A parent, former educator, and advocate’s case for asking a different question

There is a question I have heard many times in my years as a parent, educator, and advocate:

“How do we stop this behavior?”

It is an understandable question. When a child is screaming, running from a classroom, hitting, refusing to participate, throwing things, or otherwise struggling to regulate, adults need to respond. Teachers have a classroom to manage. Other students need to feel safe. Parents want their children to learn. Everyone involved wants the situation to improve.

But I have come to believe that the question itself can sometimes send us in the wrong direction.

Instead of asking, “How do we stop this behavior?” perhaps we should first ask:

“What is this child trying to tell us?”

That small change in perspective can change everything.

Behavior is information

Children do not always have the words, communication skills, developmental capacity, or emotional regulation to tell us what is wrong.

Sometimes behavior is the communication.

A child who repeatedly leaves the classroom may not simply be “non-compliant.” Perhaps the environment is overwhelming. Perhaps the child feels frightened, is in pain, confused, or overwhelmed.

A child who refuses to sit at a desk may not be choosing defiance. Perhaps they are overwhelmed by sensory input. Perhaps they need movement. Perhaps they don’t understand what is being asked of them.

A child who screams may not be trying to disrupt the classroom. Perhaps they are communicating distress in the only way available to them at that moment.

A child who becomes aggressive may not be making a calculated decision to hurt someone. They may be overwhelmed, frightened, dysregulated, or responding to a situation their brain and body perceive as threatening.

None of this means that unsafe behavior should simply be ignored.

It means that the behavior should be understood before we decide how to respond to it.

There is an enormous difference between asking, “How do I make this child stop?” and asking, “Why is this child struggling right now?”

One focuses on control.

The other focuses on understanding.

I have been on both sides of the classroom

I am not writing this as someone who has never stood in front of a classroom full of children.

I am a former educator. I understand that classrooms are complicated places. Teachers are responsible for multiple children with different needs, personalities, abilities, and levels of regulation. They are expected to teach, supervise, manage behavior, communicate with families, meet academic requirements, document services, and keep everyone safe.

I also understand that when a child’s behavior escalates, it can be stressful for everyone.

That is precisely why I don’t believe the answer is simply to tell educators to “do better.”

Teachers need support, training, resources, appropriate staffing, and realistic expectations. They need to know what a particular child needs before that child reaches a crisis point. They need administrators who understand regulation and trauma rather than simply demanding compliance.

And they need schools to recognize that prevention happens long before a crisis.

By the time a child is being physically restrained or placed in seclusion, there have often been many opportunities to intervene differently.

The question is whether we recognized those opportunities.

The behavior we see may not be the whole story

My own perspective changed profoundly when I became the parent of a child with disabilities.

My son, Jojo, experienced restraint and seclusion in kindergarten.

That experience became the catalyst for my advocacy and for Jojo’s Story, but it also changed the way I think about behavior.

As a parent, I know my child in a way that is different from the way a school employee can know him. I know his patterns. I know what overwhelms him. I know what helps him regulate. I know when something is unusual.

That doesn’t mean parents always have every answer.

It means parents have information that matters.

And educators have information that parents may not have.

The most effective support happens when those pieces of information are brought together.

Unfortunately, too often the conversation becomes adversarial. A school sees a behavior. A parent sees a child. The school says, “We need to address the behavior.” The parent says, “You need to understand what is causing it.”

I don’t think those perspectives have to be opposites.

We can address behavior while still asking what is underneath it.

What happens before the crisis matters

When we talk about restraint and seclusion, the conversation often begins at the moment restraint occurs, or the door closes.

But that is not where the story begins.

What happened five minutes earlier?

What happened that morning?

What demands were placed on the child?

What sensory experiences were happening around them?

Were they hungry, tired, frightened, overwhelmed, confused, or in pain?

Did they have the communication tools they needed?

Were their accommodations being provided?

Did adults recognize the early signs of dysregulation?

Was the child given a meaningful opportunity to regulate before the situation became a crisis?

Were there people around the child who understood their individual needs?

These questions are not about assigning blame. They are about preventing the next crisis. If we only document what happened once a child is already in crisis, we miss the most valuable information: everything that happened before it.

We need to move from reaction to prevention

I believe schools should spend far more time asking what makes a child feel safe, connected, understood, and capable of participating than they do asking how to respond once a child is already overwhelmed.

That means looking at the whole child.

It means considering communication.

It means considering sensory needs.

It means considering trauma.

It means considering disability.

It means considering the environment.

It means considering relationships.

And it means recognizing that an intervention that works for one child may be completely inappropriate for another.

Most importantly, it means giving children meaningful ways to communicate before they reach the point of crisis.

A child shouldn’t have to become completely dysregulated before adults recognize that something is wrong.

This is not about choosing children over educators

One of the things I worry about in conversations surrounding restraint and seclusion is the idea that advocating for children somehow means blaming teachers.

It doesn’t.

We can care deeply about children and care deeply about the adults who educate them.

In fact, I believe we have to do both.

Teachers should not be placed in situations where they are expected to manage complex disability-related behaviors without adequate support.

Children should not be placed in situations where their distress is treated primarily as defiance.

Parents should not have to choose between trusting their child’s school and protecting their child.

And schools should not have to choose between maintaining safety and treating children with dignity.

We can demand more from the system while also giving educators the tools they need to meet that expectation.

Change the question

Maybe the most important change we can make is also the simplest.

Instead of: “How do we stop this behavior?”

Ask: “What is this behavior telling us?”

Instead of: “How do we make this child comply?”

Ask: “What is preventing this child from participating?”

Instead of: “How do we control this crisis?”

Ask: “What could we have done earlier to prevent this crisis?”

And instead of asking only: “How do we keep everyone safe right now?”

Ask: “What would help this child feel safe enough that we don’t have to reach this point?”

Those questions don’t make schools less safe.

They make us more curious.

They make us more responsive.

And they remind us that the child in front of us is more than the behavior we are seeing.

Every child has a story

My advocacy began because something happened to my child. But it has grown into something bigger than our individual experience.

I think about the parents who know their child is struggling but don’t yet have the words to explain why.

I think about the children whose communication is misunderstood.

I think about the students whose disabilities are mistaken for defiance.

I think about the teachers who genuinely want to help but don’t have the resources or training they need.

And I think about how different our schools could look if we stopped viewing behavior as something that simply needs to be controlled and started viewing it as information that needs to be understood.

Every child has a story behind their behavior.

Our job as adults is not always to make the behavior disappear.

Sometimes our job is to listen closely enough to understand what the child is trying to tell us.

Because when we change the question, we can change the response.

And when we change the response, we have the opportunity to change the story.

Every child deserves to be seen, heard, understood, and supported—especially when they are struggling the most.