“It’s important to remember that the number one priority in these moments is de escalation, which means doing what’s necessary to keep the child and everyone else safe, even though that means you will be giving the child a certain amount of what that child wants.”
~ Sara Yessenow on The Kindergarten Cafe Podcast Ep. 64
Episode Summary
How do we handle behaviors in the classroom? What do we do as teachers during an emotional outburst of a student? That’s what we discuss in this episode with behavior specialist Sara Yessenow. Sara transitioned from teacher to behavior specialist and developed her methods for creating individualized behavioral plans through observation and data collection. Sara shares strategies for de-escalation, including the importance of maintaining composure and addressing precursor behaviors. We clarify misconceptions about behavior analysis, emphasizing its relevance to all children. By promoting empathy over authority, Sara explains how educators can turn challenging moments into opportunities for positive reinforcement and foster emotional resilience in their classrooms.
In this episode I share:
- Understanding Behavior Specialists
- The Role of a Behavior Specialists (BCBA)
- Signs of Escalation
- Positive Reinforcement vs. Punishment
- The Importance of Communication
- Prioritizing Safety in Crisis
- Long-Term Strategies for Success
Connect with Sara:
Connect with Zeba:
- Instagram – @kindergartencafe
- Facebook – @kindergartencafe
- Website – www.kindergartencafe.org
- Tik Tok – @kindergartencafe
Read the Transcript
Zeba McGibbon [00:00:00]:
Hey teacher friends, it’s Zeba from Kindergarten Cafe and today on the podcast I’m so excited. I have my friend Sara Yesenow on the podcast Fun Fact. I actually student taught in her classroom and she has since left teaching and become a behavior specialist. So she’s going to get into what that means, but she’s going to use her behavior expertise to help us teachers understand how to de escalate in the moment and things to consider for before and after the de escalation process. It is a little bit longer than I normally do of an episode, but it is so worth it. Definitely something you might want to listen to over break a couple of times or come back to when you have some time to really dive in and listen to all of the knowledge that she has for us. So I can’t wait for you to learn from Sara and let’s dive in.
Zeba McGibbon [00:00:56]:
You’re listening to the Kindergarten Cafe podcast where kindergarten teachers come to learn classroom tested tips and tricks and teaching ideas they can use in their classroom right away. I’m Zeba, creator and founder of Kindergarten Cafe and I help kindergarten teachers with everything they need from arrival to dismissal in order to save time, work smarter, not harder, and support students with engaging and purposeful lessons. I’m here to cheer you on through your successes and breakthroughs and offer support and resources so you never have to feel stuck or alone, ready to start saving time and reducing your stress, all while using effective and purposeful lessons that students love. Let’s get started.
Zeba McGibbon [00:01:46]:
Hey teacher friends. So I’m here with my friend Sara Yesenow and I’m so excited to have her on because she’s going to help us walk through de escalation, handling behaviors in crises, in crisis moments. I know that’s something that so many of you have been wondering about, so I’m excited to have her on. I’m going to let Sara introduce herself. And Sara, since I know what you do, explain what it is that you do a little bit for the people listening.
Sara Yessenow [00:02:15]:
Well, hi Zeba and thank you so much for having me. I’m thrilled to be here and getting to kind of reunite with you, which is really nice. I am currently a behavior analyst or also known as a bcba, which is also sometimes known as a behavior specialist. So I am someone who has studied human behavior, but I’m a former teacher, so I really focus on young children’s behavior and I am the person who you go to generally when a child is pretty much in crisis, they’re really struggling with behavior at school, and it’s impacting their academic performance and their relationships with peers and teachers, and it can be caused by absolutely anything. But I’m the person that will study what’s going on and do a lot of direct observation of the child in lots of different settings in the school school, as well as interview all of the teachers that work with that child to get a really full sense of what’s going on. And then I come up with a lengthy and thorough report that outlines all of the goals that I recommend be worked on in the classroom and then all the ways in order to teach those goals. So it may sometimes be called the Behavior Plan or Behavior Intervention Plan.
Sara Yessenow [00:03:38]:
A bip. A bip. It’s basically a document that teaches adults how to prevent challenging behaviors for that child and how to respond to challenging behaviors for that child, as well as getting them to understand what can be triggering and what can be accidentally reinforcing those bad behaviors that we want to replace and how best to replace them. So that’s what a behavior analyst does. And we work in schools. We also don’t work in schools. We work in hospitals, we work in families homes, we work in centers and clinics where the families will bring their children to us. And we work with all practitioners, so educators and administrators, as well as speech pathologists, occupational therapists, physical therapists.
Sara Yessenow [00:04:26]:
But we also work with pediatricians, developmental pediatricians, and there are other branches of my field that work with the FBI. They also work in the business realm to, like, increase happiness and productivity in the office world. Not. Not my world, but it exists in my field.
Zeba McGibbon [00:04:47]:
I did not know that. Two questions people are going to have following up. That is one, I know I have a kid that fits your description. How do I get one? How do I get a bcba, which is going to be different school by school. So obviously, you know. But the other question that I think people might have is I think there’s a connotation with BCBAs or ABA only being for kids with autism. So clarification on that.
Sara Yessenow [00:05:14]:
Yes. Two really good questions. The first one was, how do I get a bcba? I wish I had a magic wand. You won. Unfortunately, American public school school funding is one of the most complicated things in the world. And so it’s based on funding. It’s based on special education budgets and resources, but also awareness. So a behavior analyst is someone who practices a very specific type of science, which is behavior analysis, but within that, it’s the branch of applied behavior analysis, AKA humans versus other organisms.
Sara Yessenow [00:05:55]:
I’m not working in A lab. And so I would first go to your administrator to see what their familiarity is with ABA or BCBAs, or generally some sort of behavior specialist in the district that may not have come to your school yet, but exists already in your town or county. And if everyone is interested in looking into that, then you have to go even higher up to superintendents. But you might want to connect with other local districts that do have it in order to influence and find out more about how they were able to acquire one if your district doesn’t have it.
