How To Deal With Disrespectful Students

An average classroom in elementary schools in the US has approximately 30 students. With such a number, it’s only natural to come across various personalities and behaviors. As a teacher, you must know how to deal with unpleasant student behavior, such as disrespect.

You can deal with students who disrespect you by having a one-on-one discussion with them to identify underlying triggers for such behavior. Discussing the issue with the student’s parents is also another way to address rudeness and other impolite conduct.

As an elementary school teacher, you have the professional and moral responsibility to help teach students about respect. This article will guide you through some effective and ethical ways of teaching the value of respect to students. Read on!

1. Observe the Student’s Behavior

Disrespect is an undesirable and unacceptable behavior in the classroom, both from the teacher and the students. Students deserve as much respect as teachers do. So even if your student displays disrespectful behavior, it’s not appropriate to respond with similar negativity.

Instead, you must observe why the child is behaving that way. It may be a one-time outburst or repetitive behavior. That way, you can gain better insight and decide how to address the issue, depending on the pattern or relevant circumstances that trigger such rudeness.

One-Off Outbursts

Anybody can have a bad day, especially elementary school kids who are only beginning to understand and react according to their emotions. Several factors can affect a kid’s mood and their reaction to everyone around them, including the following:

Hunger
Boredom
Health issues

Tiredness
Issues with friends

Therefore, as a teacher, it’s important to initially give your students the benefit of the doubt, especially if it’s the first time they’ve been disrespectful to you.

Elementary school teachers are busy with academic and non-academic tasks, so it isn’t hard to imagine how difficult it can be to pay attention to each student.

However, teachers spend around 180 days with students in one school year. This time is enough to learn more about your students and make a significant impact on their academic and personal growth.

If you’ve noticed disrespectful behavior early in the school year, you must give it a few days or weeks to see if the child repeats it. Still, it’s not correct to ignore disrespect accompanied by other rude behaviors when it happens.

Here are some examples of one-off outbursts and how to address them:

The student shouts to get what they want: Ask the student to stay calm and try again. Make them understand that they won’t get their way in the classroom with such bad behavior. This is also a good opportunity to teach students to stay calm, wait for their turn, and use “Please” and “Thank you.”
You catch the student rolling their eyes or mockingly muttering something. This is an example of a behavior that you must ignore and observe more carefully later. Focus on the task at hand, and don’t let the behavior disrupt your lesson flow and affect the other learners in the classroom.

Repetitive Behavior

It’s common for elementary school teachers to establish a set of house or classroom rules at the beginning of the school year. It also helps to reinforce these rules whenever the need arises. Here’s a video showing some examples of helpful classroom rules:

If you’ve been with the class for about a month and notice a student repeatedly displaying disrespectful and class-disruptive behavior despite gentle reminders of the classroom rules, that’s when you must employ the methods further discussed below.

2. Look Out for Other Signs of Rudeness

Children generally feel that the teacher is an authority and can sometimes develop fear toward them, especially during preschool. However, as they spend more time with the teacher, they eventually feel more comfortable.

Nonetheless, kindergarteners understand that the rules at home are essentially different from those at school. Therefore, by the time they enter elementary school, they should more or less already know how to behave in front of the teacher.

However, children don’t necessarily develop at the same pace mentally, emotionally, and socially. For instance, some kids may be more insightful and mature than others.

Family dynamics can also play a vital role. When young kids exhibit disrespectful behavior, it’s likely that they are tolerated at home and, therefore, don’t understand very well that it is socially unacceptable.

Often, the child may also display other signs of rudeness, including the following:

Refusing to follow the teacher’s instructions: Some children may have a short attention span, mood disorders, or behavioral development issues, preventing them from participating in classroom activities. Alternatively, some children are just petulant. As a teacher, it’s essential to tell them apart.
Violence: Elementary school children should typically already have reasonable control over their tantrums and emotional outbursts. However, some children may lean toward violence when they feel frustrated. Whether it’s toward you or their classmates, this behavior should not be tolerated and must be addressed accordingly.

