November 24, 2025 • 25 mins
This episode is a big warm hug and a practical roadmap for every teacher who’s ever thought: “How the heck am I supposed to stay calm when they’re pushing ALL my buttons?!”
I’m diving into a juicy listener Q&A all about what to do in those real-deal, fight-flight-freeze moments in the classroom. And spoiler alert: it’s not about becoming a Zen monk who never reacts. It’s about having scripts, self-awareness, and a bit of self-compassion ready to roll.
In this episode, I walk you through:
- My own messy moments (because YES, I’m a very imperfect human too)
- The neuroscience behind your snapping point (hello, barking guard dog 🐶)
- What emotional regulation really looks like for teachers
- And my top 6 behaviour one-liners that will save you from spiralling.
So whether you’re already consciously incompetent 😬 or just starting to build awareness, this episode will meet you where you’re at, with practical tools to make it all a bit easier.
What you’ll learn:
- The difference between reacting and responding
- 6 calm one-liners you can keep in your back pocket for the trickiest moments
- Why having scripts matters when your thinking brain goes offline
- How to redirect defiance without getting sucked into a power struggle
- Language that sets boundaries without shame
- Why saying “I’m not here to argue with you” is low-key magic
Resources & Mentions:
- 📥 Grab the FREE Calm Scripts Guide here: https://www.the-unteachables.com/calmscripts
- Need extra support? The Behaviour Club has your back: https://www.the-unteachables.com/tbc
Have a question, comment, or just want to say hello? Drop us a text!
RESOURCES AND MORE SUPPORT:
- Shop all resources
- Join The Behaviour Club
- My book! It’s Never Just About the Behaviour: A holistic approach to classroom behaviour management
- The Low-Level Behaviour Bootcamp
- Free guide: 'Chats that Create Change'
Connect with me:
- Follow on Instagram @the.unteachables
- Check out my website
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:01):
Oh, hi there, teachers.
Welcome to the UnteachablesPodcast.
I'm your host, Claire English,and I am just a fellow teacher,
a toddler mama, and a big oldbehaviour nerd on a mission to
demystify and simplify thatlittle thing called classroom
management.
The way we've all been taught tomanage behaviour and classroom
manage has left us playing crowdcontrol, which is not something
(00:23):
I subscribe to because we're notbouncers, we're teachers.
So listen in as I walk youthrough the game-changing
strategies, and I mean thethings that we can actually do
and action in our classroomsthat will allow you to lean into
your beautiful values as acompassionate educator and feel
empowered to run your room witha little more calm and dare I
(00:43):
say it, a lot less chaos.
I will see you in the episode.
Hello, hello, lovely teachers.
Welcome back to the UnteachablesPodcast.
I am your host, Claire.
If you haven't been in my neckof the woods on the podcasting
side of things before, it islovely to have you here.
(01:04):
If you're a longtime listener,thank you so much for being back
here.
Absolutely love your guts, and Ican't wait to dig into some more
classroom management goodnesswith you.
Today's episode is based on areally banger of a QA.
And the question was how doesone stay calm, mature, and
(01:25):
collected when students arepushing all of the buttons?
So it's really asking thequestion that I think a lot of
us have asked ourselves beforewhen we're feeling like really
in a state in a classroom thatfeels really chaotic and really
unmanageable, which is how doyou remain the adult in the
room?
(01:46):
And I just want to say to theperson who asked this question,
like massive, massive props toyou because when you ask a
question like this, it isshowing how reflective you are.
And to even recognize that whenthings go wrong, when students
push the buttons, when studentspush back and display those
really defiant behaviors, thatyou can slip into responses that
(02:08):
are reactive, like that initself is incredible.
So if you are out there going,oh yes, like I just don't know
how to remain regulated andmature and collected and the
adult in the room, the leader inthe room, when my students are
displaying these behaviorsbecause they're so damn
triggering, this episode isgoing to be really, really
(02:31):
helpful.
But I also want to say that I'mI'm really like you should be
proud of yourself for being ableto reflect in that way because
it's very vulnerable for us tobe able to recognize.
Like sometimes I'm not the adultin the room.
And I'm telling you now, I'vegot a two and a half-year-old
daughter, and I'm sometimes notthe adult in the room because
it's so freaking hard.
(02:52):
So I just wanted to say, yes,it's hard, and this is very
common, and there are thingsthat we can do to try to remain
that mature presence, thatleader in the room when our
students are, you know, reallypushing those buttons when
they're pushing back, whenthey're displaying those defiant
behaviours.
I actually worked with a newteacher once who would always
(03:13):
stand at the front of the room,and when students weren't
listening to her, she wouldactually stamp her foot and
clench her fists and go, whyaren't you listening to me?
And I had so much empathy forher because clearly her like it
was on display for everybody tosee, but her nervous system was
firing up, she was, you know,fight flat or freeze mode
(03:36):
massively, and she was doingwhat she could and what she knew
to do to get back in thedriver's seat.
But my gosh, she was really hardto work with because although I
was able to reflect back thebehaviors that were triggering
her and how she was respondingto those behaviors, she wasn't
able to be really aware of howthose things were impacting the
(03:59):
way she was showing up in theclassroom.
So if you're here and you'renodding along and you're like,
yes, I can do that, I can slipinto, you know, reacting in that
way, you're 50 steps aheadalready.
What is it?
The unconsciously incompetent,consciously incompetent, um,
consciously competent?
(04:20):
Unconsciously competent.
I don't know if I said too manycompetents there.
I don't know, but you get what Imean.
So if you are currentlyconsciously incompetent at
regulating yourself in themiddle of a lesson or dealing
with those behaviors that aresuper dysregulating um in a way
that's really effective, thenstick with me.
You are in a really, really goodplace.
(04:42):
The first thing that I'm goingto say to you when it comes to
this stuff, it is so damn humanto be triggered by certain
behaviors.
