The Kindness Principle

Making relational behaviour management work in schools

Dave Whitaker

• Publisher: Independent Thinking Press
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781781353875
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Written by Dave Whitaker, The Kindness Principle: Making relational behaviour management work in schools advocates a behaviour management approach rooted in values, acceptance and a genuine understanding of children's behaviour.
In an education system that too often reaches for the carrot-and-stick approach to dealing with poor pupil behaviour, an approach built on kindness and compassion might just provide the cure.
The Kindness Principle begins with the idea that relationships should be at the heart of behaviour management and culture, and sets out the ways in which the adoption of relational approaches can help create safer and happier schools. Schools where all staff and learners are valued and understood, where expectations and standards are high, and where kindness and acceptance matter.
Dave Whitaker explores why it is so important to understand children - offering techniques and advice on how to work effectively with all children (even the most challenging and troubled ones) without resorting to zero-tolerance, no-excuses and consequence-driven practices.
Dave also shares a wealth of real-life experiences from some of the most challenging schools in the country, along with research-informed insights that will help teachers understand children's behaviour in a new light. To this end he provides a wealth of guidance to help develop effective practice and learn from people who have actually walked the walk and don't just talk the talk.
Furthermore, the topics covered in the book include: restorative approaches, unconditional positive regard, building personal resilience, structures and routines, and the ins and outs of rewards and sanctions.
Suitable for teachers, school leaders and anyone working with children.

5

Chapter One

Unconditional positive regard

Don’t smile until Christmas?

Before we delve deeper into the behaviour of children in school – the challenges it brings, the emotions it generates and the solutions we need – we should first reflect on the work of Carl Rogers, the author of numerous books focused on the humanistic approach to psychotherapy. Rogers believed that:

For a person to ‘grow’, they need an environment that provides them with genuineness (openness and self-disclosure), acceptance (being seen with unconditional positive regard), and empathy (being listened to and understood). Without these, relationships and healthy personalities will not develop as they should, much like a tree will not grow without sunlight and water.1

Rogers was an American psychologist who pioneered a person-centred approach to understanding human relationships. His work is widely used in the fields of psychotherapy and counselling but less so in modern education. However, if we look at the following quote, I think you might be able to see why it may be applicable for us:

The therapist experiences a warm caring for the client – a caring which is not possessive, which demands no personal gratification. It is an atmosphere which simply demonstrates ‘I care’; not ‘I care for you if you behave thus and so.’ […] It involves an acceptance of and a caring for the client as a separate person, with permission for him to have his own feelings and experiences, and to find his own meanings in them. To the degree that the therapist can 6 provide this safety-creating climate of unconditional positive regard, significant learning is likely to take place.2

If a therapist can do this, then surely a teacher can too?

So, Rogers coined the term ‘unconditional positive regard’, which can be emotive and generate polarised views and misconceptions. It is being used more and more in schools and can form the starting point for developing values and a relational ethos for working with children. For us, this outlook is the bedrock for developing relational behaviour management. It is a term that, when used in a school context, should make us think about our relationships with children and adults alike. It is often unnecessarily overcomplicated. ‘Unconditional positive regard’ should be taken in its most simple interpretation, applied to all, and lived on a daily basis. Therefore, let’s look at what this means in practice and at how a school can use unconditional positive regard as a method that sets the tone and values for a relational approach, to drive the behaviours of the adults and act as a point of reference and safety for difficult decision making.

■ Genuineness: Children know when adults are fake. In fact, adults know when other adults are fake. Genuineness in our own actions, decisions and behaviours begins to build an authenticity in relationships that can be used to drive behaviour at all levels. Genuineness builds trust. It champions honesty and transparency. Self-disclosure, as difficult as it may seem, supports the authenticity required to be genuine.

