How do you deal with behaviour that is not okay?

Encouraging Appropriate Behaviour: A Six-Step Approach has the answers.

Follow the six BECOME steps of B-behaviour, E-emergency, C-context, O-options, M-myself and E-enact. These steps:
• pin point what the behaviour is
• explore when and why it occurs
• helps work out how to encourage change.
This gives you a logical and consistent way of approaching problem behaviours.

What are the benefits?

Implementing the six BECOME steps:

• encourages appropriate behaviour
• creates a structure that gives you confidence to address issues
• helps maintain a calm and consistent approach when confronted with situations that can otherwise cause heightened emotions
• allows you to easily remember the process
• clarifies the situation objectively
• permits you to choose where to focus your energy, based on the varying circumstances
• generates new ideas and possibilities to explore as you address each step
• allows quick and simple analysis of situations.

Having principles to follow:

• helps you avoid pitfalls
• builds your self confidence to handle situations effectively.

Having a range of tools to use:

• can change your perception about problem behaviour
• reveals other possibilities and perspectives and gives you new insights
• helps you display and model assertive behaviour
• builds your knowledge and understanding about the behaviour.

Providing a range of possible strategies:

• allows you to create new ways of dealing with issues
• empowers you by extending your response options
• gives you powerful options for taking charge of situations.

Encouraging Appropriate Behaviour provides help

The book contains:
• 14 principles of how to approach situations.
• 13 tools to help understand the problem.
• 10 response styles.
• 20 effective strategies to try.
Case studies show you how to put these into practice as you follow the six steps.

There is now no excuse to use the same response time after time. This book is written for anyone who works with people and offers lots of benefits. Using the BECOME approach will help you to successfully encourage appropriate behaviour.

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Principles

Principles are the generally accepted ways to approach situations. They are based on a solutions focused approach. BECOME has seven core principles:

1. Unconditional positive regard
2. Being a positive role model
3. Establishing and ensuring consistency
4. Responding rather than reacting
5. Swapping instead of stopping
6. Converting problem behaviour into skill-based behaviour
7. Providing justification

A further seven principles are relevant to various BECOME steps and are discussed along with the core principles to show how these help your approach to situations.

Tools

Tools are designed to gather information to understand the situation. As well as providing practical help in understand the behaviour they support finding the appropriate response. We provide 13 different tools based on well established theories and practices. These include:

• key points in developing behavioural agreements
• a range of communication tools such as using I-messages, communication channels and assessing passive, assertive and aggressive styles
• understanding aggressive behaviour and assessing the risk of aggression
• being able to look for patterns, respond to the perceptions of triggers and identifying the underlying need
• conflict resolution steps for bring parties together in low level conflict situations

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Responses

A response style curve that we developed helps identify the most appropriate response. It provides 10 different response styles and clearly indicates the more positive styles available. Read more about the response curve.

Strategies

Strategies are ways in which you can respond to behaviours that help support appropriate change. 20 strategies are discussed including:

• living as your word - the use of behavioural agreements to promote change
• building and eroding - how actions help build or erode trust in relationships as well as expectations
• shaping - creating change by using small steps toward the greater goal.

To help understand how to use all these tools and responses, a range of examples and case studies drawn from real life situations are provided. If you have ever been unable to resolve troubling or problematic behaviour, in this book you will find suggestions and solutions to create positive long-term change.

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Who will find Encouraging Appropriate Behaviour useful?

This book was written to help anyone deal with situations where inappropriate behaviour occurs. This includes youth group leaders, counsellors, education professionals, parents, and humanities students.

Scout and Guide leaders, coaches, camp leaders, mentors, and other youth group leaders

Any one working with young people will find the techniques helpful. Especially for volunteers who do not have access to specialist training or support. For more experienced leaders, this book offers more strategies to try and the opportunity to reflect on your practice.

Counsellors and your clients

Counsellors may find the approach helpful in their own practice. For your clients (e.g. parents) wanting to develop skills to deal with difficult behaviour, this book can be a resource.

Education professionals, lecturers and administrators

Ensuring appropriate behaviour is key to helping develop effective learning environments. This book offers ways for education professionals to address student behaviour. For lecturers in humanities, the approach and tools can form a resource in teaching skills in managing behaviour. Administrators will find that this approach supports having a consistent, whole school approach to behaviour management.

Parents

For parents the tools and strategies will help manage misbehaviour and develop social skills in their children. Effectively doing so helps them to become happy, healthy, and successful adults.

Students

For students studying psychology, behaviour and related humanities subjects or services will find this book useful in learning how to put theory into practice. Being able to relate and support others is a key element in any humanities subject. This approach helps navigate the pathway more easily.