It is so normal, it is so human,and it's almost inevitable.
If you are somebody who hasgotten into teaching and you're
standing in front of a class andyou have, you know, you're fresh
(05:05):
out of uni, you're standing infront of a class and students
are there pushing your buttons.
Maybe every time you turn toface the board, they make a
funny sound and you don't knowwho it is, or you know, like
there's a student in the classthat's being really defiant and
say no to everything, and infront of everybody, you're
you're there, you have to decidewhether or not you're gonna die
on this hill or not and go gungho.
(05:26):
If you have not been triggeredby certain behaviors, if you are
able to remain calm and stoicand regulated and you're able to
respond with brilliance andremain the adult and remain the
leader, I take my hat off toyou, but I just don't think that
it exists.
(05:46):
I don't know how it would bepossible to be a teacher and not
have moments where we'retriggered by certain behaviors
and yell or not stamp our feet.
I mean, like metaphoricallyspeaking, right?
Or like just get into patternswhere we're reacting to behavior
in ways that aren't as mature aswe'd like.
(06:07):
It is so human.
So I want to say that first offthe gate.
Because your brain's guard dog,your brain has one too, not just
our students.
Our amygdala is designed toreact.
When we feel like we are out ofcontrol of the classroom, our
amygdala would be seeing that asa huge threat because being out
(06:27):
of control is scary.
And that is a threat.
Not being able to be in controlof things, not being able to
have that autonomy.
It is a threat.
And when our guard dog barks,all of that logic will go out
the window, even if we knowlogically in our minds that
reacting to behavior in this wayis going to escalate the
(06:49):
situation.
It's going to escalate thebehaviors of our students.
We will still go there becauseour brain is designed to go
there.
And if we're not aware of thatand we don't have things that
can kind of break that pattern,it's very hard for us to be that
mature leader in the room.
So the awareness of that is themost important thing.
(07:10):
So just get really good atnoticing your body cues.
Like, is your is your jawclenched?
Do you like are you breathingquicker?
Is your heart rate up?
Do you get sweaty palms?
Are your shoulders really tight?
And just silently name it.
Like my guard dog's barkingright now.
My nervous system is on fire.
It's not a sign of weakness,it's not a sign of you being a
(07:31):
bad teacher, it's not a sign ofyou being not mature enough to
lead your classroom.
It is just your nervous systemtrying to protect you in a
classroom that is reallydysregulating.
So it's very normal, it's veryhuman.
Try to do something to regulateand ground yourself.
You've caught yourself, that'sthe main thing.
(07:52):
Now what?
It's gonna be really dependenton you as an individual.
I take deep breaths, and mygo-to line in that situation is
I can only control my ownbehaviors.
All I can control is how Irespond.
I can't control the behaviors ofother people.
What those lines do for me is itreminds my amygdala, my nervous
(08:17):
system, that I am I am incontrol.
Like there are things that I cancontrol.
I can't control the classroom inevery way, shape, and form
because we're all human beingsand we all have our own
complexities.
So just reminding myself ofthose things, and you can use
those go-to lines.
I drop my shoulders, and thatreally helps to get me back in
(08:41):
my thinking brain so I can thenimplement some of the strategies
that I'm about to speak aboutnow.
So about those strategies,because it's not about just
regulating ourselves as much asthat is very important.
Then this next thing here, thisaction is the most powerful
thing that we can do in theclassroom, I believe, because
(09:03):
having great language, havinggreat responses that we can grab
at a pinch when we're feelingreally dysregulated, if we have
that kind of ready as a scriptin our mind, it allows us to
respond even when our thinkingbrain is offline.
As much as we can take away theprocess of, oh my god, what the
(09:24):
hell do I do in this situationwhen this student's like yelling
no at me?
It is so much easier for us tothen deal with things.
So I'm going to walk you throughabout six one-liners that I
always keep in my brain at apinch when things are happening
in different situations.
So I know I can always accessthat language because it's
(09:45):
hardwired.
And it will take a little bit oftime to hardwire this language,
but once it is, it is just somuch easier to remain regulated,
be the adult in the room, bemature and respond rather than
react.
I also want to say that I'musing the language of like
mature and adult and all ofthose things just because that
(10:06):
was what was in the questionitself.
I don't mean that in thosemoments you are being immature
or not an adult.
I just want to use the languagethat was in that question
because it is just human.
Like I just want to make surethat I'm really clear about
that.
You are not your behaviors justas students aren't their
behaviors.
They are just us communicatingsomething.
(10:29):
And what we're communicatingwhen we're reacting in ways that
aren't ideal in a classroom isthat we don't feel safe and we
need to get back in the driver'sseat.
And these sentences, these likeone-liners that you can grab
will do exactly that.
The first one-liner is one thatI use when a student's trying to
talk to me when I need them tobe focusing on a task, or I'm
(10:52):
trying to deal with somethingelse at the time, or I'm really
trying to keep the class calmand settled, and I'm trying to
regulate the room, and justthere's one student there that's
like keeping on talking to meabout something of relevance,
they might be doing it during aclass discussion, and I'm
getting really angry andfrustrated, but I don't want to
(11:13):
do something that will tarnishthe rapport that I have with
that student.
So instead of saying somethinglike, oh, not now, be quiet,
like and and saying somethingthat I might regret later, which
I have done before, I will usethe line, Jessica, I really want
to hear about that.
Let's hold on to it after thelesson, or let's hold on to that
(11:35):
after the task, or I'll comeover to you when I'm finished
with this.
What you're doing in thatsituation is you're still
holding the expectation thatthey need to be listening to
you, but you're not shuttingdown or shaming that student.
You're still sending the messageto that student that what they
say, it does matter, but itneeds to happen at a more
appropriate time.
