#46: What it really takes to change behaviour with the hardest to teach (and why it can take so damn long)!

Today on the podcast we will be talking about working with the students who are the hardest to teach, and the hardest to reach. 

The students who you are told to try to build the relationship with, but they resist it and throw it back in your face. 

The students who need a hell of a lot of support, and let’s face it probably need a placement that is more therapeutic, but are still working with you in your classrooms. 

I take you through a metaphor for understanding what it truly takes to shift behaviour in these students, but why it also takes so so long. 

We discuss:

• What a disorganised attachment is how it manifests in challenging behaviours
• What neuroplasticity is and how it works
• How the practices we use in our classroom change behaviour little by little
• Why we need to show ourselves grace and compassion, and why you're having more of an impact than you think

Pre-order a copy of my book ‘It’s Never Just About the Behaviour: A holistic approach to classroom behaviour management

Other ways I can support you in your teaching practice:

• Download the freebie '71 Behaviour Response Prompts'
• Download my free guide: Addressing Misogyny in the Classroom
• Follow me on Instagram for daily micro-professional learning and support
• Connect with me on LinkedIn

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hello, wonderful teachers. On today's episode, I'm going to be talking about how challenging behavior is not always about trauma, however. The most challenging, volatile and oppositional behaviors often are, because to change this behavior actually means working to change the brain through neuroplasticity, which is no easy feat. I'm going to be taking you through a metaphor which explains this concept perfectly, and it will also give you a bit of a lens to look at behavior through of compassion and kindness, but also giving yourself grace, because you might not see the impact of the work that you do, but it doesn't mean that it's not there. I also just want to give you a bit of a heads up before we start this episode that I do talk about childhood trauma and adverse childhood experiences, just as a heads up in case it's something that might be really challenging for you to listen to. Okay, let's get into the episode. Welcome to the Unteachable podcast. I'm Claire English, a passionate secondary teacher and leader, turned teacher, mentor and author, and I'm on a mission to transform classroom management and teacher support in schools. It doesn't feel that long ago that I was completely overwhelmed and out of my depth with behavior, trying to swim rather than sink. It took me spending thousands of hours in the classroom, with all of the inevitable ups and downs, to make me the teacher that I am today. I'm capable and empowered in my ability to teach all students yes, even the ones who are the toughest to reach, and now I'm dedicated to supporting teachers like yourself to do the same. I created the Unteachables podcast to give you the simple and actionable classroom management strategies and support that you need to run your room with confidence and calm. So if you're a teacher, or one in the making, and you're wanting to feel happy and empowered and actually enjoy being in the classroom, whilst also making a massive impact with every single one of your students, then you're definitely in the right place. Let's get started.

Speaker 1: 2:00

Hello everybody, welcome to another week of the Unteachables podcast. I'm your host, claire, and, if you haven't been around here, what I do on this podcast is just sit around and talk about classroom management, because I am so passionate about the fact that teachers deserve more support when it comes to this stuff. It is one of the most challenging parts of the job. It's something that we don't get taught or support with, and we need to, because it's this huge barrier in between where we are now and what we got into the profession to do, which is to teach, and our young people deserve to have teachers that are equipped to deal with this stuff, and we deserve to be able to be equipped with this stuff and to feel empowered and to feel supported with this stuff. So that's why I run this podcast in a nutshell, and today I'm going to be talking about why it takes so long to shift behavior, why it takes so long to see those changes, but then what it actually takes to create that behavior change.

Speaker 1: 2:57

One of the things that I do have to say about behavior is that not all behavior is because of trauma. It's not all because of adverse childhood experiences, which is why I talk about my approach as more a holistic approach to classroom management, not a trauma-informed approach. Even though trauma-informed values are interwoven into the approach that I take, even though, of course, these values are the foundation of what I do, I don't call it trauma-informed approach specifically, and that's because not all behaviors that we see in a classroom in fact, most of the behaviors that we see day to day are just because kids are wanting to have a laugh or kids are trying to meet their needs. They're needing more buy-in, they need more clear and consistent boundaries. They might be feeling anxious or stressed, because that's just a part of the human experience. There are so many reasons for it that aren't explicitly trauma-related, which is why, when I talk about my behavior approach, again, it's holistic. It helps every single young person in the room. It's not just supporting students who have experienced trauma, who have experienced adverse childhood experiences.

