Polly answers the question: “Should kids have to wait for fun, like snack-time or recess, until their work is completed?”

Click here for more

Polly answers the question: “I sometimes let kids walk all over me and when I see it happening, I immediately over-correct and set strict rules and expectations! What’s a good balance between being too rigid or too wishy washy?”

Click here for more

Polly answers the question: “My school requires us to go through some steps with behavior before we involve administration. This makes sense but one of the requirements is calling the parents. I dread calling home!! Very often I feel like the parents blame me for their child’s behavior, and I’m tired of it. Do you have any ways to make this experience more pleasant?”

Click here for more

Polly answers the question: “What can I do with ‘littles’ who won’t line up to come in from recess? They seem to think it’s a game but I’m not having any fun!”

Click here for more

Polly answers the question: “I have a kid who sometimes escalates during activities, or refuses to go to classes, or shuts down when presented with tasks. Why is this? Is it the teacher, the content, the environment, the kid’s life experiences? Logical consequences work sometimes. But is it possible to do something proactively that would actually decrease these behaviors?”

Click here for more

Polly answers the question: “I have done a fabulous job lately of not taking the bait and avoiding power struggles! I have one kid in my class who I used to go to battles with constantly. However, now that I’m managing him better, he is trying to get other kids to turn against me! Any thoughts about what may be the next steps with him?”

Click here for more

Polly answers the question: “I work in a self-contained, more restrictive program. We have one kid who has a history of being a ‘runner.’ I want to prevent this but I realize that I can’t possibly block doors or be at two doors at once. How can we prepare for this in advance? And how can we respond so the running stops eventually?”

Click here for more

Polly answers the question: “I have been assigned to run an In School Suspension room. I’m having so many problems with this! The kids dismiss me, the staff walk in whenever they want to reprimand kids in my care, and the kids think the whole thing is a joke. Any advice?”

Click here for more

Polly answers the question: “I have a kid in my class who is a ‘buddy’ to their single parent. And they want to treat me the same! I don’t listen to, ‘Hey, dude,’ or ‘Hey girl hey!’ Is there a way to teach, in the moment, that they can’t do this and still have a good relationship with them?”

Click here for more

Polly answers the question: “What do you do when you tell a child to ‘stop immediately’ and they say ‘I wasn’t doing anything’?”

Click here for more