Remote schooling has painfully demonstrated the critical role that in-person schooling plays in simultaneously meeting many developmental needs. Besides academic learning, in-person schooling provides children with socialization and support from caring adults, peers with whom they can test out various identities as they discover themselves, and access to skilled physical and mental health practitioners. And for too many children, school is where they experience sanctuary from unsafe homes and communities, get reliable meals, and have access to other social services.
The loss of these supports last year, possibly on top of traumatic events at home, means many students will begin this academic year displaying symptoms that could meet the criteria for a range of mental health disorders. It will be tempting to manage the challenges their behaviors create by isolating these kids through extended time outs, separating their desks from the rest of the class, or even removing them from the general education classroom. However, we must resist the pressure to use exclusion and the special education system to manage behavior and learning challenges associated with adversity and poverty.
The Basics of Relational Discipline
Relational discipline is grounded in research showing that leveraging positive educator-student relationships is more effective than punishment in motivating students to adhere to classroom expectations (Marzano, Marzano, & Pickering, 2003). The strongest educator-student relationships are built on a foundation of understanding each student as an individual and genuinely caring for each one's well-being, although the relationship-building process won't look the same for every educator.
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