(11:56):
But you're not shutting themdown, you're not shaming them,
you're not undoing any of thework with rapport that you have
done.
The second one-liner is one thatI use if a student is doing
something pretty reasonable.
Just say like you're wantingthem to be working on their
stuff, and then a student getsup and they start wandering
(12:16):
around the room, they're saying,Oh, I'm just going to the bin, I
just want to put my rubbish in.
Just say they're getting up alot, but you really need them to
be sitting down, listening,focusing, working.
And just say they get up andlike, what are you doing, mate?
And they're like, Oh, I'm justgoing to the bin, or I'm just
doing this, I'm just doing that.
The one liner that I love to usein this situation is, I
(12:38):
understand you're doing this,but right now I need you to be
doing that.
So, for example, I understandthat you're just going to the
bin, but right now I really needyou to be in your seat.
What that does, and why this isso powerful, is you're clearly
communicating that boundarystill, but you're minimizing the
chances of that student feelinglike they're in trouble for no
(12:59):
reason, and you're still sayingthat what they're you're
acknowledging what they'retrying to do.
Yeah, you're just trying to goto the bin, that's fine.
You're just trying to go and getyour bottle out of your bag, or
you're just trying to get a gluestick from someone or a pencil
from someone, and you don't wantto make them feel like, you
know, they have no bodily bodyautonomy, they have no autonomy
(13:19):
in their movement, they have tobe sitting down at all costs,
they have to comply at allcosts.
You also don't want to besending that message, but if you
really need them to be sittingand doing what they need to be
doing, made I understand youjust want to go and grab a
pencil from James, but right nowI really need to be sitting here
listening.
After that, you can get apencil.
Sound good?
Great.
(13:40):
That minimizes the escalationthat you might get if and
rightly so to be frustrated whenyou have 30 in a room.
Like that student there'sthinking about what they need in
that moment, and they arereacting and responding to what
they need, which is also okay,and they're not necessarily
doing anything bad.
They're just getting up andwalking to the bin.
(14:02):
Great.
When you've got 30 in a room,and that one student gets up to
go to the bin though anddisrupts the kind of vibe that
you're setting, that's whenthings become an issue for you,
and you might find that yournervous system starts to fire up
because oh my god, I just wantedto be sitting down.
So that one liner is golden.
I understand you're doing X, butright now I need you to do Y.
(14:26):
The third one, which a lot ofyou are going to find helpful,
hopefully, it's when a studentisn't following instructions and
you're trying to get them backon track.
This is a situation where thingscan blow up for me quite easily.
Just say if I'm trying to getthem back on track and they're
just like looking at me blankly,saying no, everything starts to
escalate.
I feel like I need to get incontrol of that situation.
(14:48):
If I let that slide, then thewhole class is going to erupt.
What I do instead of standingthere and face to face or
standing over them and trying toget them back on track and
trying to put that like pressureon them while I'm standing right
there, which is not going to endwell for some students who would
escalate things.
I will just say I'm going to bechecking back in five minutes.
(15:11):
When I do, I expect that.
The reason this works so well isbecause it's supportive and
non-confrontational.
It removes any of those needs tolike lock horns if the student's
not following those instructionsimmediately, which they won't
sometimes, like because theyprobably also feel embarrassed
and you're saying this in frontof all of their peers.
(15:32):
And if they've got a face tomaintain in front of their
peers, they're gonna be like,no, miss, go away.
Like, I'm not doing that.
It's not happening.
If you say I'm gonna give youfive minutes, I'm gonna pop back
over and see, you know, howyou're going, or I'm gonna give
you five minutes.
When I do, I expect that.
It completely changes thedynamics of that situation.
Just say if they're on theirphone, you stand there, give me
(15:53):
your phone, no.
Put your phone away, no.
Okay, Bob, I'm going to comeback in five minutes.
When I do, I expect that yourphone is in your bag.
Got it?
You move away.
No locking horns.
Guess what?
Bob might sit on his phone foran extra three minutes.
He'll be watching you, watchinghim.
And then three minutes will goon.
The class is no longer lookingat him, the class no longer
(16:15):
cares what he's doing.
No one's going, Oh, wonder whatMiss is gonna do because Bob
hasn't put his phone away.
Is she gonna send him out?
Is she gonna escalate things?
Is she gonna get angry?
Because the kids love it whenthings like that happen.
It takes away from the learning.
It's you know, not all kids, butyou know, it's a little bit of
excitement in the class.
(16:36):
It completely takes that away.
So in three minutes, when allthe eyes are off Bob, Bob might
quietly slip his phone into hisbag.
If he doesn't, then you canfollow it up after.
That's okay, but you havecompletely diffused the
situation and taken away theneed for you to stand there and
have your hand out for 10minutes while that's escalating,
and then you have to end upgoing, right, go to the
(16:57):
principal's office because youcan hand the phone in to them.
That is three.
Number four is if something ishappening in the classroom and
you're trying to talk to thatstudent about their behavior,
just say they're chatting andconstantly calling out over
everybody and just beinggenerally disruptive, and just
say there's a few pockets ofstudents who are doing the same
(17:19):
thing.
But you go up to this onestudent who you think is the
instigator of it because you cansee everything.
Like you're up the front of theroom, there's all your students
there, and you're watching on,and just say Steve is the one
that's you know he's causingmost of the disruption.
So you go up to Steve and you'relike, hey Steve, mate, like you
know, stop talking.
And Steve's like, oh, butthey're doing it too, but the
(17:40):
rest of the class is talking.
Go talk to Bob, he's doing it.
Bob's the one that's talking,not me.
In that situation, very easy forme in the past to be like, oh,
like, no, I'm talking to you,and blah blah blah.
So instead of allowing ourselvesto get worked up by these
comments, which can work us upquite easily, say something
(18:03):
like, I'll be speaking to themor addressing them in a moment,
but what might I need from youright now before I move on to do
that?
