in the activity.

2. No! I m not going to do it! With oppositionally defiant children you might respond with “Sounds like you ve made your mind up.” You can add in “For 3 minutes, wow that s a long time. Are you sure you don t want to participate?” If they dig in, you might want to make an agreement with them that they cannot participate. This is a great time to bring out your most motivational lesson.

3. I hate you! If I said to the child, “Get in line” they most likely would not know what that means, but sometimes I say things for myself just to cause myself some slack in a stressful situation. Humor almost always tickles the stress out of potentially tough situations.

4. I hate this stupid school! I learned a long time ago that by simply agreeing with someone who takes an adversarial position you disarm them. Once I state my own problems with the school I then move on to talk about the work that needs to be done so we’ll have a school we both will like.

5. You make me sick! My response would be “Viruses are everywhere”.

6. You re weird! “You noticed.” I might also say, “I’m perfectly comfortable with that!”

7. You suck! “Straws depend on me.”

One might think from this set of examples that I would never respond with the response Not on this island or That is not an option . Of course, it depends on what a child does and says. As a teacher you have to be multi-faceted. If it doesn’t work for you I believe you have to tell children “That doesn t work for me! It may work for you but unless it works for both of us I can t accept that as an option!”

– Gene Bedley