Zeba McGibbon [00:06:34]:
And I would say if they, if they do have it, you definitely need to get like admin approval, special ed approval. Like, you gotta go through a lot of hoops.
Sara Yessenow [00:06:43]:
Usually it’s creating a new teaching position in a school, in a public school.
Zeba McGibbon [00:06:48]:
Yeah, but I mean, if they have one, like my district has BCBAs, but if we want them to come look at students in my classroom, I have to go get lots of approval from principal.
Sara Yessenow [00:06:59]:
Every district, again has a different procedure for how to access any of the specialists in their district. So you’ll want to find out from your colleagues how to go about that because it’s generally pretty formal. But some schools that are smaller, they may be more casual and have more availability to just come observe. One school I worked in, I was able to connect with the BCBA and they could come watch any student in my classroom. And then the second district I worked in, I was not allowed to talk to her unless she was on the IEP for a student of mine. So it depends.
Zeba McGibbon [00:07:36]:
I think I’m somewhere in the middle.
Sara Yessenow [00:07:38]:
Yeah, yeah, of course, of course. So I should also share that. Before becoming a BCBA in 2016, I was a public school kindergarten and first grade teacher for nine years and an early childhood education adjunct professor at Boston University on and off for eight years. And I studied and lived and worked with children in Boston for 20 years. And I co founded a consulting company with you which you can share with all of your listeners for a short time, where we presented at conferences and provided trainings to teaching teams, we gave workshops to parents like the Boston Public Library, and we worked on program development for organizations who service young children. And so now I work predominantly with young children with autism because that’s where the funding is. I can work with any child, any diagnosis, no diagnosis, that doesn’t matter. But most people are familiar with ABA because most of the research is centered around individuals with an autism diagnosis.
Sara Yessenow [00:08:44]:
And so that’s what we’ve become known as. But we are very equipped to work with Any individual. And I work with autistic kids and their families now in the Washington, D.C. and Maryland area. And I’m writing teacher training materials and curriculum. I provide remote consultation workshops to a Boston foundation organization called Early Spark that you are also familiar with and helped do a lot of collaborative work with with in years past. And they train teachers in certain parts of India, which is fascinating.
Zeba McGibbon [00:09:19]:
So awesome. So, yeah, we’re going to tap into your expertise of early childhood mixed with your expertise on behavior to get to a question that so many teachers have of. Their question is like, what do I do when a child is escalated and in crisis? But I think coming before that, we should talk a little bit about. There’s signs before that that you can deescalate before it even gets to crisis.
Sara Yessenow [00:09:45]:
Yes. I think the best piece of advice is staying calm. As you’re starting to notice things are escalating, the absolute best response is to remain calm and you talk.
Zeba McGibbon [00:10:03]:
Easier said than done. I talk about it all the time. All the time I talk about it. And I do want to give credit where credit is due. I think you’re going to maybe talk about the duck analogy, but I did mention this on the podcast and I said, my colleague told me about the duck. And this is the colleague, everyone, this is Sara. She mentioned the duck. So, Sara, take it away.
Sara Yessenow [00:10:22]:
Yes, I am going to mention the duck. Unfortunately, a lot of what I’m about to tell you today is going to be really effective, but I’m not claiming that it’s going to be easy, and I think that is unfortunate. But human behavior is complicated and it deserves a complex and robust response. And that doesn’t always mean it’s going to be quick or easy. But I’m going to tell you what works and that long term is going to matter.
Zeba McGibbon [00:10:55]:
I agree. And I’ve done many episodes where I’ve said, if someone’s telling you there’s a quick fix to behavior, they’re lying to you. And it might work for like a couple of days, but then you’re stuck looking for something else again because it stopped working. So the long term is the goal, but it’s definitely tough when you’re in it. So we acknowledge that.
Sara Yessenow [00:11:18]:
So staying calm and being a duck, right, Making sure that you aren’t the escalated one. And so to go a step further, I like to remind people that my eyebrows have a whole life of their own. And part of being a duck means that I am aware of my eyebrows and my facial expressions and my body language when I’m starting To feel stressed or surprised by a child’s behavior. And my objective is on the outside, to appear completely composed and in control of myself, even though on the inside, I am furiously sweating like crazy. So when you see a duck on a pond, what you see is calm, cool, and collected. That’s the duck above the surface of the water. But underneath, the duck is furiously paddling with its little webbed feet. So on the inside, you’ve got your webbed feet going and going and going.
Sara Yessenow [00:12:22]:
Your brain is spinning a mile a minute about, how am I going to handle this? But on the inside, no one would know. So that is my advice. Always try to be a duck. Feeling frustrated is completely normal. Feeling panicked is also completely normal. Feeling overwhelmed. But showing those things to the child rarely has a positive result. It simply means that you need to start turning to colleagues who can provide you with some better solutions than the ones that you’ve been using.
Sara Yessenow [00:12:55]:
But in the moment, be a duck.
Zeba McGibbon [00:12:58]:
I love it. Okay, so what happens when we start to see signs of escalation?
Sara Yessenow [00:13:04]:
Yeah. Where do we begin? Right. Okay. So there’s two key ideas that I think of as my, like, where do I start? And the first one is a phrase that I came up with 20 years ago. I’d love to, like, get it on T shirts. So you’re. You’re the queen of that. Maybe we can do it.
Sara Yessenow [00:13:22]:
And here’s the phrase, get close, get low, talk slow. When you want to make big changes in a child’s behavior in a moment because it’s dangerous, because it’s risky, because it’s going to have real bad problems, the first thing you need to do is approach the student and get close to them. Trying to speak across a room to a child to get them to listen to you is far less effective than if you walk up to them. There are exceptions for children who may be triggered by, you know, an adult approaching, but generally, that is the best and first thing you should do. And then, because they’re children and they’re half our height, get low. When you drop down and bend your knees. Not at the waist, at the knees, it shows a total shift in dynamic between you and them. You want to remove any feelings of power struggle.