■ Acceptance: Everyone needs to be and feel part of something. As adults, we know that. Many children struggle to find acceptance in a group, in a school, or even in a family. Unconditional positive regard can provide the foundation for acceptance. The children in your school need to feel accepted and understood. Acceptance allows them to build self-esteem and to trust others. We must not assume that acceptance happens automatically at school, even for the most well-rounded children, with supportive families and happy childhoods. Some schools demand conformity as a prerequisite for acceptance, so this is often a barrier that is difficult to break down for those who struggle to understand their place in school. As adults, with the power to influence 7 acceptance, we must not let our preconceptions of conformity prevent our acceptance. We must be highly aware of children who may be struggling to feel accepted. If we do not spot this, then we are in danger of letting pupils slip through the net. They may develop school-based anxiety or even stop attending. If children stop attending school because they don’t feel accepted, it will be very difficult to repair the damage and get them back. This can lead to long-term school refusal, high levels of anxiety and significant problems with transition to the next phase of education.

■ Empathy: It is important that we do not mistake sympathy for empathy. Sympathy, which is often important, is a feeling of pity or compassion for another person. Yes, this can be invaluable, but empathy is what helps us with unconditional positive regard. Empathy, in this sense, is stronger and allows us to understand another person’s feelings and identify with them. Genuine empathy can be challenging, and it’s something with which many people struggle. Avoiding pity and putting ourselves in the place of the other person is a much more powerful stance.

■ Self-actualisation: We must each try to be our ideal self, even if the environment – the school, the conditions in which we work – tries to prevent this. The type of person you wish to be is the person your behaviours should portray. This is where we must again be authentic, and our ideal self must fit our actions. If you are not careful, you can get trapped in a system that does not match your values, does not allow you to express yourself fully and restricts you in being your true self.

The use of unconditional positive regard in a school setting is sometimes misunderstood and, in some cases, used in a negative way to criticise and condemn a school ethos and an approach to behaviour management. Taken without understanding, or without seeing it in practice, it can be interpreted as being soft, ineffective and unproductive. However, the truth is very different. A great way to frame unconditional positive regard is to relate it to your own children, or those of close friends, or your nieces, nephews or grandchildren. You expect them to behave and you challenge and support them to do so. They test you and pull on your emotions. They can make you laugh and cry. They frustrate you and at times even anger you. But you never stop loving them. You give them a fresh start every day, you love them 8 unconditionally and will do everything in your power to give them a happy and successful future. Is that being soft? Is that being ineffective?

Using unconditional positive regard as a starting point in your thinking about behaviour management in school will help you to understand the power of relationships. It becomes an excellent way to examine the importance of adult behaviours, authenticity and a genuine understanding of the children we often struggle with in our classrooms. It allows you to think about the person and the professional you want to be – your ideal self. It is not, and never will be, an excuse. It does not mean low expectations, or having a lack of rigour, or letting children ‘get away with it’. It certainly does not mean having cosy cups of tea and chocolate biscuits with pupils, rather than holding them to account. It does not mean that we compromise our standards and allow poor behaviour.

It does, however, mean that we aim to truly understand the children we teach. It means that we, as adults, need to be aware of our own behaviour and the impact this has, not only on the children but on our colleagues too. It also means that we understand that successful behaviour management starts with a set of values and principles that we believe in, and an ethos upon which we can build our policies. Without this belief in what we do, this approach will not work. Relational behaviour management relies on true belief and authenticity, and on every adult working together for the genuine good of the children, whatever they do. That is the hard bit. Being judgemental about children and families is not helpful in forging strong relationships. We often hear – even now – about new teachers being told to be firm and strict: not to smile until Christmas. Well, how about being warm and kind? Working to develop positive relationships from day one, without feeling like you need to be anything but your true self, is vital. This will give you the start to your career that sets the tone for years to come. If you get this wrong, become a nasty teacher and not your true self, then you will turn classes against you. Pupils will not warm to you and that will be the reputation and image you have to live with each day. 9

The more I can keep a relationship free of judgment and evaluation, the more this will permit the other person to reach the point where he recognizes that the locus of evaluation, the center of responsibility, lies within himself.

