How Should You Respond To Physically Aggressive Pupils?
Paul Dix looks at how to plan for shifting fears, sensory explosions and the other forms of unpredictable behaviour that aggression can take…
- by Teachwire
It is not enough just to ‘be calm’, even if sometimes that feels hard enough. It’s the finer aspects of your response to a child’s physical aggression that matter more.
Back away too quickly, and you can leave an unpredictable vacuum. Step in too fast, and people get hurt. Experience teaches, but often painfully.
Most primary classrooms reveal a chaos of sensory issues for children whose triggers aren’t human. Dangly things drip from the ceiling. Bouncy 3D neon displays scream ‘LOOK AT ME!’. Strip lighting competes with shoes squeaking on a lino floor. If you can’t work out what the trigger is, it’s usually sensory.
The answer, however, is not to strip everything back to white walls, but to make simple, reasonable adjustments. A low barrier around the child’s desk that creates a controllable space; net curtains that can be pulled across crazy colours to create temporary calm; reducing your reliance on strip lighting; or using natural colours and hessian-backed displays.
Words don’t often help much in the flurry of an aggressive outburst. They confuse, irritate and merge into one. Much more important is your physical language – and your eyes are the key.
How you respond must be carefully controlled. Don’t show shock, regardless of the behaviour. Resist those looks of astonishment and panicked searching eyes. Pretend that everything is normal, and you will come across as in control. Release your own emotion, and it will be quickly stirred into the mix. This isn’t a time for adults to respond with strong emotions. There needs to be someone in control – someone who is responding rationally and keeping everyone safe.
When to intervene?
Physical aggression often comes without warning. It can be sudden and shocking, with no apparent trigger. Fear is unpredictable. It shifts, moves and mutates. One day, the hair of another child will be of no consequence; the next, it’s being torn out with a vice-like grip. One day, maths might the problem; the next, it’s Mr Harris and his irritating voice – ‘I’m just not going into that classroom… whatever you do…’
Behaviour management never runs in straight lines. Unpredictable, catastrophic behaviour gives you no time to divert, lead away or distract. It demands your immediate response, yet gives you little time to think.
Physical intervention is often used when the child has reached the peak of crisis, yet a swift and gentle leading away by the shoulders at the start of the escalation can be far more effective. Knowing when to intervene is a fine judgement that should not be made in a crisis. Make it part of your planned agreement with the child and family. Identify the children who need to hand over control earlier and those who can pull themselves back from the brink. Remember those for whom a calm touch is reassuring and those who recoil from it.
Focus on meeting the needs of the child and safety of the rest of the class, rather than the strict demands of the policy. Intervening and restraining children isn’t always a ‘last resort’. It can be a highly effective first response, and avert more protracted and complicated incidents.
You might not have done it for a while, but losing your temper and regaining control is tiring. Losing it and regaining it repeatedly is utterly exhausting. For children who struggle to stay in control, it’s a story of diminishing returns across the school day. The more control is lost, the harder it becomes to re-establish next time. By the third time a child has loses their temper, it can be difficult for them to fully regain their composure before a long rest or sleep.
False expectation appearing real
Working with that understanding means that children who lose control twice in the morning should not immediately be thrown back into afternoon lessons – at least not without some one-to-one supervision. That said, I have seen many children who seem calm during a one-to-one return to class and destroy it in a heartbeat. The average recovery time for a child who reaches crisis point is 45 minutes, so leaving children out of lessons after single incidents for too long would be a mistake also. Of course, that recovery time will lengthen for repeated incidents.
Fear was once described to me as a ‘False Expectation Appearing Real’, which I think really helps when trying to plan ahead for children whose triggers are hard to read. What false expectations are being acted upon? What may be obviously unreal to everyone else, yet very real to them?
For many children, reaching the point of fury will be accelerated by the mismatch of expectation. They can’t read, compute or calculate what the rest of the class is looking at. Their basic skills are so far behind the others that an undifferentiated lesson is like walking into the dark without a torch.
The ferocious reaction to having this lack of skills exposed can be as strong as a trauma-triggered response. Children back away quickly, hurting others in the process, but their intent isn’t to hurt. Their response is pure emotion.
Such behaviours are often interpreted as a ‘behaviour problem’, when in truth it is a learning gap that needs backfilling quickly. Many schools I’m working with are reporting fabulous results with Sound Training (soundtraining. co.uk) on reading recovery, and I was recently introduced to Mrs Wordsmith (mrswordsmith. com), which looks great. Not being able to read fluently means you are excluded from the class whilst remaining in it. That would make even a patient adult angry.
Restorative conversations
You don’t teach new behaviours by punishment. Teach behaviour by holding up a mirror for the children and helping them learn about themselves, like good parents would. This demands a planned restorative conversation, where calm reflection builds understanding and resilience. Detention builds resentment; conversations build understanding. Use the same questions each time, so the children become used to them as a reference. You’ll find that in time, they’ll use simple restorative questions to make decisions, as well as for reflecting after difficult events. Examples might include:
- What happened?
- What have you thought since?
- Who was affected?
- How were they affected?
- What can you do to make things right?
You might choose to go through each in turn, or use one or two for shorter reflecting conversations. The children will get better at answering them – and become better at reflecting on the impact of their behaviour – the more often they’re used.
You’re building the children’s ability to empathise with others, and to see the impact of their behaviour on others, not simply on themselves.
Aggressive behaviour
A 5-point checklist
1. Agree a three-step plan with the child and parents.
2. Check your first response – don’t show shock or react with emotion
3. Be prepared to intervene early to prevent an escalating situation
4. Focus on your physical response; limit your words
5. When everyone is calm, use restorative questions to encourage self reflection and teach empathy
About the author
Paul Dix is a behavioural specialist and CEO of the education consultancy, Pivotal Education; for more details visit pivotaleducation.com or follow @PivotalPaul