Sara Yessenow [00:14:20]:
And doing that puts you on physically equal footing and really does subconsciously communicate to a child, I am available for you. I’m here to help, not to control. And then the third thing, which I’m terrible at remembering, is talk slow. From New England. They speak a mile a minute, but the slower your speech, the more likely they will notice that and therefore attend to what you’re saying and be more likely to process your messages. That’s my first one.
Zeba McGibbon [00:14:54]:
Yeah. And I will say, you know about the getting close. Like this relates to staying calm. But kids are. I see this all the time. But they’re feeding off of your energy. And if you are shouting across the room at them, they’re. Everyone in the room is going to be shouting because they’re feeding off of that.
Zeba McGibbon [00:15:09]:
But also if you’re panicky or stressed outside of your body, if you’re visually panicky and stressed, then they’re going to pick up on that. Not just the kid that you’re worried about, but all the kids.
Sara Yessenow [00:15:21]:
Another secret for your listeners is that we went to the same graduate school program and had the same director. And something she told me when I was there in 2003 was the speed at which you walk in a classroom says everything to the children. If you are suddenly bolting, you’re walking, but you’re hightailing it over to a child, everyone stops what they’re doing and watches you.
Zeba McGibbon [00:15:47]:
Yeah.
Sara Yessenow [00:15:47]:
So again, if you’re a duck, you are slowly gliding in the direction of where you want to go. So you’re not escalating the vibe in the classroom and you are communicating to the child. This is important. It was so important. I left where I was and came over to you to formalize the interaction I’m about to have with you.
Zeba McGibbon [00:16:08]:
Yes. Okay.
Sara Yessenow [00:16:10]:
So get low, get close, get low, talk slow.
Zeba McGibbon [00:16:15]:
Yes. I talk a lot about how we have to be simple when kids are getting escalated with like very short phrases because they are not in a space to be taking in the cognitive load of figuring out what you’re saying. But also that is not the time to teach them a deal. Like a self regulation strategy. Like we need to do that when they are calm other time. Like that’s a proactive strategy, preventative strategy. Not in the moment.
Sara Yessenow [00:16:41]:
No, we don’t teach. When children are escalated. There’s no teaching. We’re de escalating and that’s all we’re doing. It’s the only priority in that moment. So the second advice I have of where do I begin after the get close, get low, talk slow is be a cheerleader, not Uncle Vernon. Can you tell your listeners who that.
Zeba McGibbon [00:16:59]:
Is From Harry Potter, the really scary uncle who kept his Harry Potter under the living in the cupboard under the.
Sara Yessenow [00:17:08]:
Stairs and all he did was yell, reprimand, threaten and intimidate. So here’s an example. A child argues about everything It’s a chronic behavior. They don’t want to do anything. And that is something that they have formed a habit in response to. It’s time to clean up. It’s time to get your math book. It’s time to come to the rug, all of that.
Sara Yessenow [00:17:31]:
Right. It can be our natural inclination to say, if you don’t come to the rug, blah, blah, blah, is going to happen to you.
Zeba McGibbon [00:17:39]:
Consequence.
Sara Yessenow [00:17:40]:
Right. Since then. But as a warning or a strike one or a reminder of the expectations, I want to encourage your listeners to shift from. Even when I see less than appropriate behavior, don’t be an Uncle Vernon and be a cheerleader. I know you’re going to be able to walk to the rug safely and calmly and you’re going to love the math game we’re about to learn. You’re coaching them and showing them that you have confidence in their abilities to do what’s expected versus immediately getting on them about not being appropriate. So you want to make this subtle shift. Take a moment to inspire and provide confidence of capability and avoid using those thriving tones, even though it’s really tempting.
Zeba McGibbon [00:18:32]:
I like that. Yeah. I mean, it’s like our first instinct, too, especially if we’re frustrated. Like you said, it’s natural to get frustrated and then it’s natural to come out like that, especially if that’s what we’re used to in school or here. Yeah, exactly. But you catch more flies with honey. That’s. That’s not the saying.
Sara Yessenow [00:18:49]:
Truly. That’s. Truly.
Zeba McGibbon [00:18:50]:
Is that the saying?
Sara Yessenow [00:18:51]:
I think so.
Zeba McGibbon [00:18:53]:
Catch more. I’m not great at sayings, people, but that’s great. Yeah. So first of all, I think sometimes teachers think that they need this behavior system or something is, you know, wrong with the child and that’s. It’s the child’s problem. But I do think, like, what you’re saying, and there are small shifts that teachers can make to have a really big impact on the behavior in their class. And like we’ve talked about, the energy that you’re giving out and the way you’re responding in those moments is definitely a big one to help with the whole class behavior.
Sara Yessenow [00:19:27]:
It sets a culture and it puts your relationship up on the priority list as opposed to compliance and controlling children. And when they love you, they want to perform for you. When they resent you, it’s just going to stay a power play. That old phrase of like, don’t smile the first three months. No, we have moved beyond that, everyone. There’s way better ways to coach children and guide children’s behavior and love them at the same time.
Zeba McGibbon [00:20:00]:
And I would say even more important than them loving you is you loving them and them knowing that you love them. Of course, especially the kids that are the trickiest. If they don’t think that you love them and you don’t see the good in them, they’re not gonna want to work for you at all or for.
Sara Yessenow [00:20:21]:
Themselves, because why would they ever think about loving themselves if you’re not loving them? It just, it’s. It’s a complicated piece. Yeah.
Zeba McGibbon [00:20:32]:
And part of that is your reaction in those moments. Right. And how. And so that’s the other thing I was going to ask you was, you know, I think we know a child has escalated in crisis when they’re throwing the chair up and they’re, you know, throwing their pencil across the room, they’re screaming and yelling, no hitting, punching, whatever. But I think there’s a lot of little moments that. And it’s so specific for each child. But I don’t know if you could talk a little bit. I’m putting you on the spot here.
Zeba McGibbon [00:20:59]:
I didn’t tell you this ahead of time, but a little bit about like noticing or how teachers could train themselves to observe those little clues as to like, I could intervene now and help de escalate and we won’t get to that moment of crisis.
