There are thousands of schools and colleges around the world using streamlined rules to create predictable and secure learning environments that are both strong on boundaries and big on heart.
As part of my role as Clinical Director at When The Adults Change, I am lucky enough to speak with every one of the hundreds of settings we work with each year. I speak with them to understand where they are. To design support that will be impactful, and to ensure that we walk alongside them rather than simply designing a destination that they must reach on their own.
In the last few months, something that I have become increasingly aware of is the different ways schools and colleges are using rules. Although many settings now understand that 3 is the magic number; there is a huge discrepancy in how 3 rules are used.
We have long discussed the posters that are never mentioned and the adults that only use the rules when they have been broken, but recently I have spotted a new mutation of rule misuse; ‘Do you think that is being respectful?’
This passive aggressive questioning does of course use the rules, and to the non-relational eye, may be considered as a perfectly appropriate way to remind a child or young person about expectations and positive behaviours. Yet it is laden with shame, it teaches nothing positive, and it has the effect of humiliation. Do you think that is being respectful?
To be truly relational we must let go of the notion that emotional insecurity can teach behaviour. We must move on from the deficit model, where we only respond to the behaviours we wish to avoid with a pain/shame/blame response.
It’s a madness that in the short term may scare or shame children and young people into submission, but the long-term costs it carries are significant. Increasingly, it is a strategy that pops children and young people on the speedy escalator that runs from tiny misdemeanour straight through to suspension. It isn’t an escalation caused by rude, manipulative or entitled learners, but by children or young people who are aware of their rights, who have been encouraged to hold their boundaries and who have an expectation of fairness from
adults. Does that sound disrespectful to you?
The relational use of streamlined rules isn’t about shoving responsibility onto children or young people. It isn’t about setting the terms of entry or having a new kind of whack-a-mole stick. When streamlined rules are used effectively, they teach behaviour, clarify expectations and create a sense of emotional safety that supports regulation, enables engagement and embeds ‘strong on boundaries, big on heart’ into the DNA of your setting.
In a relational setting, you will hear adults referencing the rules when noticing the behaviours they want to see. You will see adults using their 3 simple rules when they are scaffolding instructions, and you will see the rules being proactively taught across the curriculum. When behaviour wobbles, the ‘big on heart’ stays strong with boundaries. Streamlined rules are used to provide a sense of calm, clarity and emotional safety for all.
When streamlined rules are used relationally, the behaviour of learners is taught and gets filtered through the boundaries we have set and agreed together. They provide adults with the structure and support they need to deliver calm and consistent adult behaviour and provide the narrative we need to speak about behaviour without shaming, blaming or hurting the children and young people we serve.
Don’t you think that is being respectful?
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