Speaker 1: 4:03

Today, however, I am talking about these students. I am talking about working with the students who are the hardest to reach, the hardest to teach, those students that you're going to be told to build a relationship with, but they're the students that will also resist it. They'll throw it back in your face. These are the students who need a hell of a lot of support and probably let's be honest a placement that's more therapeutic, but they're still working with you in your classrooms. I had a chat with some of the other day and I was talking about the fact that the behaviors that we're seeing in our classrooms as mainstream teachers are getting more and more difficult. That's because I think there are an increasing amount of needs with our young people, especially after COVID. What happens is because there are a greater volume of students who have these really complex needs that manifest in challenging behaviors. The threshold to get into a placement that's more therapeutic or to the threshold to get the support that they need it becomes bigger and bigger. If more of the students who maybe 10 years ago would have been in a placement that was more suitable and more therapeutic they're in your classrooms working with you, that doesn't mean that we can't work with them. It just means that we are having a harder time now and if you're seeing an increase in challenging behaviors, that might be why. There's a whole range of reasons why that might be. You have a whole range of different contexts out there that I'm talking to. I've worked in two different countries and all different kinds of areas, and I see different behaviors no matter where I work. That's not a blanket statement, but that is something that I've observed over time, and the people that I've spoken to have observed as well.

Speaker 1: 5:43

Before we dive into this episode, I just want to say that if you're new to this podcast and you haven't done so yet, be sure to go and click the plus button on Apple Podcast or the follow button on Spotify or however else you subscribe on the platform you're listening to. I have got so many incredible episodes planned for this year, speaking to some incredible experts in the field, and I don't want you to miss it. As I'm talking right now, it takes two seconds to exit this episode and press that subscribe button. So every week my episodes just pop up in your inbox, right, let's get into it. So today we are talking about the behavior that is because of trauma Behavior of students who have what we call a disorganized attachment.

Speaker 1: 6:27

And without going into attachment theory because I could be sitting here and talking about it all day and I'm by no means an expert in attachment theory these are the young people whose caregivers, the people who were supposed to be the primary source of safety and love in a young person's life, were actually a source of fear, whether it was to abuse, whether it was to neglect. They need their caregivers. Every single one of us needs our caregiver and when we're born, we rely on them so much for so many things, for everything our survival depends on it. So what happened is we need our caregiver and we depend on them for food, we depend on them for shelter, we depend on them for safety and for love and for comfort. But then what happens if a child is then abused or neglected, they still need their primary caregiver, which is the saddest thing. So they will have these disorganized attachment to them, so they will want to get close to them. They need to get close to them because their survival depends on the closeness and the attachment they have with their caregiver. But because that caregiver is also the person that's hurting them, they want to remain detached. They want to be separate from them. In a way they want to protect themselves from that person. So in the strange situation experiment and this experiment was the one that measured attachment infants and was kind of the benchmark for attachment theory what happens with disorganized infants when something happens with their caregiver? Their behaviors were really confusing and they were contradictory because what they were doing was they were moving close to the caregiver, they were calling the caregiver, they needed the caregiver, but when the caregiver actually came into the room they'd back away, they'd freeze All those fight, fight or freeze responses. That's what they'd show. So they're trying to get close to the caregiver, but then they're trying to also back away because of the yearning for closeness, because that is what survival is for an infant. But then that person also represents something really, really scary to them.

Speaker 1: 8:26

This is an excerpt from the Institute of Child Psychology, which probably does a better job of explaining it than me. Children with a disorganized attachment do not believe that they're worthy of love, protection and care. The world is seen as a dangerous and hostile place. In the classroom, these students may be depressed, angry or defiant. They might be controlling in their relationships and may experience difficulty in emotional regulation. So these are students, right, who are unpredictable. They're volatile, they might be violent, they're definitely defiant. And these are the students we're told to build a relationship with.

