Problem Behavior: Frequently takes physically aggressive posturing or action toward other students
Probable functions: Control-seeking, Peer-avoidance (when threatened socially), and Peer-attention (when aggression wins social status)
Common Mistakes Made by Teachers:
- Intervening solo with the aggressive behaviors
o A team approach is always helpful when behaviors become physically aggressive and potentially dangerous. For safety and to help maintain professionalism, seek help when possible with aggressive episodes.
o Involving parents, counselors, and administrators is something that teachers are sometimes reluctant to do in the early episodes or early stages of aggressive behaviors. These antisocial behaviors can be serious and require a collaborative approach.
- Assigning blame
o Making value statements about fighting behaviors rarely helps eliminate the problem behaviors. The issue is that more than an expression of value, the behavior of fighting fish is a form of problem-solving. Always unique to the student, some fighting fish are using physical aggression to avoid social interaction, to initiate social interaction, to gain a sense of control over their environment, etc.
o Fighting fish, because of the nature of their behaviors, often get “on the radar” of teachers. We must be careful not to assign blame for every altercation to the fighting fish. Likely there is a patterm of social interactions that result in fights, but the fighting fish may indeed be accurate in telling you that he didn’t start the fight.
- Attempting to intimidate the fighting fish
o Even when successful in curbing the problem of the moment, this tactic only reinforces that the person with power can control others.
Communication Strategies:
- This is a great tip from disciplinehelp.com:
o When you see students quarreling or fighting, one sentence said in a calm and factual manner can produce remarkable results. Simply ask the students, “Don’t you have enough trouble already?” or “You don’t want more trouble, do you?” As simple as it sounds, you’ll be amazed how often it works. Such statements allow one or both students to stop, make a good decision, and “save face” in the process. If you say, “Why don’t you quit now before you get into real trouble?” students will often back away from a problem voluntarily.
- Create a communication system that could be used by students to report incidences of physical aggression.
Other Ideas:
- Start a conflict journal (or Hassle Log) with the fighting fish. Have the student record his version of what happened with in the altercation (what led up to the event, what actually happened, and how he felt about the event). Then, these episodes can be role-played (especially with a counselor) to help the student develop alternative problem-solving skills.
- Antiseptic Bouncing: For many fighting fish, aggression is an expression of intense frustration or emotional escalation. Students can be “bounced” to move them away from triggering classroom stimuli. The bouncing is a non-punitive redirection that involves the student moving briefly away from the immediate triggers. In classrooms, this can be a short errand or helping task. Bouncing does not mean removing a student from the class to another teacher’s class for a class period.
- Teach social skills for initiating social interactions and resolving conflicts. For some fighting fish, aggressive behaviors are attempts to begin interaction with a peer. For others, aggressive behaviors are an attempt to deal with disagreements and conflicts. In either of these cases, good social skills instruction is the only long-term solution.
- Room Clear: Especially with students with intense chronic aggressive outbursts, teachers should have a clear plan for exiting students to eliminate both the social stimuli that can intensify aggression and to reduce the safety risks in the room. This procedure should be rehearsed with students in advance of an episode and should have a specific code word cue for the procedure.
