Adjusting Discipline for Compassion
141
Table 6.1: Examples of Triggers and Ways to Offset Them Trigger Conflict with a peer
Example of Ways to Offset • Have students journal to process emotions or write
down assertive responses. • Discuss with students about how they can handle
the situation. Holidays, family events
• Ask students about their emotions and allow space to
process event. • Have students journal or draw to process emotions.
Weekends or unstructured time
• Review schedule and structure upon return to school.
Changes in schedule or routine
• Notify students of upcoming changes as soon
• Allow students to teach or practice a routine.
schedule on board. • Remind or offer use of a coping skill to manage anxiety
from schedule change. Sensory changes (temperature, noise, and so on)
• Use coping skills such as headphones to cancel out
noise, or meditation to offset the sensory change. • Offer a short-term solution, such as headphones
to block sound, or time in another room to offset temperature changes.
From all these tips or adjustments, we hope readers see a common approach of ensuring safety for the student, offering a method to stop them from being emotionally dysregulated, and then supporting them in using a beneficial response to their current state of mind. Students with SEB needs are likely using an adaptive coping skill that worked for them in one setting but may prove unhelpful in different settings (Pickens & Tschopp, 2017). As shown in figure 6.1 (page 142), when students experience a stressful event, they can become emotionally escalated and dysregulated and use a skill that, although adaptive previously, is now maladaptive. For example, they may have withdrawn in response to a stressor in the past, but now when they withdraw, it creates other consequences (such as poor relationships with others or an inability to resolve the stressor). As such, they need to learn a new pattern to navigate that event. The top row illustrates students’ use of prior skills, which are reinforced over time as students use them (that is, the skill is successful at navigating the emotional arousal, despite it creating other issues; Goleman, 2005; Pickens & Tschopp, 2017).
©️2022 by Solution Tree Press
as possible. • Offer a printed schedule on students’ desks or write