Sara Yessenow [00:21:15]:
Yes. So in the ABA world, that actually is a term, it’s called precursor behaviors, and those are behaviors that are mild and they indicate that an outburst may be coming. And so if you can learn those precursor behaviors, you can support a child through those moments. And that’s a preventative strategy. So we never actually get to a more escalated interaction. So, yes, they are different for every child. There are some common ones for, you know, the most typical children, whining, ignoring high rates of non compliance, higher energy movements can also indicate. So like bouncing, jumping, darting to a space in the room, those indicate, okay, we were starting to ramp things up a little bit.
Zeba McGibbon [00:22:06]:
Yeah, that’s great. I mean, that non compliance too. I definitely am like thinking of students I’ve had before being like, oh yeah, whenever they wouldn’t go do the activity, I was like, whoop, we’re in for something.
Sara Yessenow [00:22:18]:
Or also like talking to you in a way that makes it seem like they’re mad at you when it’s really they’re mad at themselves, but they don’t know how to deal with that, which is hard even for adults. But those are the things to look for. And again, that’s not to say you should then Jump on those and be intense and, you know, reprimands and mourn. It’s to notice them and then give the child more of you. Do you need help? But not in a do you need help? Which connotates by my tone that I’m using that as a warning question to get yourself together versus, like, is there something I can help you with? Are you okay? Is there something that you need that I can get you? You are genuinely offering them support during a struggle. And I know that’s going to sound contradictory for some families and educators because it sounds like you’re actually rewarding bad behavior. But we’re going to talk a lot about that because the field of behavior analysis has moved, especially in the last like 15, 20 years. And our understandings about what we used to think we shouldn’t do, we don’t reward bad behavior, it’s going to make it worse.
Sara Yessenow [00:23:41]:
We have moved away from that because we have better ways to support children, even though in the moment there will be some unintentional rewarding of challenging behaviors. So we’ll, we’ll chat through that as well.
Zeba McGibbon [00:23:57]:
Let’s talk about, let’s get into it because I think, you know, I hear that a lot from teachers being like, oh, they’re just rewarding the bad behavior by letting them do XYZ or not.
Sara Yessenow [00:24:09]:
Just letting, but, you know, soothing them and comforting them when they’re throwing a tantrum. Like, there’s a. And there’s so many different takes on all of this, and mine is one. But I encourage your listeners to hear me out, hear what I have to say day and give it some thought and talk with the people in their life about it and reach out to me if they have more questions. So it may be some surprising some of the things that I’m going to share. But I was one of those people. When I first began receiving training in this field, which was after being a teacher for a decade, I was taught that you have to ignore all attention seeking behaviors. You cannot respond to them.
Sara Yessenow [00:24:51]:
You must be drawing a very clear line in the sand with all problem behaviors. And there’s people in our field that have really overhauled this area of behavior analysis. And it’s completely changed my practice. So it’s understandable if you think that giving in when a child is being dangerous or destructive or highly escalated is a problem, because we don’t want to make those behaviors increase in the future. However, the researcher, if people in your audience are research people that they want to look into, is Dr. Gregory Handley. He’s actually based in Massachusetts, coincidentally. And his new approach is called skills based training.
Sara Yessenow [00:25:39]:
Like that’s the name he’s given this new methodology, and he’s demonstrated that it is effective to prioritize safety, happiness, being relaxed, and being engaged over all the traditional methods of planned ignoring, pushing through what we used to call an extinction burst. When a child’s behavior gets worse, when you no longer reward it, which I can elaborate on if you feel like people need that. So when the adults in the environment refuse to engage with a child in ways that may soothe them because they thought, oh, if I’m. If I’m soothing this child, then I’m giving them attention and that’s what they want. So then these bad behaviors will continue in the future. It often if you’re not getting the child de escalated and ignoring all those behaviors keeps the student escalated and sometimes makes de escalation even worse. So it’s important to remember that the number one priority in these moments is de escalation, which means doing what’s necessary to keep the child and everyone else safe, even though that means you will be giving the child a certain amount of what that child wants.
Zeba McGibbon [00:27:04]:
For example, I was gonna say. Can I run through an example with you?
Sara Yessenow [00:27:07]:
Yes.
Zeba McGibbon [00:27:08]:
Okay.
Sara Yessenow [00:27:09]:
Okay. Okay. Literally asking a child, what can I get you right now? What would make you feel better? What would help you? Are valid and critical questions for many students when they’re struggling in a severe episode, they don’t necessarily require you to give them what they originally wanted, like a turn at the Lego table. That’s why they’re tantruming severely. But you can give them things that would get them safe. You’re not teaching them unsafe behaviors. Get you Legos. As a reminder, we’re not teaching when children are escalated, that happens later.
Sara Yessenow [00:27:46]:
And that will happen in a very strategic and systematic way that’s planned thoroughly by all the adults over several hours or weeks. When they are escalated, you are not providing any sort of coaching or teaching or training. You’re only getting the child back to happy, relaxed, and engaged again. Until you can do that, everything else is a waste of time or can make it worse.
Zeba McGibbon [00:28:12]:
So if I have a student who I see is getting escalated because I put a work demand on them, and I know that they are avoiding the work demand because it is hard for them. So working, you know, behind the scenes on giving them the academics that they need, but they’re also avoiding a lot of the academics, especially in a group, whole group setting, because it’s hard, it’s embarrassing. And so yes, I’m working on providing them to make it the academics less hard, but it’s also hard to do that when they’re avoiding the work. But anyway, so I am doing all that behind the scenes, but I see them start to get escalated. I gave them a work demand. I want to avoid the moment of crisis. So I know for the student taking a walk with me, I have another adult in the room is a great strategy to calm them down. We take a walk, we come back, he’s calmed down, we do the work.
Sara Yessenow [00:29:12]:
Great.
