How to redirect escape behavior?

I could choose to engage in an angry conversation or I could converse in a calm manner and resolve this peacefully. I chose to implement a classroom management strategy that is outlined in my book Keep Calm and Teach. I used the Redirect Behavior Model, which is a guided script based on fundamental communication concepts. The model has four main components: value statement, appropriate behavior, rationale, and choices. The power in the model is student choice regarding their behavior. The teacher indicates their choices – self-correct or continue their behavior, but there are consequences for their choice. This puts the responsibility on the student. They are aware of the impact of their choice, whether they choose to self-correct or continue behavior. The model helps teachers and it allowed me to de-escalate a fiery conversation after a car accident.

To redirect escape behavior, you need to teach an appropriate behavior, because you'd much rather get handed an “I need a break” card that get punched the face. The disruptive behavior will continue, so let’s replace it with an appropriate behavior. You can use social stories, verbal prompts, visuals, scripts, break cards, and more to teach how to request a break appropriately. The key to this intervention is you need to ensure that the way you are showing this regular access to breaks is understood by your student. You want to be providing access to breaks at an interval just less than that, if the problem behavior occurs every 5 minutes, give a break every 4 minutes. There are some tricky maneuvers you can utilize to tweak the environment and make the work a little less aversive for your students, and viola – maybe it’s no longer worth escaping. You can make the task easier, use shorter work sessions, present tasks more slowly, give choice on the order to do tasks, fade demands, use the easy/easy/easy/hard method, or give breaks and/or less work based on work completion.