Dealing with Inappropriate Behavior

We have a special guest post by Amanda Scalise of Mrs. Scalise’s Pieces on how to deal with inappropriate behavior in the classroom.

Being a mother of two preschoolers and through numerous hours in the classroom as a school volunteer, substitute and student teacher, I have heard my fair share of children using inappropriate language. I’d have to say name calling is the number one offender in the classrooms I have been in. Students can become very frustrated with others or with a situation, and a majority of the time their number one outlet is to fire back with inappropriate language. Sure, on occasion you’ll have a few students who throw a full fledge temper tantrum, flailing, screaming and all but, we will focus on the name calling piece for now.

Finding appropriate ways for children to express themselves must be explicitly taught. In my experience I have found that teaching empathy and teaching specific strategies for when students are extremely upset are two key ways to do this, and the younger this is taught, the better!

Teaching empathy is NOT a one and done lesson. Using children’s picture books is a great way to start. One specific children’s picture book I love to use to explicitly teach empathy is Stand in my Shoes by Bob Sornson, Ph.D.. This book discusses what empathy is when the main character, Emily, inconsiderately barges into her sister’s room while she is trying to study. Emily then puts to practice what she learns about empathy by helping others around her by taking their feeling into consideration. This story is perfect for any age level and would make for an interesting conversation. While this story doesn’t specifically discuss name calling it can be used to discuss how it feels when someone calls other students names or says mean things to hurt their feelings.

Another FANTASTIC children’s book to teach empathy and kindness is How Full is Your Bucket? For Kids by Tom Rath and Mary Reckmeyer. This book really provides children with specific examples on how to practice kindness and how our actions affect others. This book would be a great to incorporate into classroom activities and even into a classroom management plan. Have students create a bucket as a class, or even their own individual buckets, and then provide them with specific scenarios and examples to determine if the scenario is bucket filling…or bucket dipping. Discussing how your students can be bucket fillers and ways they are being bucket dippers would also help develop that sense of empathy that needs explicit teaching. Incorporating activities, such as this would really provide a great visual for children and having them create their own buckets will really help them make a personal connection.

Teaching empathy is not the only way to combat using inappropriate language in the classroom. Generally, students are name calling for a reason, and determining that reason is very important! Some students name call for attention, but others name call or use inappropriate language because they are hurt and frustrated and want another student or even the teacher to hurt too. This is when teaching “cool down” strategies comes in handy. Let’s be honest, even adults say things they don’t mean out of anger and kids cannot be expected to behave any differently, especially if they haven’t been taught appropriate ways to express themselves.

Depending on how bad the situation has gotten in the classroom determines what strategy I use. I have had recess incidents that have ended in a whole class uproar. This is when heads down, lights off comes in handy. Students take a few minutes to relax and calm down with their heads down and the lights off. Then we can use a class meeting approach and allow the students to express how they feel. It is important that each student involved has a chance to be heard even if they are the first offender. I have found that guiding students using sentence stems such as “I did _________ because I felt ________” really avoids the blame game. Other cool down strategies that may be helpful are, teaching students to remove themselves from a frustrating situation, counting to five, and even singing a song such as “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star”. These provide a distraction from how they are feeling and allow them to calm down just enough to make a smarter choice. Teaching peer mediating techniques is also a great strategy to use and allows students to take ownership of their own problems. Peer mediating can be used in primary classrooms as long as it is explicitly taught.

There are numerous strategies and tips on how inappropriate language in the classroom can be addressed, these are just a few I have used in some of my own experiences. The behavior should definitely be addressed, but I also think it is important to know your students and practice empathy as a teacher and try and understand what their little minds are going through. Thanks for reading!

You can check out Amanda’s blog at