Transcript [pdf]

SHOW NOTES

Key Takeaways

• • The most effective way to reduce challenging behavior is to spend more time on proactive design and less time reacting in the moment.
  • Prevention isn’t about control or perfection — it’s about creating classrooms where students feel safe, capable, and connected.
  • Proactive strategies don’t replace in-the-moment responses; they dramatically reduce how often those moments occur.
  • Teaching regulation is really about co-regulation — students borrow calm from the adults and environments around them.
  • Many behaviors labeled as “challenging” are predictable outcomes of environments that lack access, clarity, relevance, or connection.

Episode Download

Proactive Classroom Tweaks That Prevent Challenging Behavior

This downloadable guide outlines 16 practical, research-aligned classroom tweaks that reduce challenging behavior by addressing it before it starts. These are not behavior management tricks — they’re foundational teaching moves grounded in neuroscience, 

Inside the handout, you’ll find strategies that help you:

• • Build classrooms around 
  • Increase predictability without sacrificing novelty
  • Reduce anxiety through routines, visuals, and clear expectations
  • Embed regulation, choice, and connection into everyday instruction
  • Design tasks that motivate instead of frustrate

Why download it?
This tool helps educators shift from constantly reacting to behavior to designing classrooms that make challenging behavior less likely in the first place. It’s ideal for individual reflection, team conversations, walkthroughs, and PD — especially when staff are stretched thin and need changes that actually stick.

👉 Download at inclusiveschooling.com/download62

Practical Tips (Action-Oriented)

• • Start with strengths. Design lessons and routines around what students do well to increase confidence and cooperation.
  • Embed daily connection. Use quick rituals — greetings, check-ins, questions of the day — to build safety before instruction begins.
  • Offer meaningful choice. Let students choose how they work, show learning, or engage with materials to reduce power struggles.
  • Increase predictability. Preview the day, explain transitions, and name changes in advance to lower stress for all learners.
  • Teach expectations explicitly. Model and practice routines instead of assuming students “should know.”
  • Use pre-correction. Gently remind students of expectations before tricky moments to prevent escalation.
  • Normalize regulation tools. Make fidgets, movement, and calming supports available to everyone — without asking or stigma.
  • Design engaging tasks. Replace repetitive or irrelevant work with purposeful, accessible, real-world learning.
  • Plan for access, not permission. Apply UDL principles so students don’t need to “earn” support.
  • Regulate yourself. Remember: students borrow your calm — or your chaos.

Additional Resources

“Children and youth are able to use a steady adult nervous system as extensions of themselves. An emotionally attuned educator or caregiver has the ability to shape the growth of the child’s emotional systems.” – Dr. Lori Desautels

Connections Over Compliance with Dr. Lori Desautels: In this episode of the Pre-K Teach & Play Podcast, Dr. Kristie Pretti-Frontczak sits down with Dr. Lori Desautels to explore how educational neuroscience can help us shift from compliance-based approaches to connection-centered learning, especially amid the challenges of the pandemic. Their conversation highlights practical strategies for reimagining education with hope, grounded in understanding brain states and human needs. 

Effective Use of Visual Supports: This resource helps educators explore how they can make the unpredictable more predictable for learners, especially those navigating strong emotions or complex social expectations. Drawing on guidance from Barbara Avila, we highlight practical strategies — like keeping visuals simple, moving from concrete to abstract, and using tools such as the Sun Diagram — to support regulation, clarity, and dignity without shame or overwhelm. 

Strength and Interest-Based Product Grid: A powerful tool featuring 235 examples that expand how students can show what they know. By aligning products with learners’ strengths, interests, and multiple intelligences, this conversation invites educators to move beyond one-size-fits-all outputs and design learning experiences that are more engaging, affirming, and truly inclusive. 

Beyond the Surface: Unpacking Student Engagement to Understand Motivation: This resource unpacks what engagement really looks like — and what it reveals about motivation. By expanding our lens beyond compliance to include cognitive, emotional, social, and creative forms of participation, this conversation helps educators reinterpret behavior, honor student agency, and design learning experiences that foster belonging, purpose, and authentic engagement. 

Zig Zag Equalizer: A practical tool that helps educators thoughtfully adjust the level of challenge by shifting between structure and complexity to better match individual student needs. By exploring progressions like concrete to abstract or single to multiple, listeners will gain actionable ways to reduce stress, boost engagement, and support deeper learning without lowering expectations

Access Points for Common Activities: A practical framework that shifts the question from “Can students do this?” to “How can we make this accessible?” By adding thoughtful access points — whether students are asked to listen, discuss, read, write, test, or use technology — educators can proactively remove barriers and create learning environments where more students can participate meaningfully from the start. 

101 Ways to Incorporate Choice in Learning:  A powerful reminder that choice is not an add-on — it’s a cornerstone of inclusive practice. From where and how students learn to how they engage, process, and show what they know, this conversation offers practical, flexible ideas that honor student agency, reduce barriers, and invite deeper engagement for every learner.

Learn More About Behavior 360 our newest on-demand PD!

inclusiveschooling.com/behavior-360