Talking back to the teacher: In this case, you should take a minute to evaluate whether or not you have done anything to warrant your student’s argument. Although it’s easy to get infuriated at a child talking back to an adult like yourself, some children are intelligent enough to tell when the adult is being unreasonable. However, it’s still important to remind the child that there is a proper way of expressing what’s on their mind.

3. Incorporate Topics About Respect in the Lessons

Elementary schools in the US typically have only one to two teachers in the classroom. If you’re working alone in the classroom, you have the liberty to design your lessons.

On the other hand, if you have a partner teacher, you can discuss your observations and plan an effective way of reinforcing respectful behavior among your students.

For instance, you can integrate lessons about respect in reading or English class. An interactive discussion about the benefits of respectful behavior and the consequences of disrespectful behavior is a subtle way of teaching students how to behave properly.

You’ll be surprised how this can help shape a child’s imagination, behavior, and communication skills.

And since children have various learning styles, you can be more creative about delivering the lesson. Here are some examples:

Math class: Integrate respect and good behavior in addition and subtraction lessons. For example, creating word problems mentioning how respectful kids make more friends, while disrespectful kids may lose friends. This works well for logical learners.
English class: Teach children the value of respect by doing skits using “Please,” “Thank you,” “Sorry,” and other positive expressions. This can also help them build confidence and express their thoughts more politely. Skits are effective for kinesthetic and linguistic learners.
Music class: Some children are auditory learners who enjoy singing or storytelling. Here’s an example of a song about respect:

Of course, it helps to design age-appropriate lessons because elementary school kids have varying stages of development. For instance, a first-grader has a significantly different emotional and intellectual capacity from a fourth-grader.

4. Speak to the Student About the Disrespectful Behavior

If the above-mentioned tips aren’t effective, then it’s time to speak to the student directly regarding their disrespectful behavior. However, you must approach the child privately and avoid letting the other children know about it.

For instance, calling out a student in the middle of the class and telling them you want to talk to them after class can instill negative feelings in the child, such as humiliation, fear, and anxiety. The child may be embarrassed and traumatized, and there’s a risk that they may be subjected to bullying or isolation.

You can privately ask the student to come and see you in your office and explain your observation. Ask them if they’re aware of such behavior and find out why they did it.

Make the child understand that you’re not angry and are only looking for ways to make your classroom more conducive to their learning. After all, you’re just trying to ensure they learn as much as possible from your class.

Some children can be very shy and become irritable when they receive unwanted attention. For example, you may ask them to answer a question, but they can’t provide the answer, so they choose to ignore or snap at you. This can easily be misinterpreted as disrespect.

Instead of reprimanding the child, you can try to make them feel that their thoughts and feelings matter. It can help them open up to you and improve their relationship with you and their classmates.

However, you must act differently if the disrespectful behavior needs immediate attention. Here’s one example:

The Child Physically Hurt You or Their Classmate

Stay calm and tell the child sternly that such behavior will not be tolerated in the classroom.

Working With a Partner Teacher

If you have a partner teacher, ask them to guide the student to the principal’s office or guidance counselor.

Attend to the victim and assess if the injury needs medical attention. If so, refer to your school’s standard operating procedure (SOP) for cases like this. Various states or schools have specific emergency procedures and guidelines to address instances of violence and injury.

Address the other students in the classroom: They might be shocked about what happened. Make them feel safe by assuring them that everything is under control. Hear them out if they want to share a similar experience with the student that you’re not aware of.

Remind them not to be too quick to judge their classmate. Assure them that you will pay more attention to prevent such incidents from happening again. Tell them that you must first know the reason behind the behavior to address it properly.

That way, you can handle the situation without taking sides or encouraging the other students to alienate their classmate.

Working Alone

On the other hand, if you’re alone, you can impose a time-out on the student who assaulted their classmate. In most schools, elementary school teachers are not allowed to abandon their classrooms during class hours, especially if there isn’t another adult to supervise the kids.