Carl Rogers3

So, our values take over and steer our behaviours. In an ever-changing, highly pressured education system, we will constantly find ourselves tested.

An example from practice

Faye would arrive at school every morning to be greeted at the front door with smiles and warmth from the staff. She was young and vulnerable. As a ten-year-old she was exposed daily to things that most of us would not hope to experience in a lifetime. Neglect and poverty had been her reality since the day she was born; she knew nothing else. She lived in a constant state of anxiety and hypervigilance, both at home and at school. She was naturally defensive, having spent all her young life living with low-level threat and a constant sense of fear. She had been excluded from mainstream primary school and did not have a secure, safe place or relationship in her life. On arrival at school she struggled with being met with the warm greeting and personal reception that she did not receive anywhere else. When staff welcomed her with a cheery ‘Good morning, Faye’, she simply replied – under her breath and without looking up – ‘Fuck off’. Was this an act of defiance from a naughty child who was looking to make a stance against authority, or was this the response of a lonely and troubled girl who wasn’t willing or able to form relationships, because that would mean letting her guard down and risking rejection?

Faye responded like this every morning for over a year. Not once did the staff stop offering a warm greeting to Faye. They did not reject her, and those closest to her would constantly encourage her to stop telling everyone to fuck off. They told her she did not need to push us away, because we all cared about her. Eventually she began to realise that the school community was not going to reject her. She had 10 been in many scrapes and incidents that year and yet she had not been excluded like she was in her previous schools. Faye changed her morning greeting to a simple muffled grunt and dropped the aggressive swearing. This continued for some months but eventually the real change came. When greeted with the customary warm welcome from the staff, Faye now responded in her own trusting way with a simple ‘Morning, sir’ or ‘Morning, miss’. Faye had learnt that the welcome she received every day was genuine. It was authentic and caring – if she let her guard down, she would not risk being rejected. Faye said good morning to the staff every day from then on. She left Year 11 with her GCSEs and went to college happily. She still went home every day to neglect and poverty, but school was safe, and the adults genuinely cared. Do not let the term ‘unconditional positive regard’ scare you. Embrace it and use it.

I was first introduced to unconditional positive regard by the late Josie Thirkell, who was my head teacher when I first worked in special education. She was the executive head teacher of Barnsley PRU and Springwell Community Special School, where she persuaded me to leave mainstream and become her deputy in 2008. She was also the founder and first CEO of Wellspring Academy Trust. Josie was an inspiration then and remains so now – a true mentor and sadly missed, dear friend. I often reflect on how she introduced me to a simple behaviour policy which, as her deputy, she needed my help to instil in a new BESD school and a struggling PRU. The policy was, and remains, very simple: be kind to the children, build relationships, understand them well and support the staff to teach great lessons. Unconditional positive regard was to become our joint mantra for the next five years – and mine for the rest of my career. Yes, we looked at the work of Rogers and at his background in counselling, but that was not our focus.

Simple, influential leadership

Josie was a head teacher but she was also a trained counsellor. She felt that a therapeutic approach was invaluable when supporting vulnerable children and, although she didn’t practise as a counsellor, it was a way of working that leant itself to school life and to a re...

Table of contents

• Praise
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Foreword
• Acknowledgements
• Contents
• Introduction: It must start with kindness
• Chapter One: Unconditional positive regard
• Chapter Two: Creating a culture
• Chapter Three: No excuses, plenty of fear
• Chapter Four: Rewards, sanctions and praise
• Chapter Five: Behaviour policy – why bother?
• Chapter Six: Intimacy, warmth, banter and trust (and a bit about the brain)
• Chapter Seven: Background influences (and a bit more about the brain)
• Chapter Eight: Conflict resolution, de-escalation and the power of language
• Chapter Nine: Exclusions – how do we ever justify giving up on a child?
• Conclusion: Creating a legacy
• Bibliography
• Copyright