I love this one because whenyou're saying, I understand
that, before I move on to talkto them, what might I need from
you?
And you're ensuring that studentknows you're aware of the other
(18:24):
issues, you're acknowledgingthat, you're saying, yeah, there
are other people talking here,but then you're circling back to
that student, you're asking areflective question, you're not
telling them.
When we move to questioningrather than lecturing, like
asking rather than telling themwhat they've done wrong, when
you're getting them to reflecton their own behaviors, you have
a far better opportunity forthem to then take accountability
(18:48):
for them.
When we lecture, when we standover and we yell or we just talk
at them, it's coming in one earand out the other.
The second you flip that andsay, What might I need from you
right now before I move on to dothat?
You're getting them to reflecton what their responsibilities
are and get them to takeaccountability.
The next one, number five, issimilar to that one.
(19:11):
So, you know, when a student'sdeflecting or blaming others or
pointing the finger instead oftaking responsibility for their
behaviors, you can just simplysay, What do you think is
important for you to be doingright now?
If a student is in a place wherethey're pointing the finger,
where they're deflecting,they're unlikely to respond well
to us dictating what they shouldbe doing because for them, in
(19:33):
their minds, other people aredoing it, they're pointing the
finger, that student wastalking, that student was making
faces at me, that student wasthrowing things at me, that
student was the one who did itfirst.
When we ask them, it's going tobe more effective than telling
them.
What do you think is importantfor you to do right now?
(19:54):
It just brings it back to them,their responsibilities, what you
need them to do, and then youcan move on to another student
if need be.
And by the way, if they can'ttell you in that moment, if
again, instead of getting caughtin this locked horns back and
forth of no, tell me what youthink your responsibility is,
(20:14):
because that can also happen.
They might not have the capacityin that moment to think about
exactly what you know theirresponsibility is, what they
need to take accountability for.
You can also say, and this is bythe way, just so you can get
back to teaching the classwithout escalating things, you
can say, All right, Bob, I'mgonna give you a minute to think
(20:35):
that through and I'm gonna comeback in five minutes.
That one line, I'll give youfive minutes.
I'm gonna be coming back andchecking in then.
It just gives you space and itjust puts space between that
behavior that you're witnessingor on the receiving end of, or
that is disrupting the class.
It gives you space between thatstuff and then your reaction to
(20:55):
it.
So you're more likely to be ableto respond.
You're keeping yourself calm,you're keeping that composure,
you're remaining in control ofyour own tone, your body
language, and you're saying tothat student and you're saying
to the rest of the class, I willcircle back to this.
I'm going to hold myexpectations and my boundaries
around this, but I'm not goingto escalate it.
(21:16):
I'm not going to get into afight.
We're not here to fight.
Which brings me on to the nextone.
Number six.
When a student is refusing tofollow your instructions, when
they're arguing, when they'redigging their heels in, you can
simply say, James, I'm not hereto argue with you.
Let's take a break.
I'll come back in five.
You're keeping that composure,you're staying in control, and
(21:38):
you're able to continue whenboth of you are ready to move
forward.
And I want to say before wefinish up, that was number six,
that's a final one.
Give those a go.
But I really want to finish upby saying this.
I don't always know what to saywhen it comes to challenging
behavior.
The things that students bringinto the classroom, the things
(21:59):
that can pop up, you never knowwhat's going to pop up.
It's really hard to know what tosay back to certain things.
I'm not a wizard.
I'm a human being, a very flawedhuman being, who's actually
pretty crappy at regulating somedays.
I do really, really strugglewith my own regulation and it's
something I'm working onconstantly.
(22:21):
But these sentences right herehave saved me more times than I
can count.
When I'm dealing withchallenging behaviors,
especially things like defianceor when students want to make
things really public.
Sometimes I do feel like a bitof a stunned mullet, but it
doesn't matter because I havethese phrases up my sleeve.
They're not gonna be perfect100% of the time.
(22:42):
They're just pre-preparedphrases I can grab that keep my
thinking brain switched on, orwhen my thinking brain's not
online, they're just things thatI can automatically grab because
they're hardwired, they're easyto access, and it helps diffuse
a situation.
It's it's beautiful when you canhave things like that happening
(23:03):
in your practice.
So really practice those.
Maybe just grab one that you canuse.
Um, and I just hope that wasreally helpful.
I actually have a couple of freeguides that have the language
that you heard here, but heapsmore examples.
I don't know the links off thetop of my head, I probably
should, but I'll pop them in theshow notes for you.
One of the guides is 20 calmphrases, so it's like one
(23:25):
liners, a lot like the one thatI said last.
So I'm not here to argue withyou.
Let's take a break and I'll comeback in five.
There's like 20 of those, and Icall them my calm scripts.
And calm scripts are justphrases you can grab and use
when you desperately need to putspace between yourself and the
behavior and remain the calm,credible leader in the
(23:47):
classroom.
And one of my biggestrecommendations is just to
choose a couple and get reallygood at those.
You don't have to know amillion, you don't have to know
exactly what to say under everysingle situation.
When you're under stress, whenyou're struggling with your
regulation, it can be impossibleto find those right words.
That requires your prefrontalcortex.
(24:08):
That is often shut off bystudent behavior.
So just have that language readyto go.
So I will pop the link in theshow notes for that guide, or
you can just practice the sixthat I've spoken through here.
But until next time, teachers,give yourself a bucket load of
grace.
If you get anything from thisepisode, I hope that it was just
(24:31):
we are all flawed, imperfect,beautifully messy humans who
struggle with this stuff.
Like, we're our own people too.
We don't come into the classroomas these like cyborgs ready to,
you know, deal with all of thesedefiant behaviors and talking
back to us and like it's a toughjob.