Get the students’ attention using a firm but loud voice without shouting. Break up the fight and tell the child to go to one corner of the room and stay there for five minutes. That should be enough time to help them calm down.

After ensuring that the victim and the other students are safe, continue the class activity. You can improvise and give the students fun collaborative work to improve the atmosphere.

While the other students are working on the activity, calmly approach the student on time-out and ask if they’re ready to apologize. Do so every five minutes until the child concedes. Ideally (and hopefully), the time-out shouldn’t exceed 15 minutes.

Without disrupting the class, lead the child back to their seat and allow them to participate in the class activity. After class, let the two students involved in the fight stay behind. Encourage them to reconcile without an audience. It will help boost their confidence and avoid making them feel humiliated.

After all, apologizing can be as difficult for a child as it is for adults.

5. Speak With the Parents

Although some parents are not as proactive as others, it’s best for elementary school teachers to keep the parents in the loop regarding activities and other concerns at school, especially those involving their children.

Regular weekly updates regarding school activities and student performance can help parents keep track of their children’s progress and avoid misunderstandings or conflicts between parents and teachers.

If a student exhibits disrespectful behavior, you can ask the parents to come and see you for a discussion. If the school prohibits direct communication between parents and teachers outside of a scheduled parent-teacher conference, you may ask the principal for an official request for the parents’ presence.

Since this is a sensitive issue and can easily make a parent feel attacked, try your best to explain your observation without prejudice.

You can start with the child’s good points in the classroom before easing toward explaining to the parents the child’s disrespectful and class-disruptive behavior. Avoid asking them directly why the child behaves that way, as some families tend to be very private.

Instead, tell them some of the measures you have employed to facilitate a better student-teacher relationship with their child and the results of your efforts. Let them understand that you have exhausted all professional and reasonable means possible.

You can then ask them for advice on how to better cater to their children’s educational needs. That way, you can gain insight into their family dynamics without aggressively extracting information from them.

If they proactively share their child’s pre-existing conditions or other family concerns with you, empathize with them and thank them for their trust. Evaluate your capacity to help and avoid making promises you can’t keep.

Some parents try to send their children with special needs to regular schools in hopes that their children will eventually grow out of their condition. Sometimes, they also want to encourage social acceptance or facilitate academic growth on par with other students.

Knowing this can give you better insight but doesn’t require you to employ measures beyond your capacity as a teacher. Remember that you have several other students to attend to, and there are other sources of help in your school.

6. Seek Help From the School Counselor

Students with special needs or those with traumatic family backgrounds need more specific help, and most schools in the US have either a private school counselor or a state-provided one.

Depending on the provisions of your school, you may let the school counselor deal with students with serious issues. Alternatively, you can work with the counselor directly to help with the students’ development.

In some cases, students may feel more comfortable speaking to only one adult, and a guidance counselor has the professional skills to address student concerns more effectively than a school teacher.

While still respecting the privacy and confidentiality laws that bind school counselors, they can provide insights on addressing a particular student’s behavior. After regular sessions with the counselor, your student will eventually treat you more respectfully.

On the other hand, if the school doesn’t have a counselor, the parents may seek help from a licensed therapist outside the school. If so, you can expect your student’s behavior to improve.

Otherwise, you may update the parents on their child’s progress or any alarming behavior. That way, they can try other means to help their child.

Final Thoughts

Elementary school students behave disrespectfully due to various reasons. Teachers must not be too quick to judge them or react negatively to such behavior.

If your student shows any disrespectful behavior, you must first observe if it’s a one-time or repetitive reaction. You must also look for other signs of rudeness and the underlying causes.

While speaking to the student or their parents can prove helpful, it’s sometimes necessary to seek help from professional counselors. Know that every child is different and may require different measures.

Sources

American School Counselor Association: State School Counseling Mandates & Legislation