Successful teachers have acquired certain habits that enable them to be more effective with their students. By doing so, the teacher gains more influence with their students, which results in the students making better decisions and choices all on their own, thus reducing discipline issues.
Here are the 3 practices of successful teachers, which is from Part Two of the Discipline Without Stress Teaching Model:
1. Word everything in a positive way. This isn’t about simply being cheery. Being positive in this discipline approach means that in a negative situation, the teacher learns to get in the habit of wording what they want to say in a positive way. Just a very simple example: Instead of saying “Stop running!” you could get the same idea across by saying, “We always walk in the school building.”
2. Ask reflective questions. Instead of telling children what the teacher thinks about a discipline situation, a Discipline Without Stress teacher learns to ask students to explain and come up with suggestions—even suggestions for consequences! In Discipline Without Stress, logical consequences aren’t imposed; they are ELICITED from the child.
3. Use the power of choice with students. A teacher begins by teaching children that they have a CHOICE to respond to any situation (or person) in any way they want. For example, if someone calls them a name, then they have a choice in how to respond. Although it might seem that their only choice is to retaliate by being mean in return, of course there are other higher level choices available to them. While this may sound complicated, the concept of choice-response thinking can even be taught to Kindergarten students, using this book.
Often, simply by using these three teaching habits (being positive, asking instead of telling, and empowering with choice) you can diffuse or deal with many discipline issues in a successful and effective way.