Zeba McGibbon [00:29:13]:
Is that though giving in to, I mean I come back and we do the work. So obviously I’m not giving into the fact that you don’t do the work. But even if we, if you don’t hear that step, you just hear they are avoiding the work demand, so you go take a walk. Like I’m rewarding that negative, the escalated behavior.
Sara Yessenow [00:29:31]:
Right. So it sounds like what you’re asking me is, is this plan A appropriate, B effective and forever. Is it appropriate? Yes, in the moment. If your objective is to de escalate and walking him takes him down and then he actually accomplishes the work afterwards, yes, it’s effective and it’s appropriate. Is it a perfect long term plan? No. And you know why?
Zeba McGibbon [00:29:56]:
Because I’m not always with another adult. And also the next year he doesn’t, that’s the issue now is he doesn’t have another adult.
Sara Yessenow [00:30:04]:
Your goal is never that a child can only do work if he’s given a walk first. That’s not an end goal, that’s a preliminary goal.
Zeba McGibbon [00:30:13]:
The other thing too, as I’ve said on here, is I’m not responsible just for him. And that’s the hard thing with these moments of crises and the students that we have that need all this extra support is we are responsible in the general education classroom for not just this one student. In a moment of crises, we’re responsible for all the students.
Sara Yessenow [00:30:34]:
Right. We’re talking about something called feasibility and sustainable.
Zeba McGibbon [00:30:38]:
Right.
Sara Yessenow [00:30:39]:
Your ultimate plan for a child must be both of those. And if it’s not, then what you need to do is design the plan to change it, design the plan to fade it. Right now this is working, but it’s triage. It is not. This patient is able to go home and live their normal life again. So you have to set up a gradual way to teach the child how to tolerate doing things they don’t love without the walk. You have to teach the child to communicate when something’s too hard so they can either get help or get an easier version of it.
Zeba McGibbon [00:31:16]:
Yeah.
Sara Yessenow [00:31:17]:
And so that’s what you would design to get from where your student is right now to where you want them to be, which is the typical student, which is they’re just given assignments, and they do that even if they’re hard.
Zeba McGibbon [00:31:28]:
Right. And we talked a lot about in previous episodes how that behavior is this. And you say this all the time. Behavior is communication. And so, like, in this case, like I said, that student’s communicating the academic work is too hard. He doesn’t know how to ask for help, and he’s embarrassed about doing it in front of his peers. So seeing that, knowing that that’s what the behavior is communicating, how can I proactively, preventatively teach the social, emotional skills, like you said, to tolerate things that are hard, to ask for help to handle working with his peers, like, all of that stuff. And the academic piece as well, of, like, supporting him with those sk.
Sara Yessenow [00:32:08]:
Yes. So you always want to be thinking about replacement behaviors. What do I want this child to be doing instead? I want them to be learning how to ask for help appropriately or ask for a break appropriately or both. So how will I get them there? Is it a verbal piece? Is it? Or sometimes I’m hearing your listeners in my mind and having them say, what about the student? Where it isn’t too hard and they just don’t want to do it right. So that student needs to learn how to tolerate doing things that aren’t their favorite. That’s a life skill that’s so critical to learn. And the earlier you learn it, the more successful you’ll be. So those are skills that we’re teaching children all the time, and we have to figure out, how am I going to get from point A to point B.
Sara Yessenow [00:32:52]:
This is what I can do right now to keep people safe and to get his work done. How do I then get him to this end? Goal of. Of being more typical in every way. And what are the steps along the way to make it successful and gradual. So we’ll probably talk about some pieces of that more generically as well.
Zeba McGibbon [00:33:12]:
Yeah, I mean, I think it sounds like you’re talking about rewarding, maybe possibly rewarding kids as they’re learning these skills the appropriate way, as they’re showing the appropriate way. So in my situation, if my student asks for help, we have a, you know, system. A reward system in our school so I can get the sticker. Or he could have, like, a behavior plan where he gets a reward for. I mean, you could. There’s Lots of things. Lots of places you could go with this.
Sara Yessenow [00:33:38]:
You could. I think what would be most powerful is the reward is he has less work to do because that’s what he wants. He wants to do less or easier stuff. So the reward for asking for help is you make it easier, you make it shorter, and over time you won’t do that as often or you won’t do that as much.
Zeba McGibbon [00:33:57]:
Build the stamina.
Sara Yessenow [00:33:59]:
Yeah. The asking for help and getting the help is the reward itself.
Zeba McGibbon [00:34:03]:
Wow. I think teachers are like freaking out about like not having him do work because he asked to not do work. That’s gonna be a tough ask for teachers.
Sara Yessenow [00:34:13]:
It can be. If your objective is to teach children life skills so they can go out into the world and be functioning and appropriate and helpful and thoughtful adults, they need to be able to communicate when things are hard for them and know how to get support when things are hard for them. Quitting your job because things are hard, that’s going to make for a very hard life. So learning how to navigate it better when you’re younger is the goal. The first preliminary goal with a child like that is getting them to communicate, communicate better and rewarding them by giving them what they are requesting, honoring those requests. If you need a break right now, I’m giving you a break. I’m going to give you as many breaks as you need this week. Because what I’ve just done is replaced, throwing a pencil at my eye with, can I have a break? Can I have a break? Can I have a break? That’s just step one.
Sara Yessenow [00:35:12]:
That’s not step forever. Again, you have to start with short term, which then becomes longer term. And you strategically plan out how to get them gradually from here to here. That kind of makes sense.
Zeba McGibbon [00:35:26]:
Absolutely. So I mean, it’s like you’re giving in the moment to teach them, this is what I want. Like you’re giving in every time they ask for the break appropriately, whatever their replacement behavior, like you said, you want them to ask for a break or you want them to ask for help.
Sara Yessenow [00:35:39]:
Can I have a break? Yes.
Zeba McGibbon [00:35:40]:
You give in. Eventually you will fade that. So it’s not every time. It, you know, okay, let’s have a break in five minutes. Let’s set a five minute timer and then you can have a break or.
Sara Yessenow [00:35:51]:
Do one more problem and then, yeah, you can take a break.