(24:54):
So please just give yourselfgrace.
And I hope you got that fromthis episode that I have nothing
but boundless empathy foranything you're experiencing in
the classroom and also a verydeep knowing what it feels like
because I have been there anddone that.
If you also have a teacherfriend, or if you are the leader
(25:15):
of a school or a leader of astaff team, then send them this
episode.
I do have a few school leaderswho reach out to me after I do
these practical kind of episodeswhere we're using like specific
language for diffusing defiance.
I have quite a few peoplereaching out saying that they've
passed that on to their staffteam, like my guides and stuff.
So please send this episode tosomebody who you think might
(25:37):
really benefit from that.
If you do, if you can think ofsomeone who will benefit from
that or a team who would benefitfrom that, um, it would be
wonderful to be able to supportyou in uh whatever way I can.
Okay, I will leave it there.
Go and sprinkle that classroommanagement magic into everything
you do.
Catch you next week, teacherfriends.
Oh, hi there, teachers.
Welcome to the UnteachablesPodcast.
I'm your host, Claire English,and I am just a fellow teacher,
a toddler mama, and a big oldbehaviour nerd on a mission to
demystify and simplify thatlittle thing called classroom
management.
The way we've all been taught tomanage behaviour and classroom
manage has left us playing crowdcontrol, which is not something
(00:23):
I subscribe to because we're notbouncers, we're teachers.
So listen in as I walk youthrough the game-changing
strategies, and I mean thethings that we can actually do
and action in our classroomsthat will allow you to lean into
your beautiful values as acompassionate educator and feel
empowered to run your room witha little more calm and dare I
(00:43):
say it, a lot less chaos.
I will see you in the episode.
Hello, hello, lovely teachers.
Welcome back to the UnteachablesPodcast.
I am your host, Claire.
If you haven't been in my neckof the woods on the podcasting
side of things before, it islovely to have you here.
(01:04):
If you're a longtime listener,thank you so much for being back
here.
Absolutely love your guts, and Ican't wait to dig into some more
classroom management goodnesswith you.
Today's episode is based on areally banger of a QA.
And the question was how doesone stay calm, mature, and
(01:25):
collected when students arepushing all of the buttons?
So it's really asking thequestion that I think a lot of
us have asked ourselves beforewhen we're feeling like really
in a state in a classroom thatfeels really chaotic and really
unmanageable, which is how doyou remain the adult in the
room?
(01:46):
And I just want to say to theperson who asked this question,
like massive, massive props toyou because when you ask a
question like this, it isshowing how reflective you are.
And to even recognize that whenthings go wrong, when students
push the buttons, when studentspush back and display those
really defiant behaviors, thatyou can slip into responses that
(02:08):
are reactive, like that initself is incredible.
So if you are out there going,oh yes, like I just don't know
how to remain regulated andmature and collected and the
adult in the room, the leader inthe room, when my students are
displaying these behaviorsbecause they're so damn
triggering, this episode isgoing to be really, really
(02:31):
helpful.
But I also want to say that I'mI'm really like you should be
proud of yourself for being ableto reflect in that way because
it's very vulnerable for us tobe able to recognize.
Like sometimes I'm not the adultin the room.
And I'm telling you now, I'vegot a two and a half-year-old
daughter, and I'm sometimes notthe adult in the room because
it's so freaking hard.
(02:52):
So I just wanted to say, yes,it's hard, and this is very
common, and there are thingsthat we can do to try to remain
that mature presence, thatleader in the room when our
students are, you know, reallypushing those buttons when
they're pushing back, whenthey're displaying those defiant
behaviours.
I actually worked with a newteacher once who would always
(03:13):
stand at the front of the room,and when students weren't
listening to her, she wouldactually stamp her foot and
clench her fists and go, whyaren't you listening to me?
And I had so much empathy forher because clearly her like it
was on display for everybody tosee, but her nervous system was
firing up, she was, you know,fight flat or freeze mode
(03:36):
massively, and she was doingwhat she could and what she knew
to do to get back in thedriver's seat.
But my gosh, she was really hardto work with because although I
was able to reflect back thebehaviors that were triggering
her and how she was respondingto those behaviors, she wasn't
able to be really aware of howthose things were impacting the
(03:59):
way she was showing up in theclassroom.
So if you're here and you'renodding along and you're like,
yes, I can do that, I can slipinto, you know, reacting in that
way, you're 50 steps aheadalready.
What is it?
The unconsciously incompetent,consciously incompetent, um,
consciously competent?
(04:20):
Unconsciously competent.
I don't know if I said too manycompetents there.
I don't know, but you get what Imean.
So if you are currentlyconsciously incompetent at
regulating yourself in themiddle of a lesson or dealing
with those behaviors that aresuper dysregulating um in a way
that's really effective, thenstick with me.
You are in a really, really goodplace.
(04:42):
The first thing that I'm goingto say to you when it comes to
this stuff, it is so damn humanto be triggered by certain
behaviors.
It is so normal, it is so human,and it's almost inevitable.
If you are somebody who hasgotten into teaching and you're
standing in front of a class andyou have, you know, you're fresh
(05:05):
out of uni, you're standing infront of a class and students
are there pushing your buttons.
Maybe every time you turn toface the board, they make a
funny sound and you don't knowwho it is, or you know, like
there's a student in the classthat's being really defiant and
say no to everything, and infront of everybody, you're
you're there, you have to decidewhether or not you're gonna die
on this hill or not and go gungho.
(05:26):
If you have not been triggeredby certain behaviors, if you are
able to remain calm and stoicand regulated and you're able to
respond with brilliance andremain the adult and remain the
leader, I take my hat off toyou, but I just don't think that
it exists.
(05:46):
I don't know how it would bepossible to be a teacher and not
have moments where we'retriggered by certain behaviors
and yell or not stamp our feet.
