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The more we do something, the more engrained a behaviour or habit becomes. We can arrive at work without really remembering any of the journey. Over time, behaviour can become habitual, and experiences programme us to behave in a certain way.
As professionals and carers, however, if we continue to react to situations without being conscious, we’re potentially missing opportunities to influence and de-escalate situations before they reach crisis. This means moving away from an automated reaction and towards a conscious and measured response, to redirect behaviour.
A planned approach helps us know how to respond, as opposed to react, to the behaviours we face. It considers the individual needs of the child, young person or adult, and focuses on how we can set individuals up for success.
For some children, young people, and adults we work with, previous events and experiences cause them to behave in a certain way. The Team Teach Conflict Spiral model describes how experiences, feelings and thoughts can all feed into one another.
Imagine rotating the Conflict Spiral so you are looking directly down through it. Each loop of the spiral comprises our experiences, feelings, behaviour, and responses. The experiences we have drive our feelings, and this includes prior experiences we’ve had in the past. Feelings then drive our behaviours, often automatically and without conscious choice. The behaviours we show drive a response that reinforces the experience when it happens again. The more entrenched the cycle, the more frequent behaviours can become, and conflict can lead to an increase in risk and restrictive practices.
To step away from this spiralling effect and avoid conflict altogether, we need to unpick the experiences and corresponding feelings driving the behaviour, and create a toolkit of strategies to respond to behaviours, as opposed to subconsciously reacting. When we have these strategies to hand, we can de-escalate the situation, encourage replacement behaviours, and remove the need for unnecessary restrictive practices.
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