What are the most effective ways to manage difficult students without sacrificing your well-being?

In my experience the key to getting through to difficult students is establishing rapport and creating a respectful relationship. Shared projects, activities, sports and community service are central to establishing rapport which is the first step to turning a difficult situation around and integrating students into life at school.

The classroom is a group of individual scholars working towards one goal...learning what being taught. The collection of diverse personalities creates challenges for the educator. Relationship building is essential to the success of classroom management. Knowing who your scholars are and what they need are definitely first steps. The educator has to be fair, firm and faithful. The faithfulness allows the educator to be true to themself while serving others. My experience has proven this to be true with children as well as adults.

There are no difficult students if you make your lessons challenging and keep in mind their learning needs and effective strategies to help meet them. The CAT4 data will help in figuring out what they are good at and what is challenging. The PASS data will inform you of what their attributes and dispositions are so that you come in with effective strategies.

In my experience, along with what is already written, the power of choice and follow through is also essential. I find that with most children, they don’t always feel heard and so they are difficult. Building rapport and trust go hand in hand with choice.

In addition to building relationships, which is key, educators need to build rapport and trust with the parents or caregivers. Call them into meet with the teachers and you in person. Express concern and belief in their children. Ask parents for support. Not all parents are willing to partner with you, but do not assume they will not cooperate. This is a big mistake. Teach students in poverty the “hidden rules” and coach them on the positive and negative consequences of their actions. Empower students to make informed choices.

Understand the root cause of the student's behavior. Consider factors like learning difficulties, emotional challenges, or family situations. Do not take their behavior personally. Younger students might struggle to articulate their emotions verbally, resorting to actions instead.

I am a confident teacher and my students rarely misbehave because => I know I can make mistakes and when I do one, I apologise to my student(s), => I don't take anything personal; they do it to other teachers, too. => I don't hold grudges; student misbehaves / I warn them / two minutes later, I answer their question or help them as if nothing has happened. => I implement Behaviour for Learning method, which promotes positive relationships, mutual understanding and respect. => I implement my method of In-Class Flipped Mastery, which allows me to build positive relationships and help my students on one-on-one basis.

Building relationships is absolutely essential! Giving attention for "free" and ensuring these interactions are warm, genuine, and positive will build rapport and trust. Students will also be more likely to accept constructive feedback when you have built this foundation.

In class, when the students are noisy or are commenting, it is usually more about their personality rather than the teacher or the topic. I like to point out at the noisy ones indirectly without taking their names. For them its about being cool, so insulting is like a direct attack on their reputation. I believe in counseling them after the lecture and not when their peers are around. An emotional or moral touch in the discussion usually makes them realise the point more than a reprimanding tone. One-meet counselling would not be enough. Regularly connecting and motivating them can be useful in the long run.

Teachers fail in classroom management because they fail to build that positive relationships with the students. It is that simple. It is not an easy that to create those positive relationships with everyone, especially if you teaching 200 kids a day, but it is also certainly attainable. You have to to be willing and open to take on a challenge.

As a teacher, I've learned that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure when it comes to working with challenging students. I put a lot more thought into preventing problems proactively. I've realized that kids don't just randomly decide to misbehave - their actions often reflect an unmet need. So I try to get into their world and understand where they're coming from. For instance, I plan interactive lessons that tap into different learning styles. This way, kids are engaged from the start and less likely to get bored and cause distractions. I'm also careful to explain my expectations and routines clearly. Some students genuinely don't know the rules of acceptable conduct unless I explain what I want to see.

Disruptive behavior ends with active engagement, rigorous, and challenging academic work. Students' mind need to be working at several cognitive levels during that period. Students cannot be bored. That is how their behavior starts to be challenging. They have to be doing authentic work and learning.

Adults dont understand how to act, speak or be in certain situations—reminding myself that students have far less training than I do is always helpful. Asking the question "Help me understand ___" helps you to know where they are coming from before acting or reacting to their difficultness.

In my early years of teaching, I'll admit I didn't always keep my cool when faced with disruptive or defiant students. Over time, I've learned to control my own knee-jerk reactions so I can truly respond, not just react, to challenging kids. Now when a student acts out, the first thing I do is take a few deep breaths. I've found some discreet breathing exercises help me calm myself before addressing the issue. I also make a point to lower my voice and avoid harsh tones. Yelling or lecturing often just pushes a difficult child into a corner. Instead, I calmly remind them of expectations and offer choices like taking a short break or speaking with me after class.

An important thing to remember when dealing with difficult behavior is that most of the time there are underlying factors that may or may not be seen which are contributing to the behavior. I have seen many times over the course of my education career where a student displayed problem behavior and most of the time it had nothing to do with me personally. Quite often it had to do with a change or situation at home, hunger, a lack of ability to communicate in that moment, or something else that the student had no control over. The thing I found most important in these moments was to remain calm and let the student know that I was there as support for the student and would help in whatever way I can in that moment. It’s not about you then.

Students who are escalated are highly attuned to the body language, facial expressions, and voices of those around them. Your body language and tone of voice can either facilitate calm or escalate the situation further. I encourage teachers to help student "borrow" their calm, or model the calm they wish to see in their students.

It's like physics with the kids. Both teacher and students should calm down. A teacher should never disrespect any student at any point, and vice-versa. It doesn't matter who the teacher is or the students. Respect should always be a non-negotiable item on the table.

Sometimes it feels like an uphill battle, with students trying to avoid distractions from all the available technology, but taking care of oneself is important. It's vital to remember that your well-being is just as important as your students' success. Some takeaways - acknowledging that it is stressful at times - When things get tough, seek help, whether it's from a colleague, a mentor, or a professional. - Make time to relax, recharge, and indulge in your hobbies and interests. - Sharing experiences, challenges, and solutions with your peers can be "enlightening" and provide a valuable support system. - Join a teacher network or community of teachers

This is where comes in Emotional Intelligence. Teachers must take care of themselves because they can't take of students if they don't.

There is one primary area that I have focused on in my role as an educator and therapist. I like to encourage educators to understand their primary values. Do you value a hard work ethic, building relationships, communication, respect, or kindness? Our values do not always align with how our students have been raised and so understanding how their families values are different from ours is always helpful. Some families do not value education or relationship with those who they see as authority figures and do their behaviour can often trigger us in the classroom.

With experience I am able to manage day to day issues with students, using clear rules and expectations. Also walking a mile in their shoes gives me some perspective. My mental health is guarded by having a work life balance.

Mutual respect, show them you care, and go that extra mile to remind them how good they could be with more focus. Most importantly, never give up, set agreed boundaries and give praise, when appropriate, to raise their levels of confidence.

Sometimes I still have rough days where I need extra support. On those occasions, I lean on my teacher friends who face similar challenges. We created a group chat just to vent and swap classroom management tips. And I don't hesitate to call my mentor - he always talks me through things. I also make a point to celebrate little victories, like a lesson that went well or connecting with a difficult child. Focusing on progress keeps me motivated when times get tough. With these self-care practices, I've been able to find more joy and patience in teaching again. My students and I are both better for it. Remembering I'm not in this alone makes all the difference.

So now we are letting AI give us the prompts to respond to on topics we have expertise in? I'm going to go ahead and call bullshit on this one. The people who are on Linked in are more intelligent than the "ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE" that generates the clearly biased and nonsensical prompts posted here. If you think a computer bot can generate better dialog prompts than the professionals that are here, then you need to shut this app down and open up a new one called bots-in. Then all the AI bots could respond to the AI-bot generated questions. Then none of us would have to think for ourselves.