School safety, security, and violence prevention resource

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September 25, 2009

NOW WHAT? WHEN DE-ESCALATION DOESN’T WORK!

Ok. You are being verbally attacked by a student and you have followed the De-Escalation Playbook almost by the numbers, meaning you have:

v Depersonalized.

v Depreciated the Verbal Icon.

v Kept Your Cool.

v Deflected Insults Cooly instead of Absorbing Them

v Held Your Ego at Bay.

v Empathized.

v Took Nothing Personally and Responded Professionally.

v Employed Positive, Non-Combative Body Language In Synch With What you were saying.

v Asked Questions to Find Out the Facts.

v Treated the Student as you would have wanted to be treated under the exact same circumstances.

v Asked instead of Commanded.

v Explained Why.

v Gave the Student Good Options.

Yet, despite your best, most professional efforts, the student is still in your face. Still disruptive. There might be any number of reasons why your efforts have failed, probably none of which caused by your attempts to Generate Voluntary Compliance (the goal of Verbal Judo). Maybe the student feels his “face” is on the line and she/he cannot back down in front of the audience (friends and peers witnessing the event).

Time, I think, to take this thing to the Next Level. Here are a few suggestions you might try:

CUT AND HERD. Using a security officer or another teacher, separate the disruptive student from the audience. More likely than not, the student, once separated from his or her audience, will be a lot more pliable.

TAKE PHYSICAL CONTROL. If you are security, it is time to either use back-up and take control. At some point you gave the kid some options. Since the student chose to defy instructions, she or he has actually chosen the “bad” option, which might have been “You can show me your ID and simply move on to your class, or, you can continue to rant and rave and you will have given us no choice but to escort you to (wherever).” If you are a teacher, it might be time to call security since most of you are restricted from using force. If you are not restricted, however, with the help of another teacher, you can move in and take control of him.

CONFIRM for the record, before you take physical control, be you security or a teacher, that the subject still refuses to comply. “Lisa, is there anything I can say to get you to go along with the program today? I sure hope there is.” Is, in my mind, the ideal Confirmation Statement because it serves many purposes:

v The statement is so “nice” and unexpected that it sometimes generates voluntary compliance. I have seen it work. The subject simply stunned, taken by surprise, and the next thing he or she knows is he or she is doing what you want, thinking it was his or her idea in the first place.

v Witnesses perceive – correctly – that you are being professional, considerate, empathetic and nice. They also see the student, by contrast, being unreasonable, belligerent, nasty. I have seen friends and family members actually get drawn onto the professional’s side and say to the disruptive person, “C’mon, the guy is being cool about this. Chill out, Dude.”

v If you do have to physically take control of the student or defend yourself, by using this statement, you have created preclusion. Meaning that your employer and any court that is called upon to judge your actions will look favorably upon your actions because you have used every means at your disposal to have precluded the need for using force.

Until Next Time, Stay Safe.

Hammer

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