Classroom Conflict: Persuasion Sequence

They won’t do what you have reasonably requested them to do.   You are having a standoff in your classroom, in front of all the other children and your teaching colleague…what to do?   Dig in and fortify your position?   Begin issuing threats?   Of course not.   You are far more professional than that and you know that when you hit resistance, the most efficient tactic is to move with it, to take its momentum and nudge it here, direct it there such that you achieve safety and the child’s voluntary cooperation during any classroom conflict.

In the rarest of cases, or when dealing with the most complex of needs whose ‘combination lock’ sequence of triggers, cues and behaviour you have yet to decipher, you may reach a point where a physical intervention or positive handling strategy is necessary.  But first, there is work to do to seek this child’s voluntary cooperation…

But how to do that during real-time classroom conflict?   We have the Persuasion Sequence – watch the video!

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Gerard O’Dea provides tailored Positive Handling and Classroom Conflict training courses for schools and education services providers around the UK, so that children and staff are treated with dignity and shown respect, even in their most difficult moments.  Combining respectful verbalisation skills with last-resort physical alternatives has been his specialty for over ten years as director of training for Dynamis [ www.positivehandling.co.uk ]