I mean, like metaphoricallyspeaking, right?
Or like just get into patternswhere we're reacting to behavior
in ways that aren't as mature aswe'd like.
(06:07):
It is so human.
So I want to say that first offthe gate.
Because your brain's guard dog,your brain has one too, not just
our students.
Our amygdala is designed toreact.
When we feel like we are out ofcontrol of the classroom, our
amygdala would be seeing that asa huge threat because being out
(06:27):
of control is scary.
And that is a threat.
Not being able to be in controlof things, not being able to
have that autonomy.
It is a threat.
And when our guard dog barks,all of that logic will go out
the window, even if we knowlogically in our minds that
reacting to behavior in this wayis going to escalate the
(06:49):
situation.
It's going to escalate thebehaviors of our students.
We will still go there becauseour brain is designed to go
there.
And if we're not aware of thatand we don't have things that
can kind of break that pattern,it's very hard for us to be that
mature leader in the room.
So the awareness of that is themost important thing.
(07:10):
So just get really good atnoticing your body cues.
Like, is your is your jawclenched?
Do you like are you breathingquicker?
Is your heart rate up?
Do you get sweaty palms?
Are your shoulders really tight?
And just silently name it.
Like my guard dog's barkingright now.
My nervous system is on fire.
It's not a sign of weakness,it's not a sign of you being a
(07:31):
bad teacher, it's not a sign ofyou being not mature enough to
lead your classroom.
It is just your nervous systemtrying to protect you in a
classroom that is reallydysregulating.
So it's very normal, it's veryhuman.
Try to do something to regulateand ground yourself.
You've caught yourself, that'sthe main thing.
(07:52):
Now what?
It's gonna be really dependenton you as an individual.
I take deep breaths, and mygo-to line in that situation is
I can only control my ownbehaviors.
All I can control is how Irespond.
I can't control the behaviors ofother people.
What those lines do for me is itreminds my amygdala, my nervous
(08:17):
system, that I am I am incontrol.
Like there are things that I cancontrol.
I can't control the classroom inevery way, shape, and form
because we're all human beingsand we all have our own
complexities.
So just reminding myself ofthose things, and you can use
those go-to lines.
I drop my shoulders, and thatreally helps to get me back in
(08:41):
my thinking brain so I can thenimplement some of the strategies
that I'm about to speak aboutnow.
So about those strategies,because it's not about just
regulating ourselves as much asthat is very important.
Then this next thing here, thisaction is the most powerful
thing that we can do in theclassroom, I believe, because
(09:03):
having great language, havinggreat responses that we can grab
at a pinch when we're feelingreally dysregulated, if we have
that kind of ready as a scriptin our mind, it allows us to
respond even when our thinkingbrain is offline.
As much as we can take away theprocess of, oh my god, what the
(09:24):
hell do I do in this situationwhen this student's like yelling
no at me?
It is so much easier for us tothen deal with things.
So I'm going to walk you throughabout six one-liners that I
always keep in my brain at apinch when things are happening
in different situations.
So I know I can always accessthat language because it's
(09:45):
hardwired.
And it will take a little bit oftime to hardwire this language,
but once it is, it is just somuch easier to remain regulated,
be the adult in the room, bemature and respond rather than
react.
I also want to say that I'musing the language of like
mature and adult and all ofthose things just because that
(10:06):
was what was in the questionitself.
I don't mean that in thosemoments you are being immature
or not an adult.
I just want to use the languagethat was in that question
because it is just human.
Like I just want to make surethat I'm really clear about
that.
You are not your behaviors justas students aren't their
behaviors.
They are just us communicatingsomething.
(10:29):
And what we're communicatingwhen we're reacting in ways that
aren't ideal in a classroom isthat we don't feel safe and we
need to get back in the driver'sseat.
And these sentences, these likeone-liners that you can grab
will do exactly that.
The first one-liner is one thatI use when a student's trying to
talk to me when I need them tobe focusing on a task, or I'm
(10:52):
trying to deal with somethingelse at the time, or I'm really
trying to keep the class calmand settled, and I'm trying to
regulate the room, and justthere's one student there that's
like keeping on talking to meabout something of relevance,
they might be doing it during aclass discussion, and I'm
getting really angry andfrustrated, but I don't want to
(11:13):
do something that will tarnishthe rapport that I have with
that student.
So instead of saying somethinglike, oh, not now, be quiet,
like and and saying somethingthat I might regret later, which
I have done before, I will usethe line, Jessica, I really want
to hear about that.
Let's hold on to it after thelesson, or let's hold on to that
(11:35):
after the task, or I'll comeover to you when I'm finished
with this.
What you're doing in thatsituation is you're still
holding the expectation thatthey need to be listening to
you, but you're not shuttingdown or shaming that student.
You're still sending the messageto that student that what they
say, it does matter, but itneeds to happen at a more
appropriate time.
(11:56):
But you're not shutting themdown, you're not shaming them,
you're not undoing any of thework with rapport that you have
done.
The second one-liner is one thatI use if a student is doing
something pretty reasonable.
Just say like you're wantingthem to be working on their
stuff, and then a student getsup and they start wandering
(12:16):
around the room, they're saying,Oh, I'm just going to the bin, I
just want to put my rubbish in.
Just say they're getting up alot, but you really need them to
be sitting down, listening,focusing, working.
And just say they get up andlike, what are you doing, mate?
And they're like, Oh, I'm justgoing to the bin, or I'm just
doing this, I'm just doing that.
The one liner that I love to usein this situation is, I
(12:38):
understand you're doing this,but right now I need you to be
doing that.
So, for example, I understandthat you're just going to the
bin, but right now I really needyou to be in your seat.