Speaker 1: 8:59

But, of course, with these students it is far easier said than done, because why in the world would you? You're an authority figure, you're a teacher. Why would you be seen as a safe space if the people who were supposed to keep them safe in their early childhood hurt them, they abused and they neglected them? Why would you be a safe person all of a sudden? So we could be the kindest person in the world, we could see ourselves, as kind, as safe, as warm, as compassionate you might be, but that does not mean that you, you are seen as that person to the young person. So when you think about it, it makes a lot more sense that they would be the ones who are harder to crack with relationships.

Speaker 1: 9:41

And if you do start to establish a nice, trusting relationship with these young people, these are the young people that actually will often sabotage it, because a relationship to them is a very scary thing. Remember the person that they were supposed to trust, hurt them in ways that has altered the brain, has shaped the brain to what it is today and it's shaped their, their whole internal working model to be one that sees people as scary, as threatening, as inherently bad, and these are called patterns of attachment. And patterns of attachment, as you can probably tell from what I've just said, they aren't created overnight and because they aren't created overnight, we cannot expect to shift them overnight. These things are embedded into who they are, they're very fiber of their being, and this is called their internal working model, is how they see the world themselves, others, if they see the world as a place that's hostile and dangerous, if they see that people are untrustworthy, if they see themselves as unworthy, their behaviors are going to be a manifestation of those beliefs. And we cannot change these behaviors in a week. We might not be able to change them in a year, in two years, which is why, teachers. If you are doing your very best with one of these students and you are feeling like you are getting nowhere, you are actually getting somewhere just by being present, just by being consistent and kind and compassionate. You just might not see the fruits of your labor in the time you're working with these young people. But what we are doing when we're working with these students, when we're using dialogue, when we're teaching them skills more, investing in the relationship this is called neuroplasticity. Just as we're shaped by the things that have occurred in our lives in our early childhood, along the way we can also be reshaped by the things that are the experiences that we have in our lives as well.

Speaker 1: 11:33

Let's use a hypothetical student as an example, a student who is constantly dysregulated, trying to derail the lesson. They're really oppositional when you try to address things with them. If you're working with a holistic approach, like the one that I teach through my courses, let's assume you already have all of the things in place that could set the stage to mitigating the challenging behaviors that you see in your classroom. So when we talk about classroom management in general, I talk about the like. It's a bit of a three stage journey. It's the things that we do to mitigate behaviors, which is most of the things that we do in our practice and then we talk about how to address the behavior and then resolve the behavior, because behaviors are still going to pop up no matter how great you are at mitigating them. So we know this student has something else going on.

Speaker 1: 12:17

You work with this student, you deescalate where possible, you're trying to co-regulate, you're creating opportunities to invest in the relationship. You're using dialogue to resolve the challenges. You're teaching them the skills you start to get somewhere. You're seeing these little light bulb moments. The relationship goes forward. Then the relationship goes backwards. You might give them strategies after class on how to communicate. When the work is too tough or if they feel stressed, they might use those strategies and they might go backwards again and it's just a constant tug of war where you have mostly challenging lessons, some a little better, and on it goes and it feels like the model of working with young people in this way doesn't work. But it absolutely does. It just happens very slowly because of the fact that we are rewiring the brain through all of these little things that we're doing. So I'm going to give you a bit of a metaphor to help you better understand why this is happening and what is happening in the brain of our young people.

Speaker 1: 13:14

Before I get started with this metaphor, I just want to say that I don't know if I made this up or if I've heard it somewhere, so if you have heard this before and there's some kind of source, please link me. Sometimes I just kind of internalize things with what I've heard and I say them as if they're my own, but I know that I don't think I made this up. I don't think my brain is that clever to make this up, to be honest with you. But I want you to imagine that our brains, every single connection that we have in our brain, is like a motorway it is slick, it's built to be the most productive it can be, it's smooth, it's easy. Every single one of these connections is a learned behavior that will get us to the result, the needs that we're trying to meet. We have to remember, when it comes to behaviors and responses, we won't always find them as productive or helpful, but it is still the individual's best way that they have learned how to keep safe.

