Choose Love Workshop: The Behavior Guidance Connection

For as long as there have been schools, after-school programs… really, for as long as there have been children in structured and semi-structured group settings, the topic of Behavior Guidance has been a hot topic and a priority of the adults who work with these children and youth.

In retrospect, it seems that we have tried everything to create classrooms of “behaving” children: detentions, suspensions and expulsions, standing in a corner, shaming, star-charts, positive behavior intervention systems, logical consequences, time-outs, clothespin boards, names on the blackboard, marble jars… to name just a few. Yet, the topic remains a hot one, and to some, it seems that we’re treating the symptoms without addressing what lies beneath.

But what if there was another way to approach our students’ behavior? What if there was a pathway that honors and respects both the goals of the teacher AND the student? A mindset that allows learning and expression at the highest level? What if we’ve been going at this from a less-than-optimal mindset ourselves as the education professionals in these children’s lives. What if we took a more holistic focus on what is really happening, rather than keep pounding the hammer on the Skinnerian (stimulus-reaction) model of Behavior Guidance?

This workshop will challenge your basic assumptions around the behavior of children and youth and the teacher’s role in shaping that behavior to accomplish learning goals in any area of the whole-child model (social, emotional, physical, and cognitive).

By combining new and innovative frameworks of thinking with the Choose Love ingredients – Courage, Gratitude, Forgiveness, and Compassion in Action – we can form a focus that not only moves the needle positively on the behavior of children and youth, but also helps youth-facing professionals create a community where positive behaviors become the norm and creates a flow that supports the goals of the group (classroom, after-school center) AND the goals of the children and youth participants.

Educators are invited to stay on for a conversation with Rick after the Workshop.