This paper examines classroom management challenges posed by a behaviorally escalating kindergarten student through direct observation and a review of Richard W. Albin's (2003) article "Twelve Practical Strategies to Prevent Behavioral Escalation in the Classroom," published in Preventing School Failure. The paper first describes a full-day observation of a child whose attention-seeking behavior progressed from whining and non-compliance to physical tantrums and deliberate disruption. It then summarizes Albin's key prevention strategies — including reinforcing positive behavior, identifying behavioral triggers, offering choices, and teaching social skills — and applies them to the observed case, concluding that early, proactive intervention could have reduced the severity of escalation.
Every classroom has one — a disruptive child. This includes the non-compliant student, the combative student, the student who engages in inappropriate nonverbal communication, and the attention-seeker whose behavior escalates. This last type of student is the subject of this paper. What follows is a description of a child observed in a kindergarten classroom, a summary of an article on classroom management, and an attempt to apply the principles from that article to the behavioral problems observed.
The observation took place in a kindergarten at a clean, well-kept school in a working-class neighborhood. The building was old but spacious, and the children walked to school from their homes. Most of the children were white, with a few Black and Hispanic students. Classes were not overcrowded; this particular kindergarten had 17 students and ran all day, rather than the usual morning or afternoon session. The room was attractive, cheerful, and well furnished. The children worked at tables in the morning, went outside for recess, ate hot lunch in the gymnasium, took a 40-minute nap after lunch, and resumed learning activities afterward until dismissal.
The child in focus was a girl named Brandy. She was plump and healthy-looking, with freckles, blue eyes, and short brown hair, and was dressed appropriately for school. In the morning, the children made winter pictures with colored construction paper and paste. Brandy immediately announced that she wanted to do something different. The teacher asked, "What do you have in mind?" Brandy could not think of an idea, and she demanded that the teacher help her come up with one. When the teacher suggested she make a winter picture like everyone else, Brandy became visibly unhappy — she slumped in her seat and scowled. She continued to complain, which the teacher ignored. She then stuffed paste up her nose and announced that she needed to go to the bathroom to blow it out with toilet paper. The teacher allowed her to go, but Brandy did not return in a timely fashion, so the observer volunteered to retrieve her.
In the bathroom, Brandy had accumulated an enormous pile of paper towels, which she had used to dig the paste out of her nose. After helping her clean up, the observer walked her back to class. Brandy sat down and loudly announced, "I can't do it." The teacher assured her that she could, but Brandy kept insisting otherwise. Eventually, she pasted one piece of colored paper and immediately asked, "Am I doing it right?" The teacher encouraged her to add more to her picture. With every piece she pasted, Brandy repeated the same cycle of asking for reassurance. She turned to the observer and said, "Look at mine! Is mine good?" With each step, the need for validation was unmistakable.
When Brandy finished her picture, she got up and walked around the table, looking at and touching the other children's work — in one case pulling a piece off another child's picture. The teacher told her not to touch other people's things and directed her back to her own seat. Brandy returned to her seat and proceeded to cut her own picture into tiny pieces, most of which she threw, one at a time, onto the floor.
When it came time to clean up, the teacher insisted that Brandy pick up the pieces she had thrown. Brandy replied, "You can't make me!" The teacher became angry and grabbed Brandy by the arm. Brandy then threw a full-blown tantrum. A teacher's aide carried her out of the room bodily — kicking and screaming — to the principal's office, where Brandy missed recess and remained until lunchtime. During lunch, Brandy deliberately spit into another child's food and was removed again. At naptime, she was up and moving the entire time, preventing the other children from resting.
In the afternoon, a man from the neighborhood came in with his wife to sing Christmas songs with the children. Brandy appeared to enjoy this; she was out of her seat and dancing throughout, which the teacher more or less ignored. During "Frosty the Snowman," Brandy paraded around as Frosty and seemed genuinely happy — it was the only time she smiled all day. The teacher's time and attention were entirely consumed by Brandy, leaving no time for the other children. The only period of normalcy in the classroom was when Brandy was in the office. Unfortunately, the office could not keep her there all day, and her visits did not appear to change her behavior at all.
At one point during story time, when Brandy was throwing puzzle pieces, the teacher said to her, "You know better than that!" Brandy looked bewildered. It occurred to the observer that perhaps she did not know better — that she may have come from a home where the adults had never had much time for her. This would help explain her desperate, relentless attention-seeking behavior.
To better understand what might be done with a child like Brandy, the observer read an article by educational psychologist Richard W. Albin (2003) titled "Twelve Practical Strategies to Prevent Behavioral Escalation in the Classroom," published in Preventing School Failure. The article begins by defining behavioral escalation — which is not always a dramatic crisis involving violence or injury:
"...behavioral escalation is defined as an event where a group of different problem behaviors occur in a sequential pattern in which successive responses are of increasing severity or intensity. Such sequences usually begin with less severe problems (e.g., whining, complaining and arguing), many of which can be dealt with easily, whereas others escalate and become more severe responses (e.g., throwing furniture, physical assault) that can even cause injury to people or damage to property" (Albin, 2003).
Albin argues that it is better to prevent escalation than to manage a crisis after the fact. One key way to do this is to reinforce good behavior with praise, a smile, a gesture, a touch, or a pleasant comment when students display unprompted, socially appropriate behavior. Teachers should not wait until students are disruptive to pay attention to them.
"Summary of Albin's prevention framework and key strategies"
"Albin's strategies mapped onto specific observed incidents"
This article was helpful in analyzing Brandy's behavior. Previously, she appeared to be a child who simply made the classroom miserable for everyone and prevented learning from taking place. It was easy to feel sympathy for the teacher and frustration with Brandy. But a closer look, informed by Albin's framework, reveals that some of what happened that day might have been prevented with proactive planning. The teacher can change the dynamics of the classroom by noticing and reinforcing good behavior, by having alternative learning activities ready, by identifying and avoiding the triggers that prompt problem behaviors, and by addressing early warning signs before they grow into serious disruptions. Reframing a "problem child" as a child whose needs are not yet being met — and whose behavior follows a predictable, addressable pattern — is the first step toward more effective teaching for all students in the room.
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