Speaker 1: 14:10

I always say that the students who are the most unteachable are fighting a heroic battle for survival, and that is exactly what our brains are doing. If we have experienced things in our childhood, in our past, that are traumatic, that any adverse childhood experiences, our brains will be shaped in order to keep us alive in the best way that we can, and that is what's happening with our brains. So just say something some of our students, as babies, they've had to do what they can to get both nurturing and feeding and to also feel psychologically safe. And for me to sit here and imagine, or for any of us to sit here and imagine, a baby having to fight for their life is unthinkable. It's horrific and that's what some of our young people have had to experience, and that is why their brains have been shaped the way that they've been shaped.

Speaker 1: 14:57

And I heard something the other day that was absolutely heartbreaking. It was that sometimes people have a more like, more of a freeze response when it comes to their trauma. And the reason that some people have that freeze response is because when they've been a little baby, they've had to adapt to situations where they've been abused or neglected, and the only mechanism for survival that that little baby has is to freeze, because they can't fight back, and it is just the most heartbreaking thing to think about, and it kind of helps us to think about the behaviors that we see in our young people a little bit more remember than not all behaviors. It because of trauma and adverse childhood experiences, which is why I said that at the very start. It's really important for us to note that it doesn't mean that they're any less valid, the feelings that are attached to them.

Speaker 1: 15:50

But when I'm talking about this stuff, I'm talking about the most extreme of behaviors. So it's impossible for us to imagine a little baby having to fight for their life. But that's what's happened. That's why their brains, for some of our young people, have been shaped in the way that they've been shaped Now. Think about that, right. And it's just like the way that the brain has had to adapt to survive in that way. Every single time that that baby has had to protect themselves against somebody that they are supposed to keep them safe and to love them. Every single time that child has had to protect themselves, whether emotionally, psychologically, physically, whatever it might be, whether they've been in a situation that's been dangerous, or where they've had to go without food, without water, where they've had to go without a roof over their head any situation in that way that their brains have had to adapt to, and or if they've been in under any chronic stress for a very long time, their brains are shaped in that way.

Speaker 1: 16:54

Now imagine us then having to establish a new connection in this brain. We have to get these students to stop using this super highway to merge off into the unknown, to walk off into the shrubs on the side of the road where there's no known path. That is freaking scary. When we're asking students to change their behaviors to be able to go down this unknown path, not only is that really freaking hard for students to do immediately, but it's really scary for them to have to do so every time. We're expecting them to come in and sit down and trust us enough to you know, get them to do the work or whatever it might be. That is a really scary thing.

Speaker 1: 17:35

The goal is for us to turn the side path into a new connection that helps them to thrive in school, that helps them to succeed in future education, to help them have really productive, loving relationships. But we can't expect that to happen just by holding up the branch on the side of the road and saying, hey, come through here. It's so hard for us to expect that, but that's what we're trying to do with them. We're trying to get them to emerge off their superhighway, which is their stress response, which is the known behaviors, to keep them safe, even if it's not conducive to having a, you know, successful education, a successful life. We're trying to get them to do that. But every single time you develop the relationship and show them that people are safe, that they are worthy, every single time you talk to them, every single time you give them choices, model respect, model collaboration, rather than shout at them or punish them. Every single time you do something like that, the connects rather than disconnects. You are shaping that new path.

Speaker 1: 18:38

And this is where the metaphor gets very exciting for me, because at the start you might just you might be going down the like. This young person might be going down the highway right, and they might look to the left where that new path is, and they might just see that the grass is downtrodden. It's been trotted down by us walking on there a couple of times, so they might just see a couple of branches that have been snapped. So there's evidence that there's something else there. There's another way there. There might just be like a couple of things that show us that we've been pushing through. Then maybe one day, where there was once greenery, they'll see a bit of a brown path emerging as they continue to compress the ground down beneath their feet, they've tried again to go down that road. We've shown them another way. We've shown them that people are safe and little by little Okay, now there's a bit of a dirt truck there, because we've been going down that path a little bit more than we'd be going down the super highway Then maybe the path is used so often that they make an off ramp to a dirt road.

