The 'I' message | Bangkok Post: learning

Teaching with HEART

Most teachers know that being firm yet loving towards students is not as easy as it sounds, and that it not taught in teacher-training programmes either. The two acts are inherently paradoxical. Attempting to do both at the same time may communicate inconsistency and lead to further confusion in students. If they are not careful, teachers may give the impression that it is okay to be "moody" and to be driven by impulses. This is not what "being firm, yet loving" is all about.

Most teachers are aware of this idea. Unfortunately, they complete teacher training without having had a role model (ideally his/her own teacher trainer) demonstrate how this is properly done. Often, teachers who are familiar with the idea attempt to use it, only to find out that they haven't got a clue how it is done in actual classroom situations.

Source of answers

To really understand what it means to be firm yet loving, we need to carefully study research done on child psychology. It also helps to examine literature on effective parenting and appropriately transfer this knowledge to classroom settings.

The Office on Child Abuse and Neglect, in the US Children's Bureau, released a research paper in 2006 emphasizing the importance the role of a father in children's psychological well-being and academic success. According to the authors who were commissioned to write on the topic, effective fathering requires that a father consistently plays the role of a strict disciplinarian and, at the same time, he has to be calm and in control of his own emotions (i.e., anger and frustrations) and body language (i.e., his hands) in the process of disciplining his children. They added that "fathers who scream at their children, who pound tables or who strike their children are destined to fail as effective disciplinarians".

Further, it was noticed that fathers who exhibited a lack of control over their emotions and behaviour during the process of disciplining their child lost their children's respect.

On the flip side of the coin, Dr Arnon Bentovim, a child and adolescent psychiatrist, says that loving alone is not enough. He argues that children's sense of security is boosted when parents consistently discipline them. Some single parents use permissiveness in an attempt to make up for the loss of the other parent. However, according to Helen (surname not disclosed), the editor of the Consistent Parenting Advice website (http://www.consistent-parenting-advice.com), "permissiveness appears to have more negative than positive effects, with children often being impulsive, aggressive and lacking in independence and in personal responsibility". Both authors agree that insecurity is the direct outcome of the lack of firmness in parenting and the failure of parents in setting behavioural and social-emotional boundaries.

A practical 'starter'

One way to learn how to be firm yet loving is by using "I" messages in the classroom. This is a behaviour-influencing technique whereby a teacher gets to clearly and concretely communicate how he/she feels about a student's behaviour without losing control over his/her emotions and/or behaviour. An example of an 'I' message is: "When you talk excessively in the class (student's behaviour), I feel frustrated (teacher's feeling) because I cannot focus on the lesson being taught and on the other students in the class (reason)."

Because the teacher is given the opportunity to express his/her feelings about the student's misbehaviour and to justify the same with a logical reason, he/she tends to be in control of his/her inner psychological state and its consequential behaviour. The "I" message helps teachers to understand and feel (for real) the meaning of the concept of being firm yet loving.

As such, "I" messages are good starters in the journey to becoming a firm-yet-loving teacher.

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