Consequences don't motivate challenging students.

I have given my fair share of consequences to students as an educator over the past 14 years. Rarely, have these been effective at changing the behavior of our most challenging students. Most students with challenging behaviors have been challenging throughout their entire school experience, and yet we continue to impose consequences without teaching them the skills to not be challenging.

A consequence is a common method used to control student behavior. When a student does something that is undesirable, we often let them know through a consequence that the behavior was inappropriate. Consequences work for most kids in school, because most kids have the skills to do well. If our philosophy is, “kids do well if they want to,” then when a kid doesn’t do well, we believe he or she doesn’t want to. Adults often think this is a motivation issue for challenging kids and we need to make the kid want to do well. Consequences rarely motivate challenging students.

As you read this, you might be thinking if we don’t hold challenging students accountable, then how will we prepare them for the real world? I would argue that we aren’t preparing them for the real world if a consequence is our only method to teach them how to behave. We have to teach them the skills to handle different situations and manage their emotions in a productive way. This involves collaborative problem solving between the adult and student. It doesn’t involve imposing adult will, because this is usually ineffective when dealing with challenging students. Kids do well if they can. A kid will do well if he or she has the skills to do well. I am not suggesting that we get rid of consequences, because they have their place in schools. I am merely suggesting that we teach challenging students (a small percentage of the student population) the skills to do well. Using only consequences will not prepare them for their future. We need to identify when challenging behavior typically occurs, what skills are they missing, and teach them the skills that are needed to be successful.

Differentiation is a successful means of reaching a student’s academic needs, why not differentiate based on a student’s behavioral needs as well?

I recommend Lost at School by Ross Greene if you are interested in approaching behavior differently in your school and classroom.