What is Responsive Discipline?
Responsive Discipline is an integrated, restorative, and culturally responsive approach to discipline that aligns with initiatives, such as positive behavior interventions and supports (PBIS), social-emotional learning (SEL), trauma-informed practices (TIP), and restorative practices (RP). The goal is to sustainably improve learning outcomes while reducing repeat negative behaviors, as well as disproportionality in behavioral outcomes.
While every school district has student discipline guidelines outlined for their sites/schools, they vary in detail and effectiveness. Historically, discipline guidelines have erred on the side of being punitive in nature, with a quick path to an immediate loss of instruction time, suspension, and/or expulsion, negatively affecting learning outcomes for students. This type of discipline can quickly lose the “effectiveness” and doesn't always manage students' long-term behaviors, inadvertently reinforcing beliefs and biases and therefore inequitable outcomes. The alternative, and more productive options of focusing on changing student behavior by providing appropriate interventions and/or teaching skills the student is lagging.
At Collaborative Learning Solutions we use the phrase, "Get curious, not furious about the child's behavior” to better understand and reduce negative behaviors.