Behavior Is Always a Choice

Behavior is always a choice, right?

Our behavior is always under our control, and there might be things that make that more or less difficult.

But all day on Twitter, people have been trying to argue that when a student is dysregulated, when they've flipped their lid, when they are in fight or flight, that they don't control their behavior.

I was not aware that there are so many people who are blatantly arguing that students in fight or flight are not in control of or responsible for their behavior but that's what people are saying and i think it comes down to just bad neuroscience like just a misunderstanding of the basic neurobiology of human beings right when you get into that fight or flight mode right your amygdala takes control and makes you feel a certain way but your amygdala does not control your muscles i actually had to look this up and review the biology here, but like your amygdala does not make you hit someone, right?

You know what part of your brain controls your muscles and controls whether you hit someone?

Your cortex.

It is your upper brain that determines your physical behavior.

And a lot of people like to say, well, you can't really control it if you're in that fight or flight stage.

You can't control the fact that you are in that fight or flight or flee phase.

kind of frame of mind, right?

Like that is an emotional and involuntary response.

But it does not follow that any behaviors that follow from that state are beyond the individual's ability to control.

And I think when it comes to working with kids, we have to remember that one of our main jobs as educators is to help kids develop more appropriate reactions.

One of our main jobs as parents and educators is to help kids develop more appropriate reactions to the stressors of life.

And I'm seeing an increasing interest on the part of well-meaning adults in protecting kids from even low-level stressors, like the kinds of things they're going to face constantly throughout their life, and a desire to excuse bad behavior anytime the student is like mildly stressed or mildly distressed or upset.

And I have to wonder, how is that going to serve kids?

Do we really think we can bubble wrap our kids and prevent them from ever experiencing a slight degree of hunger, right?

Like the banana, the calming banana?

Do we think that as long as a kid is slightly hangry that any behavior they engage in is justified?

Come on.

I mean, we are going to constantly have in life a stream of disappointments, people who are rude to us, things that don't go our way.

We're going to be hungry, we're going to be thirsty, we're gonna have headaches, we're gonna have bad days.

And part of becoming an adult is learning how to deal with that kind of stuff without committing crimes against the people around you, like to learn to not assault people.

And if in schools we're constantly reinforcing the message that as long as you have some sort of excuse, like you didn't have your banana today, that it's okay to hurt people, like what kind of society are we building?

with that kind of thinking.

I really have to wonder.

And I just was not aware that so many adults think this way now.

So many adults are eager to make excuses for kids' behavior on the slightest pretext.

And I think we've just got to stop thinking this way.

Let me know what you think.