Knowledge about safe and effective behavior management strategies enables you to be in full control of your behavior in tough and challenging situations. Whether you are managing a team in the office or you are a teacher with a large class, it always pays to understand how to keep everyone motivated and make them think positively about everything. Let's find out more about it.
Behavior Management Techniques for Adults
You can make use of six effective and safe behavior management strategies to remain professional during challenging situations. Here are the details.
1. Always Know How Your Behavior Affects Others
In other words, you need to be mindful of your own reactions when dealing with difficult people and situations. How you react to a situation will affect other's decisions too. Your response will determine whether the behavior of someone else stops or escalates further. With that in the back of your mind, you will understand the importance of staying calm and working on respectful management strategies.
2. Learn to Be Rationally Detached
It helps you understand how to maintain an attitude, telling others that you are not open to negative comments or actions. Not having this ability is only going to make things difficult because team members are likely to react defensively or instinctively. With this ability, you will be in a better position to encourage positive behavior and defuse challenging behavior at the same time.
3. Be Attentive All the Time
You are going to find yourself in a tough situation when you make others feel ignored or not cared for. This behavior often encourages others to act out and take a negative approach. Sometimes, you need to validate others' feelings to counter their anxiety. Be attentive and pay attention to what they say. Let your body language speak to them and convey the message that you are listening to them.
4. Make Use of Positive Self-Talk
You have to make yourself understand the fact you are not the reason why someone else is behaving negatively or you are in a negative situation. Positive self-talk can really work wonders for your self-confidence and makes you believe that you can handle the situation in a way that it brings out a more productive response.
5. Know Your Limits
You need to have confidence in yourself but that does not mean you should try to handle every situation. Even a professional cannot handle everything, and that is why it is important to recognize your limits and know when you should let someone else to pitch in and take over.
6. Learn to Debrief
It is never easy to deal with a challenging situation, and even when you manage to handle it well, you may still have that stress in you. This is where you can relieve the stress by debriefing after the incident. You should also consider how you have handled the situation and if there is any room for improvement in case a similar situation occurs again in the future.
Behavior Management Techniques in Classroom
It is definitely a tricky task to manage a large team in an office setting and motivate them to get desired results. However, you may also need to learn and try certain behavior management strategies when you are dealing with a group of students in a classroom setting. Here are some suggestions.
1. Set Up Your Class in a Positive Way
How you set up your class will have an impact on how your students behave. You do not always need to stick to the traditional row-after-row classroom structure. A little creativity will help create a perfect learning environment for your students. The most important thing is to consider your students' needs. Know if there are students with special needs, such as students with autism who might be sensitive to smells or noises. Similarly, students with ADHD would require a classroom setting with little to no distraction. Knowledge about the needs of your students will help you make better choices in terms of the location and physical setup of your classroom.
2. Establish Clear Rules
Setting rules is not enough; you need to make them clear and ensure that your students know them well. The rules for behavior in the class should be clearly stated – it is even better to have those rules printed and placed in a visible place in the classroom. Doing this ensures that your students have no doubt about the rules in their minds. Finally, you need to ensure that you are also following all those rules or your students will follow suit.
3. Offer Positive Reinforcement
Be very consistent when it comes to providing positive reinforcement. Appreciating them for a job well done is one of the best behavior management techniques and works great to encourage positive behavior. You can opt for a form of reward system but even verbal praise can do. Just ensure that you are consistent and fair when providing positive reinforcement. You need to understand the importance of giving credit to students – irrespective of their past academic achievements or behaviors – in a positive manner. Moreover, you should also avoid praising too readily or your praise will eventually become meaningless.
4. Maintain a Schedule
It is of immense importance to create and follow a schedule because students perform better when they have to follow a set routine. Any change in routine can lead to stress, and stress will eventually lead to bad behavior. Ensure that you have already established a schedule for each day of the week and your students do not get any last minute surprises. Occasional unforeseen interruptions should not make a huge difference, but you should do your best to make things work as per a set schedule.
5. Teach Your Students Behavior Management
While you should be using behavior management techniques to manage your class, you should also take an initiative to help students understand how they can manage their own behavior. If your students behave well in your class but do not maintain the same attitude when they move on to another, your efforts will eventually go down the drain. You are not helping them to be a better person. Therefore, it is important to help your students learn how to be in control of their own behavior.