3 Reasons Your Child Misbehaves At School

So the first reason why we see kids misbehave, again, I'm saying this in quotations because behavior is communication, and so whether it is they're interrupting, they're talking out of turn, they're getting into fights with their friends, whatever the behavior is, we wanna understand why this is happening, right? So one reason why this happens at school is because of the school environment, right? And this is not to say that the school environment is bad or it's trying to trigger kids, but let's be real, the school environment can be really overstimulating and busy and difficult for some kids, especially our neurodivergent kids or our more sensitive kids.

So let's just talk about sensitive/neurodivergent kids for a minute.

These kids can have heightened emotional responses and sensitivities to sounds, sights, textures, tastes, and if you think about what school is, there's a lot of kids.

It can be really loud.

There can be all sorts of sounds happening at the same time.

You can have those bright fluorescent lights.

Like, even for me, I'm just like, ugh, if I have to spend a whole day in the bright lights, like that feels like a lot.

Not only all those things, but there's new expectations at school.

There's rules that they may have not had to follow before.

There could even be smells in the classroom that they're not used to.

So as a sensory experience, school can be a lot for kids, especially kids who maybe don't have all of that going on at home.

So I often think about kids whose home life is, like, pretty calm, pretty quiet, definitely not as intense as it is at school.

So at home, your child also might have places where they can go and retreat and take a break and not have all the sensory stimulation going on all of the time, whereas at school there might not be that spot or we might not have that in place for them yet.

Uh, schools are getting great at having these, like, you know, those sensory rooms, places where kids can go calm down.

I love it when a classroom has, like, a quiet corner, a little place where they can go.

But not every classroom has that, and not every teacher knows that their student needs that yet, right? So what can happen then is a child's in the classroom, picture, like you've got the lights and the sounds.

People are singing and someone else is talking and just that, all this is going on at one time, and if the child doesn't have a better way to say to the teacher, "I need a break.

I'm getting really overstimulated right now, and there's a lot going on," because let's face it, most six, seven, eight-year-old children can't say that yet.

They don't know that's what they need.

It's gonna come out through behavior.

And so the most common thing I see in this situation is this child is getting sent to the principal's office or they're getting sent to the hallway because they're being loud, they're being impulsive.

Maybe they're talking out of turn.

They're doing behavior that gets them in trouble.

But, and I just get so excited about this, but what happens when they get in trouble? That's my question that I always have.

What happens when they get in trouble? Okay, well, they get sent to the principal's office.