Dealing with Unruly Students or Children: Maintaining Composure

There is power in being able to control your emotions and keep your composure. Life throws curve balls all of the time, and it's easy to blow a fuse and take out your anger on those around you. As a teacher or parent, it can be very difficult to maintain your emotions while dealing with unruly students or children. So, what do you do to maintain your power, and control those emotions? Here are three ways:

Practice patience in everyday life

Everyday mishaps occur all of the time, and those times are great opportunities to work on patience and self-control. What do you do when you're stuck in traffic and you're in a hurry to get to work? Instead of developing road rage, try to stay calm and just know that you will get to work soon enough. Maybe your spouse has left his dirty laundry in a heap on the bedroom floor for the fiftieth time, when you have told him over and over again not to do so. Don't jump into a yelling rage with your spouse over the issue. Stay calm and think of an effective solution to nip it in the bud. Discuss calmly your feelings with your spouse after following through with a solution. When you practice patience in everyday situations, you have more patience with your children or students.

Create space

If you have a student that is driving you up the wall, sometimes you just have to have some space, in order to maintain your composure. There was a student that I had one day that incessantly uttered rude comments to students, refused to do his work, and asked annoying questions that were completely unrelated to the subject matter. He was pushing my last button, so I moved his desk to a far corner of the room away from everyone else, and he could not talk to anyone, including ask me a question for the rest of class, or he would go to see the principle. That break helped me regain composure so that I did not lose it in front of the classroom. If I had kept dealing with the situation and trying to talk to him, things would have escalated.

The same can be applied with your own children. Sometimes you just need to hand them over to someone else, like your spouse for awhile. What if you're there alone? If it's a young child, place them in their crib or playpen where you know they are safe, and leave the room for about 5 minutes or so to regain your composure and get your emotions in check. If you're getting down to your last fuse, it's best to separate yourself from your child for a few minutes, calm down, and then deal with them.

Have effective consequences in place

Children need consequences for wrong actions. And, it's better for them to feel more upset over wrongdoing than you do. Effective consequences solve that problem. You will have less unruly behavior from children when they know that you mean business and that you will follow through with a very unpleasant consequence should they continue with undesirable behavior. Train your children to know what to expect when they don't follow rules. This cuts down tremendously on escalating emotions on both sides.

You will find that the more you practice patience in general, the more patience you will have for unruly students or children. Even more so, you will have the patience to train them properly to follow the rules. It requires patience and endurance to train a child. Too often, adults give up out of a lack of patience or desire. You have to follow through every time. Teaching children self-control is just as important as developing it within yourself.