What that does, and why this isso powerful, is you're clearly
communicating that boundarystill, but you're minimizing the
chances of that student feelinglike they're in trouble for no
(12:59):
reason, and you're still sayingthat what they're you're
acknowledging what they'retrying to do.
Yeah, you're just trying to goto the bin, that's fine.
You're just trying to go and getyour bottle out of your bag, or
you're just trying to get a gluestick from someone or a pencil
from someone, and you don't wantto make them feel like, you
know, they have no bodily bodyautonomy, they have no autonomy
(13:19):
in their movement, they have tobe sitting down at all costs,
they have to comply at allcosts.
You also don't want to besending that message, but if you
really need them to be sittingand doing what they need to be
doing, made I understand youjust want to go and grab a
pencil from James, but right nowI really need to be sitting here
listening.
After that, you can get apencil.
Sound good?
Great.
(13:40):
That minimizes the escalationthat you might get if and
rightly so to be frustrated whenyou have 30 in a room.
Like that student there'sthinking about what they need in
that moment, and they arereacting and responding to what
they need, which is also okay,and they're not necessarily
doing anything bad.
They're just getting up andwalking to the bin.
(14:02):
Great.
When you've got 30 in a room,and that one student gets up to
go to the bin though anddisrupts the kind of vibe that
you're setting, that's whenthings become an issue for you,
and you might find that yournervous system starts to fire up
because oh my god, I just wantedto be sitting down.
So that one liner is golden.
I understand you're doing X, butright now I need you to do Y.
(14:26):
The third one, which a lot ofyou are going to find helpful,
hopefully, it's when a studentisn't following instructions and
you're trying to get them backon track.
This is a situation where thingscan blow up for me quite easily.
Just say if I'm trying to getthem back on track and they're
just like looking at me blankly,saying no, everything starts to
escalate.
I feel like I need to get incontrol of that situation.
(14:48):
If I let that slide, then thewhole class is going to erupt.
What I do instead of standingthere and face to face or
standing over them and trying toget them back on track and
trying to put that like pressureon them while I'm standing right
there, which is not going to endwell for some students who would
escalate things.
I will just say I'm going to bechecking back in five minutes.
(15:11):
When I do, I expect that.
The reason this works so well isbecause it's supportive and
non-confrontational.
It removes any of those needs tolike lock horns if the student's
not following those instructionsimmediately, which they won't
sometimes, like because theyprobably also feel embarrassed
and you're saying this in frontof all of their peers.
(15:32):
And if they've got a face tomaintain in front of their
peers, they're gonna be like,no, miss, go away.
Like, I'm not doing that.
It's not happening.
If you say I'm gonna give youfive minutes, I'm gonna pop back
over and see, you know, howyou're going, or I'm gonna give
you five minutes.
When I do, I expect that.
It completely changes thedynamics of that situation.
Just say if they're on theirphone, you stand there, give me
(15:53):
your phone, no.
Put your phone away, no.
Okay, Bob, I'm going to comeback in five minutes.
When I do, I expect that yourphone is in your bag.
Got it?
You move away.
No locking horns.
Guess what?
Bob might sit on his phone foran extra three minutes.
He'll be watching you, watchinghim.
And then three minutes will goon.
The class is no longer lookingat him, the class no longer
(16:15):
cares what he's doing.
No one's going, Oh, wonder whatMiss is gonna do because Bob
hasn't put his phone away.
Is she gonna send him out?
Is she gonna escalate things?
Is she gonna get angry?
Because the kids love it whenthings like that happen.
It takes away from the learning.
It's you know, not all kids, butyou know, it's a little bit of
excitement in the class.
(16:36):
It completely takes that away.
So in three minutes, when allthe eyes are off Bob, Bob might
quietly slip his phone into hisbag.
If he doesn't, then you canfollow it up after.
That's okay, but you havecompletely diffused the
situation and taken away theneed for you to stand there and
have your hand out for 10minutes while that's escalating,
and then you have to end upgoing, right, go to the
(16:57):
principal's office because youcan hand the phone in to them.
That is three.
Number four is if something ishappening in the classroom and
you're trying to talk to thatstudent about their behavior,
just say they're chatting andconstantly calling out over
everybody and just beinggenerally disruptive, and just
say there's a few pockets ofstudents who are doing the same
(17:19):
thing.
But you go up to this onestudent who you think is the
instigator of it because you cansee everything.
Like you're up the front of theroom, there's all your students
there, and you're watching on,and just say Steve is the one
that's you know he's causingmost of the disruption.
So you go up to Steve and you'relike, hey Steve, mate, like you
know, stop talking.
And Steve's like, oh, butthey're doing it too, but the
(17:40):
rest of the class is talking.
Go talk to Bob, he's doing it.
Bob's the one that's talking,not me.
In that situation, very easy forme in the past to be like, oh,
like, no, I'm talking to you,and blah blah blah.
So instead of allowing ourselvesto get worked up by these
comments, which can work us upquite easily, say something
(18:03):
like, I'll be speaking to themor addressing them in a moment,
but what might I need from youright now before I move on to do
that?
I love this one because whenyou're saying, I understand
that, before I move on to talkto them, what might I need from
you?
And you're ensuring that studentknows you're aware of the other
(18:24):
issues, you're acknowledgingthat, you're saying, yeah, there
are other people talking here,but then you're circling back to
that student, you're asking areflective question, you're not
telling them.
When we move to questioningrather than lecturing, like
asking rather than telling themwhat they've done wrong, when
you're getting them to reflecton their own behaviors, you have
a far better opportunity forthem to then take accountability
(18:48):
for them.
When we lecture, when we standover and we yell or we just talk
at them, it's coming in one earand out the other.
The second you flip that andsay, What might I need from you
right now before I move on to dothat?
You're getting them to reflecton what their responsibilities
are and get them to takeaccountability.
The next one, number five, issimilar to that one.