Speaker 1: 19:36

They're like you know what this person's going down there quite often now. So let's actually put a sign up, let's make an off ramp and then finally they might say, okay, this has been used so often. This new way of thinking, this new way of being, this new behavior that we've got here, this new kind of perception that we have, is being used so often that maybe we need to lay some tarmac down and make this more accessible. Maybe we need to make this a bit smoother. Maybe this can now be the most effective way of getting to the place that we need to be Behavior change, with students who have been shaped by pain, by stress, by adversity, by fear, by neglect, take so long, because you are literally helping them to rewire their brain.

Speaker 1: 20:23

You are making different options other than that super highway, that super highway to an overactive stress response, to behaviors that are unproductive. I mean, by the way, when I say unproductive, every single behavior is productive to the young person because it's keeping them safe, because it's still meeting their needs of survival, of power, of mastery, of love and belonging. They are meeting some need with these behaviors, by the way, so I don't want to use the word productive and unproductive in that way necessarily. Every single time we try our very best to show them a different way, to show them a different path. We are creating a new pathway in the brain and the ultimate goal is to have that pathway be something that they use naturally, that is a hardwired part of who they are and what they do, and that takes a lot of freaking time.

Speaker 1: 21:14

That takes a lot of time and it takes a lot of effort. It takes a lot of energy to do that, and I'm not saying that these students don't need specialist support. I'm not saying that you need to create this change alone. I'm not saying that you need to be a therapist, and I am not saying that this excuses behaviors that are violent and volatile. You do not deserve to feel unsafe at work. Nobody deserves to be abused at work. Everybody deserves a lot of support around young people who are experiencing these difficulties. But what I am saying that is that operating with a model that places connection, compassion and consistency in the center of what we do works. It just doesn't work very quickly. So please, if you're putting this work in, don't be disheartened. You are making the most important and the most difficult, impossibly difficult change that you can possibly make with somebody and the alternative to that.

Speaker 1: 22:11

When people push for a punitive response because students need to learn better and do better, you're taking 10 steps backwards. What are you doing if you're using a punitive approach with the students who have experienced this particular kind of trauma and they believe that they're not worthy, that the world isn't a safe place, that you're not a safe person? When we punish them or we shame them or we do something to disconnect with them further, that is perpetuating their internal working model and reinforcing those ideas with them, so their behavior can never change. It's impossible, and the only way that we can create change is by doing something different and by showing them that they're worthy, showing them that they can do better, showing them that they can be better and that we are there. That's all we can do and, as I said, it's not something that necessarily can create change immediately, but you're doing an incredible job just by being present. So that was a bit of a mouthful.

Speaker 1: 23:14

So just to summarize challenging behavior of course, isn't always about trauma, but the most challenging, volatile, oppositional behaviors often are because of something that's happened in a young person's life that has shaped the brain to respond in certain ways. And to change behaviors like this actually means working to change the brain through neuroplasticity, which is no easy feat. So please give yourself grace and remember that if you never see the impact of your compassion at work, it does not mean that the impact is not there. It might just be a work in progress. That road that you're trying to build still might be in progress. You still might not be able to see the finished product. That does not mean that the work you're doing is any less significant If you're looking for more support to feel confident and calm and in control when you walk into your classroom, I give you the exact roadmaps and resources you need to do just that in my signature training program that I'll teach him, and the wait list is now open for my 2024 intake, and I am so excited for it.

Speaker 1: 24:19

I've been able to support hundreds of teachers through this course and every single year it just keeps getting better and better and more supportive and more targeted to giving you exactly what you need to be able to now classroom management in a way that is really compassionate, really kind, but also strong in its boundaries, strong in your teaching persona and everything that you need to support every single young person in that class. Join the wait list now. I'll pop the link in the show notes and you can claim an early bird discount and some pretty amazing course bonuses, and I just can't wait to welcome you in and support you in big ways in 2024. Also, remember that my book is never just about the behavior is now available for pre-order and I'll pop that link in the show notes as well.

Speaker 1: 25:04

And finally, if you like this episode, please head over and leave a review. It takes just a few seconds to click that five star button and if you're feeling extra lovely, you can leave me a written review. It's one of those things that you can do. That is totally free, but it would mean the absolute world to me. Okay, lovely teachers, I will see you in the same place, at the same time next week. Bye for now.