This third and final part of this series is about communicating with difficult students in a way that will compel them to behave the way you want them to.
But I must warn you. It’s going to be different than you’re used to and may take time to develop the discipline to overcome old habits.
The benefits, however, can be life changing for difficult students.
There are two mistakes teachers make when communicating with difficult students. Both are counterproductive.
(1) Reacting in frustration
In dealing with difficult students, teachers become frustrated and react by scolding, yelling, and threatening.
True, these methods may suppress behavior in the short term, but they do nothing to improve behavior over time. In fact, they can cause an increase in misbehavior.
The reason is simple—and obvious if anyone has ever spoken to you this way.
It causes students to dislike you.
And once this happens, you’re done. You can’t help them. A bad relationship will sever any influence you had, or hope to have, with a difficult student.
(2) Overpraising
When difficult students do something correctly, teachers tend to praise too much or too demonstratively. They hug, cheer, high-five, celebrate, and give rewards and prizes—often for expected behavior.
This sends the wrong message.
Like behavior contracts, it communicates to difficult students that they can’t control themselves like everyone else and therefore need special attention from the teacher.
If you treat them like it’s an accomplishment not to be a disruption, then you’re setting the behavior bar for them spectacularly low. One sure way to make difficult students stay difficult is to make a big deal out of expected behavior.
Influence
Your goal with difficult students should be to build influence with them. When a student likes and trusts you, they’ll want to behave in a way that pleases you.
It’s a simple idea, yet it eludes so many.
Follow these guidelines to build a level of influence that will make difficult students want to behave.
Leave them alone.
Most difficult students get way too much attention from teachers—often for years. Be the first to cut them off. The lectures, reminders, pep talks, and endless warnings have got to go.
A good rule of thumb is to not spend any more time on them than the rest of your students.
Let your consequences do their job and give these difficult students a chance to become regular members of your classroom—and not the outcasts that constant attention can make them feel.
Don’t cause friction.
Have you ever had the feeling that some students are trying to get under your skin or trying to exact revenge?
Well they are.
The fact is, most difficult students don’t like their teacher. If a student dislikes you, you’ll have an uphill battle getting him or her to behave. Every time you scold or berate a student, you drop further away from changing behavior.
Note: holding students accountable doesn’t cause them to dislike you, reacting in frustration does.
Develop a friendly relationship.
Having a friendly connection with difficult students is an easy way to create leverage with them. If they like you, you have powerful influence on their behavior.
When you get to know someone on a personal (ergo influential) level, you discover their positive qualities and they discover yours. So when you speak to difficult students, avoid talking about behavior issues.
Instead, talk about your common interests and work on getting to know them without strings attached; get to know them for the sake of getting to know them.
Have some fun.
It’s a myth that having fun somehow causes students to misbehave. The opposite is true. When you’re tight and serious, you’re less likable, the class is boring, and your students are more apt to act out.
This is particularly true of difficult students.
So have fun as a class and allow your difficult student(s) to experience the feeling of being part of it. Give them a chance to love school for once—few of them do. It’s a powerful motivator to behave.
The Bottom Line
If these guidelines sound simple, you’re right. They are.
You don’t have to lecture difficult students. You don’t have to beg, plead, or convince them to behave. You don’t have to be a psychologist or a Harvard debating champion. You don’t have to prove your point, explain yourself, argue, prod, persuade or manipulate.
You don’t even have to spend much time with them.
The bottom line is this:
If you build influence with difficult students, and you’re committed to holding them accountable when they misbehave, you can completely and unalterably turn them around.
If you haven’t done so already, please join us. It’s free! Click here and begin receiving classroom management articles like this one in your email box every week.
Dear Michael,
Sorry if this turns out to be too long to print,but I wanted to explain fully why your website and the article on time outs and dealing with disruptive students are so useful.
I am an American who lives outside of the US. After teaching ESL to adults for 10 years I am transitioning to grammar school teaching. While taking my teacher’s certification I work part-time and have just begun teaching a two hour per week English class in a special program for 8th graders. The program consists of six 8th graders who have not attended school for up to a year, because they have behavior problems coupled with other issues like: dyslexia, adhd, dysphasia etc… . The goal of this program is to get them ready for exit exams held at the end of 9th grade.
The class has not gotten off to a good start for several reasons. First, not everyone began at the same time, so they have settled in by drips and drabs. Next, it is very difficult to figure out whether a student is “acting out” because of organic/emotional issues, or just because it is cool to challenge the teacher. Then, I must figure out the best way to give them material that fits their particular learning style. And finally, one big mistake I made the very first day was letting students do group work. My thinking was that the students would feel more comfortable doing group work since they had not been in class for quite awhile. But grouping them gave the most disruptive (a young man similar to the disruptive “Anthony” in your article “How to Love Unlikable Students” except this student is ill, not underprivileged) a chance to encourage them to goof around and collectively ignore the work for various reasons (lack of interest, lack of understanding, lack of ability.)