(19:11):
So, you know, when a student'sdeflecting or blaming others or
pointing the finger instead oftaking responsibility for their
behaviors, you can just simplysay, What do you think is
important for you to be doingright now?
If a student is in a place wherethey're pointing the finger,
where they're deflecting,they're unlikely to respond well
to us dictating what they shouldbe doing because for them, in
(19:33):
their minds, other people aredoing it, they're pointing the
finger, that student wastalking, that student was making
faces at me, that student wasthrowing things at me, that
student was the one who did itfirst.
When we ask them, it's going tobe more effective than telling
them.
What do you think is importantfor you to do right now?
(19:54):
It just brings it back to them,their responsibilities, what you
need them to do, and then youcan move on to another student
if need be.
And by the way, if they can'ttell you in that moment, if
again, instead of getting caughtin this locked horns back and
forth of no, tell me what youthink your responsibility is,
(20:14):
because that can also happen.
They might not have the capacityin that moment to think about
exactly what you know theirresponsibility is, what they
need to take accountability for.
You can also say, and this is bythe way, just so you can get
back to teaching the classwithout escalating things, you
can say, All right, Bob, I'mgonna give you a minute to think
(20:35):
that through and I'm gonna comeback in five minutes.
That one line, I'll give youfive minutes.
I'm gonna be coming back andchecking in then.
It just gives you space and itjust puts space between that
behavior that you're witnessingor on the receiving end of, or
that is disrupting the class.
It gives you space between thatstuff and then your reaction to
(20:55):
it.
So you're more likely to be ableto respond.
You're keeping yourself calm,you're keeping that composure,
you're remaining in control ofyour own tone, your body
language, and you're saying tothat student and you're saying
to the rest of the class, I willcircle back to this.
I'm going to hold myexpectations and my boundaries
around this, but I'm not goingto escalate it.
(21:16):
I'm not going to get into afight.
We're not here to fight.
Which brings me on to the nextone.
Number six.
When a student is refusing tofollow your instructions, when
they're arguing, when they'redigging their heels in, you can
simply say, James, I'm not hereto argue with you.
Let's take a break.
I'll come back in five.
You're keeping that composure,you're staying in control, and
(21:38):
you're able to continue whenboth of you are ready to move
forward.
And I want to say before wefinish up, that was number six,
that's a final one.
Give those a go.
But I really want to finish upby saying this.
I don't always know what to saywhen it comes to challenging
behavior.
The things that students bringinto the classroom, the things
(21:59):
that can pop up, you never knowwhat's going to pop up.
It's really hard to know what tosay back to certain things.
I'm not a wizard.
I'm a human being, a very flawedhuman being, who's actually
pretty crappy at regulating somedays.
I do really, really strugglewith my own regulation and it's
something I'm working onconstantly.
(22:21):
But these sentences right herehave saved me more times than I
can count.
When I'm dealing withchallenging behaviors,
especially things like defianceor when students want to make
things really public.
Sometimes I do feel like a bitof a stunned mullet, but it
doesn't matter because I havethese phrases up my sleeve.
They're not gonna be perfect100% of the time.
(22:42):
They're just pre-preparedphrases I can grab that keep my
thinking brain switched on, orwhen my thinking brain's not
online, they're just things thatI can automatically grab because
they're hardwired, they're easyto access, and it helps diffuse
a situation.
It's it's beautiful when you canhave things like that happening
(23:03):
in your practice.
So really practice those.
Maybe just grab one that you canuse.
Um, and I just hope that wasreally helpful.
I actually have a couple of freeguides that have the language
that you heard here, but heapsmore examples.
I don't know the links off thetop of my head, I probably
should, but I'll pop them in theshow notes for you.
One of the guides is 20 calmphrases, so it's like one
(23:25):
liners, a lot like the one thatI said last.
So I'm not here to argue withyou.
Let's take a break and I'll comeback in five.
There's like 20 of those, and Icall them my calm scripts.
And calm scripts are justphrases you can grab and use
when you desperately need to putspace between yourself and the
behavior and remain the calm,credible leader in the
(23:47):
classroom.
And one of my biggestrecommendations is just to
choose a couple and get reallygood at those.
You don't have to know amillion, you don't have to know
exactly what to say under everysingle situation.
When you're under stress, whenyou're struggling with your
regulation, it can be impossibleto find those right words.
That requires your prefrontalcortex.
(24:08):
That is often shut off bystudent behavior.
So just have that language readyto go.
So I will pop the link in theshow notes for that guide, or
you can just practice the sixthat I've spoken through here.
But until next time, teachers,give yourself a bucket load of
grace.
If you get anything from thisepisode, I hope that it was just
(24:31):
we are all flawed, imperfect,beautifully messy humans who
struggle with this stuff.
Like, we're our own people too.
We don't come into the classroomas these like cyborgs ready to,
you know, deal with all of thesedefiant behaviors and talking
back to us and like it's a toughjob.
(24:54):
So please just give yourselfgrace.
And I hope you got that fromthis episode that I have nothing
but boundless empathy foranything you're experiencing in
the classroom and also a verydeep knowing what it feels like
because I have been there anddone that.
If you also have a teacherfriend, or if you are the leader
(25:15):
of a school or a leader of astaff team, then send them this
episode.
I do have a few school leaderswho reach out to me after I do
these practical kind of episodeswhere we're using like specific
language for diffusing defiance.
I have quite a few peoplereaching out saying that they've
passed that on to their staffteam, like my guides and stuff.
So please send this episode tosomebody who you think might
(25:37):
really benefit from that.
If you do, if you can think ofsomeone who will benefit from
that or a team who would benefitfrom that, um, it would be
wonderful to be able to supportyou in uh whatever way I can.
Okay, I will leave it there.
Go and sprinkle that classroommanagement magic into everything
you do.
Catch you next week, teacherfriends.
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