Zeba McGibbon [00:35:54]:
Like slowly over time, just building up that tolerance a little bit more.
Sara Yessenow [00:35:57]:
Yeah. And you can do it where they have three post it notes on their desk and each one is a break. Card. And so once they use them all up, then they don’t have any more. So they’re going to self regulate when they’re using them. Lots of different strategies to do that.
Zeba McGibbon [00:36:10]:
Is there anything to avoid or anything to not do when thinking about like rewards or de escalating?
Sara Yessenow [00:36:19]:
Well, deescalating is different from a long term plan and I think that’s important for teachers to distinguish. De escalating is I’m in a crisis moment with a student right now. I need to keep everybody safe and get us back to breathing again. That is a totally different scenario from like now. What am I going to do for this child who’s really struggling and is so severe in their needs and their behavior that I can’t ask them to do what I asked other children to do? And I now need to make a really strategic plan starting where my kid is to where they’re going to go. So they’re different things. So with de escalating, you should sometimes give in to what the child originally wanted in the moment. Here’s how to figure out if you should give in or not.
Sara Yessenow [00:37:11]:
What is your priority? Which one is more of a priority? Getting them to appropriately ask for something safely or denying it from them? Is what they’re asking for somewhat reasonable? Did you prep them in advance that they couldn’t have something or did this happen unexpectedly? These are all the pieces that kind of have to come into play to decide, okay, am I going to give them what they wanted originally or not? If a child, let’s say, is aggressively tugging on like a locked cabinet door in your classroom because they’re trying to get something, food, glitter, legos, iPad, whatever, it might be safer and best to get them to calm down by telling me they can have that if they ask appropriately.
Zeba McGibbon [00:38:00]:
If they ask appropriately.
Sara Yessenow [00:38:02]:
Can I have the iPad, please? Oh, yeah, sure. What you’re teaching them is they can access the iPad just by asking appropriately. They don’t have to try to break your furniture to get it. This is the child that doesn’t have that skill. There are a million reasons why, but that’s what you’re teaching, asking permission. And so you grant it. You grant it, you grant it and then you delay it. Oh yeah, hold on one second.
Sara Yessenow [00:38:29]:
Oh yeah, sure, go ahead. Hold on one second. And then you really wait five seconds. And then the following week you make them wait 30. There are ways to get them to delay getting what they’ve requested and then eventually you will be teaching them full denial. No, sorry, not now. No, sorry, not today.
Zeba McGibbon [00:38:47]:
So here’s a scenario for you. A kid wants to go first. They’re playing with the friend. The friend starts going. They start throwing the pieces across the room because they didn’t get to go first. Do you give in to them and say you can go first if they ask nicely?
Sara Yessenow [00:39:02]:
Again, you want to be thinking about, who is this child? What happens in this child’s life? Is this the very first time? Is this a chronic issue?
Zeba McGibbon [00:39:13]:
Let’s say this is a chronic issue. Like, you know that games are like a trigger for them.
Sara Yessenow [00:39:18]:
Yeah. I mean, if the child. All they do is throw something, then it’s a matter of they’re not super dangerous and super escalated. So this might be a moment to acknowledge their feelings. You’re upset you didn’t get to go first. I know, I know. It’s so hard. I don’t like when I get to get to go first sometimes, too.
Sara Yessenow [00:39:41]:
And then you might ask the peer that as well.
Zeba McGibbon [00:39:43]:
Huh.
Sara Yessenow [00:39:44]:
Is this the first round you’ve played this game together? Oh, do you think you’ll play it again when this one’s over? Oh, so what could we do about this? And you will be modeling with them how to basically problem solve conflict resolution with a peer in that kind of a scenario. Oh, you could take turns and alternate. You go first, I go first, you go. Right. So you help come up with solutions for them, or you encourage and invite them to come up with multiple solutions and then choose which one they’re going to try in the moment if that’s all they’re doing. I don’t really view that as severely escalated. Severely escalated is they are climbing on furniture. They may be taking their clothes off.
Sara Yessenow [00:40:27]:
They may be screaming at the top of their lungs and, like, tornado level in that moment. I am not saying to them, oh, do you think if we play again, you can have a turn? They’re way beyond. So that’s when you kind of have to gauge, like, what do you think this child could be capable of talking about with me right now?
Zeba McGibbon [00:40:50]:
In the case of tornado.
Sara Yessenow [00:40:52]:
Right. In the case of tornado, you need to be thinking about, what does this child need right now to come down off the table and take a breath? And that’s not saying, like, you can go first. That to me doesn’t match what’s happening and that it’s a matter of, like, what do you need right now to be safe? What do you need right now that’s going to help you feel calm? That’s going to get you to breathe a little bit as opposed to, like, focusing on the game. Here’s an example. Let’s pretend with this child who’s pulling on that locked cabinet that you prepped her in advance on her way to the art room or the maker’s space. And you said to her, glitter’s not available today. And you told her what was open and available to play with when she got there, and you made a plan with her of what they’re gonna do, and they understand. And then as soon as they got in the room, she beelined for that cabinet, and she started ripping it off the wall as much as she possibly could with her tiny little body.
Sara Yessenow [00:41:56]:
That’s when I would not prioritize teaching, requesting, or teaching permission seeking in the moment, and instead, I would focus on getting her de escalated and tolerate being denied access or teaching her to tolerate waiting behavior.
Zeba McGibbon [00:42:12]:
Because you had done the prep work ahead of time.
Sara Yessenow [00:42:16]:
Exactly.
Zeba McGibbon [00:42:16]:
To warn her to give her strategies to handle.
Sara Yessenow [00:42:20]:
Yes. Disappointment.
Zeba McGibbon [00:42:22]:
Yes.
Sara Yessenow [00:42:22]:
You were already. You had planned and prepared because this was a recurring behavior problem for her. And so in that moment, we are not getting the glitter because we already know we can’t have it. And there’s been a lot put in place to prepare her for it. Sometimes in the moment, your de escalation strategy is just to get the child to appropriately request whatever it is that they want. I want to go first. I want the glitter. If they’re tantruming because they don’t like how their drawing came out or they’re really mad at themselves for messing something up, tell them they can ask for new paper.