Since then, and in recognition that each student is at a very different level of English and behavior, I have reversed my initial curriculum about 90% and now each student has his/her own curriculum to follow. Each will get three 20 minute lessons, with a 5-10 minute break in between each. I have seated them at their own desks, which has posed a challenge for the most disruptive, and for them even in this short period of time there is plenty of opportunity for disruptive behavior.
After several incidents of student rants and raves about this and that, the staff met and agreed to implement a “time out” policy for disruptive students or students who felt they could not participate in the class assignment. Thus, finding your article(s) just after we have agreed to implement the time out is timely and will be quite helpful in continuing and deepening the discussion on using time outs and other methods of behavior modification in a consistent manner. Thank you and your reader’s comments for your succinct and helpful insights.
Michael, I teach in Australia.I am an art teacher. I have recently noticed that my older students are getting the better of me. I see this particular class for 1 hr per week , last hour. These students are 11 and 12 yrs of age and there are at least 7 difficult students in a class of 30.These student come to me after an Italian class which they don’t enjoy and it seems that I am getting the brunt of their unhappiness. What should I do? I have started doing all the wrongs things purely out of frustration.
Hi Cheryl,
Everything you need to do you can find on this website! I don’t have any doubts about that. However, there are a ton of articles, and it’s hard to know where to start. I recommend starting in the rules & consequences category and then going from there. Also, Check out the article The 9 Biggest Classroom Management Mistakes Teachers Make. That your difficult students come from a class they don’t enjoy can be an advantage for you if they like coming to your class. This gives you added leverage, making your classroom management plan exponentially effective. But you have to have a solid plan and you have to stop doing the wrong things.
Michael
I am loving all of these articles! I am a new teacher and have found all of this super useful. I teach in a low income school and I knew that I was starting to do a lot of “wrong” things in trying to deal with difficult students. I just didn’t know how to turn it around. Now, I have many new ideas. Thanks!
Great Julia!
Hope you become a regular reader.
Michael
I have just witnessed first hand how powerful this technique is. I “removed” an extremely disruptive student from my reading class 3 days ago. At first he was worse, but when he realized that, other than enforcing consequences, he was being ignored (and not allowed to join in games) he began to change. The same kid who has a major intervention planned for tomorrow (parents, psychologist, admin., etc.) sat quietly in the back of my 90 minute class today with only 1 warning…
That’s great, MC! Glad to hear it. But it’s not a surprise to me.
:)Michael
Hi Michael,
I teach Art once a week to a difficult grade of 11 year olds. One disrespectful boy in particular, despite using your steps, continues to seek attention when separated until I need to remove him from the grade. If I keep him at a table he will get up and walk out as he hates Art. When I bring him back at recess /lunch for time out he continues to yell/complain and then his parents come up the next day arguing his right to argue. The Principal’s solution was to have him miss Art for four sessions which I think he enjoyed and this made him act up even more when he returned. I am losing this battle. Any advice would be great. I love teaching Art but I am contemplating leaving as he has behaved like this all year and I will have him for Art next year.
Hi Jane,
My best advice is to follow what is written above. Also, it’s important you work on creating an art class even this boy looks forward to. Combined, they will give you the leverage to curb his behavior. I also recommend reading through the archive from front to back. The way in which you conduct your class will go a long way toward improving behavior in all your classes.
Michael
What about if you already have a hostile relationship with the student? Is there absolutely no hope?
Hi Andrea,
No, not at all. But you have to resolve to hold them accountable without taking their behavior personally, losing your cool, or otherwise causing friction and in a short time, you’ll be able to restore a positive relationship.
Michael
Hi Michael, I was so glad to ‘discover’ your website. Some of the teachers at my school are reading your articles and trying to put them into practice. Do you think the “How to Turn Around Difficult Students” would work for a partly autistic year 3 child who is bright but is very disruptive all day long for no apparent reason? I just do not know what to do with this boy. One minute I think I have his trust and confidence and the next minute he cannot stand me and starts carrying on. He is also rough towards the other children. The usual warnings and consequences don’t seem to have any effect on him whatsoever. The one thing he loves is having stories read to him. I guess I need to take advantage of that! I would be very grateful if you would give me some inspiration.
Hi Tess,
Not knowing the boy or being able to observe you in action with him, it would be irresponsible of me to shoot from the hip and give you my gut feeling. However, if the student is autistic, then I’d be reluctant to use this particular strategy.
:)Michael
Entering my 4th week of using this classroom management program, I have to say that for most students it is effective. The ones that speak out and side-talk don’t risk it now, even the more “difficult” students are responding. I’ve even had a “chronic offender” apologize to me for being disrespectful.
However, there are some times, I think, what I would call “extreme students.” Like the one I’m dealing with, as a rotary foreign language teacher. He just doesn’t care. He’s on meds. When he doesn’t take them I have had to send him out of class since he is out of control. When he does take them he is disruptive, then disruptive during time out, then refuses to take his letter home. He doesn’t care about the phone call home because his mother doesn’t know what to do with him anyhow.