Sara Yessenow [00:43:03]:
They can get a chance to start all over again. You can offer to sit with them and help them with their drawing. You could draw it for them today. You could show them a picture of someone else’s drawing that they could copy. The point is, you’re teaching them an appropriate way to get what they want and honoring that appropriate request immediately. Sometimes they can’t even think of these options because they’ve never even been given them before.
Zeba McGibbon [00:43:30]:
And in a way, that’s kind of sneaky, teaching in the moment, even though we’re not teaching, when they’re escalated, it is modeling for the possibilities. Okay, but let’s say I. They’re escalated, and they’re. They’re screaming top of their lungs. And so I offer to draw the drawing for them.
Sara Yessenow [00:43:48]:
Sometimes you can’t give them what they want, like they lost in a game, and that can’t be undone. So offering the child like that, water, snacks, a walk in the hall, something to squeeze, a video can be really helpful. Just to get them safe again. Those things you’ve offered can be brief and they will not be a regular solution. The walk in the hall for your kid who doesn’t like doing hard work is not a permanent plan. It was a triage plan.
Zeba McGibbon [00:44:24]:
Yeah.
Sara Yessenow [00:44:25]:
Long term teaching. That child will need to be crafted after school hours while you are preparing your lessons so that you can then implement it in the future.
Zeba McGibbon [00:44:36]:
Yeah. So I think there’s just gonna be some pushback from some teachers who are like, you offered to draw the drawing for them, like, how could you have done that for them? Or I see of like, you just handed them the iPad and now they’re on the iPad. So you’re just rewarding them their bad behavior.
Sara Yessenow [00:44:52]:
Yes. And I think what’s important to remember is today I did that and here are my reasons why. And it’s not my plan to do this all the time. I’m going to tell you a little story of something that happened to me when I was a kindergarten teacher. This was maybe my fourth or fifth year, so I felt pretty competent. And I, for a while now had been given the really hard students because my classroom was pretty, what my principal called structured.
Zeba McGibbon [00:45:24]:
It’s the compliment that teachers never want.
Sara Yessenow [00:45:28]:
I actually loved it. That’s why I became favorite analysts when I was all done teaching. They were my favorite students. Okay, so this was my aha moment, as some may say. I had a student who was on an IEP for behavior. I knew this. His most favorite thing at school was Legos. And in my classroom, there were set limits of how many children could go to each play space.
Sara Yessenow [00:45:54]:
So if that play space got full, then it’s full and the rest of the class would have to choose somewhere else to play. Now that was a goal that I had for him in my mind was tolerating playing anywhere else. Well, I decided one day to stack a deck and practice this important skill. And so I used name tags to call children up to come and pick where they wanted to go. And I made sure his name wasn’t up front so that the Lego table would fill naturally. And then he would be forced to choose somewhere else to play. And in my mind, I was creating a learning opportunity so he could practice tolerating the Lego table being full. That was an important goal of mine.
Sara Yessenow [00:46:41]:
Well, what do you think happened? He freaked out. Like the biggest outburst I had ever seen from him. And the behavior specialist was with him in my classroom when it was happening. And of course he had to leave. And it took almost an hour to De escalate him. And so I met with her afterwards, and she was like, why did you do that? And I was like, because he has to learn that he has to play other places. All children need to have. Be able to play with a variety of materials.
Sara Yessenow [00:47:17]:
This is a. An objective that we. And she was like, yes. And we need to plan that strategically. We need to teach him gradually how to tolerate a scenario like that. And I was like, oh, I’ve never thought about the fact that sometimes we can’t just set them up and have them practice it. That some children need much more deliberate and small micro planning to get them from where they are to where we want them to be. And so he could work to earn something for safely tolerating not being at the Legos table.
Sara Yessenow [00:47:59]:
And that may look like announcing, oh, the Legos are all done. And if he says, okay, Then I say, oh, you know what, never mind. You can stay at the LEGO table. The Legos are staying open. So it’s literally learning to tolerate the announcement that something bad’s going to happen by just saying, okay, as opposed to punching me. Right?
Zeba McGibbon [00:48:24]:
So, like, he’s at the LEGO table playing, and you’re like, I’m closing the LEGO table.
Sara Yessenow [00:48:29]:
Yeah. Mm.
Zeba McGibbon [00:48:30]:
And he just has a nice, you know, appropriate reaction.
Sara Yessenow [00:48:34]:
He says, okay, if you can teach that. That’s step one. Then you have to teach what we call the release of reinforcers. Literally letting go of their toys. This is a massive challenge for a lot of children. And so. Oh, iPad’s all done. Oh, the outburst that you see, right? And families can relate to this too.
Sara Yessenow [00:48:58]:
So teaching that as soon as they let go of the legos, the reward is, oh, you know what? Never mind. Legos is staying open. What you’re doing is rewarding the giving up, just literally their hands letting go of the Legos. And then the reward is you get legos.
Zeba McGibbon [00:49:16]:
Do you say, why? Like, do you say, I’m going to keep open?
Sara Yessenow [00:49:20]:
Because you can, but you don’t have to because it doesn’t matter to them. It matters that they got their Legos back.
Zeba McGibbon [00:49:27]:
So you can.
Sara Yessenow [00:49:28]:
So I just make it like, I changed my mind. And you can make that look as authentic as you want, which would be ideal. But they also know that you have not asked them to actually leave the LEGO table. These are all practice scenarios. You’re not taking them away from legos for several days and weeks while you train these micro skills in between. Then you teach them that if you announce Legos is closed and they let go as soon as they stand out of their chair. Oh, you know what? Never mind. Legos is a.
Sara Yessenow [00:50:01]:
You’re teaching all those pieces. Do they take two steps away from the table? Oh, go ahead. You know what? Legos is still open.
Zeba McGibbon [00:50:07]:
And you don’t think that’s confusing at all to them?
Sara Yessenow [00:50:10]:
I think that they are the child who is so severe in their deficit of skills to tolerate leaving the Legos or not having the Legos, that they are so thrilled to get them back that it doesn’t matter to them that it’s confusing. It can be done in a different space. And you could say, like, we’re going to practice saying goodbye to Legos. And you have LEGO goodbye sessions where you practice it. But for children that are that severe and need these really small steps along the way, it’s really the most effective strategy that I’ve. I’ve seen.
Zeba McGibbon [00:50:54]:
I think the world, like, it’s just opening. This is the tip of the iceberg, people. This is the trip. Truly the world of behavior analysis, bcba. I mean, it’s fascinating and like you said, the very thoughtful planning that goes into helping students with the skills that they need. Replacement behaviors to avoid those big escalations. So we can’t get into all of that today.
Sara Yessenow [00:51:20]:
No. There are other, less severe ways to help a child like that too. Social stories. We’re gonna read a book about a boy who couldn’t go to the LEGO table and he was really sad. Okay. Mental rehearsal. What will you do if the LEGO table is full today? And like, just talking about that and talking together about possibilities. Something called stalking the environment.
Sara Yessenow [00:51:45]:
You make sure the day that he’s going to practice not going, that everything else is his next most favorite, highly preferred things to do so that he can handle it and tolerate it a little bit better. Replacement behaviors, like you said, teaching him to say, I hate when I can’t go to Let Goes. I’m feeling so frustrated because I can’t go there. That’s the language he should be allowed to use in a classroom, but doesn’t know how to say. Maybe you let him sit and watch the LEGO table until there’s a space that opens. I don’t do that for the typical child. The typical child, no, sorry, you have to play with something else. It doesn’t matter what it is.
Sara Yessenow [00:52:26]:
You can’t just sit and spend your choice time watching the Legos. Right. But maybe this child actually does need that. And that will be kind of like a helpful way to get him over that hump and then practicing waiting in General is such a big skill for.
Zeba McGibbon [00:52:42]:
That child with many children.
Sara Yessenow [00:52:45]:
And you want to think, okay, how could I teach waiting with something that’s not what we call as hot as legos? For him, it makes him really fiery. So something that is meaningful, but a little. It’s like, arbitrary, but he can handle it. So maybe big blocks, like, he’ll play there, but it’s not his favorite. So practicing, like, he needs the bridge one and. Oh, yeah, hold on one second. I. I need to just draw something with this bridge block over here.
Sara Yessenow [00:53:18]:
And then you’re making him wait before you give it in. So you’re practicing waiting, but not with Legos to get them in that world. Before you introduce waiting for Legos. And then you’ll want to think about, like, all the other challenging components with legos. And you may have to teach each of them one at a time. Having to leave legos before the other children have to leave the LEGO table. Being told, Legos will be over. While he’s gone, some children have to leave to go have a meeting with the speech teacher.
Sara Yessenow [00:53:51]:
And then they’re told, well, when you come back, there’ll be legos again. But he has to learn that sometimes it’s over, he’s missed the rest of. Right. So all of those. Maybe his favorite LEGO pieces aren’t available today. Or someone knocked his LEGO structure over and it got damaged. These are pieces that some children need to explicitly be taught how to handle.
Zeba McGibbon [00:54:14]:
And not in the moment of crisis.
Sara Yessenow [00:54:16]:
Yes, yes, yes. Got it. Oh.
Zeba McGibbon [00:54:19]:
Like I said, tip of the iceberg, people. But I am so thankful that you came on Sara, and if you are listening to this and you’re thinking, but I need help with this. I need help with this. And what about this scenario? Let me know. I’ll have Sara back on. Yeah, I’ll invite Sara back on. We could talk more about it, but.
Sara Yessenow [00:54:38]:
Sara, oh, my gosh, we could do a whole Q and A. Yeah, I would love that. That’d be great.
Zeba McGibbon [00:54:42]:
Yeah. So if there are questions or individual scenarios, like I said, Sara is like my go to. And I’m like, so this happened and what. What do I do? So, yeah, reach out. And Sara, anything that you want the people to know about where to reach you or like any work that you’re.
Sara Yessenow [00:54:59]:
Doing right now, the only way to reach me is email. So my email is my name, sarah yesnowmail.com. i’m sure you’ll put it in the show notes. And that’s what I’m doing. I do this for families and children here in the dmv, and I’m working with the early SPARK project, doing teacher training materials for all these lovely educators out in India.
Zeba McGibbon [00:55:22]:
But you do some remote consultation for programs?
Sara Yessenow [00:55:25]:
I do, I do. I do do some remote consultation with families or educators. So if they’re interested in that, we can certainly talk through setting up a contract and all the different possible variations of what that could look like.
Zeba McGibbon [00:55:41]:
Perfect. But yeah, like I said, send your questions in and we can get Sara back. Because, yeah, this is so helpful, but there’s still so much more. I mean, you have an advanced degree, so obviously there’s a lot more to learn about it. But I think this is really helpful for teachers in the moment of crisis. Remembering Stay calm, get close, get low and get slow.
Sara Yessenow [00:56:06]:
Talk slow and don’t be afraid to give them what they need just to get them safe. You can worry about how to prepare and plan in the future and teach them all the other things later in the moment. Get them calm, happy, relaxed and engaged.
Zeba McGibbon [00:56:26]:
That was very eye opening for me, I have to say.
Sara Yessenow [00:56:28]:
Great. It was for me too, Right? Yeah. It really overhauled my practice.
Zeba McGibbon [00:56:33]:
Yeah. Thank you so much for listening, everyone. And thanks, Sara.
Zeba McGibbon [00:56:43]:
Thanks so much for listening to the Kindergarten Cafe podcast. Be sure to check out the show notes for more information and resources or just head straight to kindergartencafe.org for all the goodies. If you liked this episode, the best ways to show yourself support are to subscribe, leave a review, or send it to a friend. I’ll be back next week with even more kindergarten tips. See you then.