So tomorrow I am trying the strategy of separating him from the class and playing a game with the class (although, we have already played games while he was in time-out and he did not make the connection to why he couldn’t join us.) He has joined us in playing games, so he knows what he’ll be missing.
This is a class with 3 other behaviour problems and it is almost impossible to keep up. I am taking care to be fun (it’s part of my personality anyhow…I can be lighthearted with students when appropriate and they enjoy talking to me). I don’t lose my temper and I don’t take things personally. I’m not begging/pleading or giving these kids extra attention, but this one class is *exhausting* me and I’m not sure these kids will ever respond. That can make for a difficult year.
Hi Carolyn,
It’s certainly a greater challenge building those relationships and creating an enjoyable yet accountable atmosphere when you don’t see your students all day long and when they’re visiting other teachers and forming other habits. Stick to it, though, because although it may take longer with some students, time is on your side and they’ll get it in the end.
Michael
Again, thank you for your quick response, Michael. It is *so* encouraging to have your responses. You hit the head on the head when mentioning other teachers; the classroom teacher of this particular class allows them to form some very disrespectful habits, which he completely ignores (or he simply doesn’t care). He high-fives them, fist-bumps, calls them “buddy,” but will tolerate shouting in the classroom and speaking disrespectfully – he actually teaches his lessons over their shouts. This is my daily battle.
I think that the “not a member of the class” strategy worked very well, today. My whole class played partner games while the difficult student did not. However, he did not complete any of his seat work. Does this mean he should still be a non-member tomorrow? It’s a little different only seeing him 40 min. a day.
Again, thank you for your responses – you must be very busy. I’ll try not to bother you again!
You’re welcome, Carolyn. As for your question, I think it’s important to keep behavior separate from effort/work habits. Thus, I would allow him to return to your classroom.
:)Michael
Hi Michael,
Thank you so much for your article. I realized that I tend to overpraise students. I think lowering that bar might help my overall eighth grade students. I have rather small class sizes (about 5 in a room). One student in particular does not engage in our conversations, blows off my attempts at Responsive Classroom, and replies with one word answers indicating disinterest. She has a great talent for something I have no talent in at all. I want to find some way to connect with her, but every time I try I am rebuffed. I can’t get past the one word answers and the feeling that she just doesn’t have any interest at all at being in the classroom. Any advice on next steps?
Hi Stephanie,
I’m going to write more about this in the future, but it’s likely she just needs some space. Often, students behave the way you describe when teachers try too hard to engage them. Once a student like this begins believing that it’s her choice whether, when, or how she participates, then almost magically she does.
Michael
there is one student who turned my life into hell ,he is getting into me despite ignoring him,what I am suppoed to do?
Hi Amina Amy,
Read through the Classroom Management Plan and Difficult Students categories of the archive. If then you have any questions, please email me.
:)Michael
Thank you for the advise. It certainly has been a relief to find someone giving a solid set of strategies that can deal with class disruption. I certainly am using this strategy with one of my classes as for too long they have taken valuable time and attention to quitening them or to stop bullying one particular student when it could be used to do a game or other fun activity, which the class has repeatedly missed out on because the pace of the lesson has slowed due to the disruptive behavior. If things change around 180 degrees, I’ll know who to thank.
I’m glad you found us, Daniel. If you follow the strategies and core principles of classroom management you find on this website, they will turn around.
:)Michael
Middle/High School students WILL NOT stay in class for any length of time…. They are Special Education and behavior students who choose to simply walk laps for hours on end! Consequences are minimal and suspensions, letters home, parent meetings are not effective. Please give some other suggestions ASAP!
Hi! I would like to ask since it seem that the articles are more focused to elementary and high school students.
How could I handle difficult students who were 4 years younger than me? I am a Filipino college instructor and some of my students (who were also Filipinos) were acting as if they were smarter than me although I am already a Masters degree holder. They were even creating a small propaganda against me by saying that they were smarter than me.
Could anyone give me a good advice? I do believe that as an instructor I should not give up on them but this issue has caused me sleepless nights.
Thank you
Hi Yumi,
What they think about you personally isn’t your concern. Just focus on being the best teacher you can be. Focus on challenging them and getting the most out of them and the rest will take care of itself.
Michael
What about young (4th grade age) students recently put on medication for emotional/psychological issues? Since the beginning of the school year a student of mine has had serious behavioral issues (aggression, anger, defiance, disrespect, and even mild physical violence at times). His emotions are all over the place and he can be a very loving student, but once he is confronted with having to be on task or follow rules he just shuts down, getting angry and defiant. Recently it escalated when the parent was forced to come to the school and his therapist got involved and he was admitted to the hospital for a 72 hour hold. On Monday morning after returning, he came in very angry with me and said he wasn’t happy to see me. I felt like he was blaming me for the entire situation and even though it was hurtful I just told him I was still happy to see him. He started to come around as the day went on, but I could still see the same behavior lurking under the surface and I didn’t know how to address it after what he just experienced. Is it even possible for me to reach through to this student and actually help him “turn around” the bad behavior?