Hey everyone,
If you’re a parent or teacher who wants to better understand kids’ behavioral challenges (why they’re happening, where they’re coming from, and what they’re really a sign of needing), then you’re going to love this conversation.
My guest in this episode is a head guide at one of our Alpha School campuses, and he brings a wealth of knowledge from his background. Matt is a licensed therapist who opened his own private practice. He was a school counselor at a Title I elementary school. He's an expert in mindfulness and helping kids hold themselves (and each other) to a higher standard in a healthy way.
Maybe you have “a problem child” with disruptive behavior. Maybe you were the problem child. Either way, this conversation is a goldmine of knowledge and practical advice for you to use at home.
You can watch the full episode above or catch the most important takeaways below.
As always, thanks for being here. Happy reading.
How American Schools Are Creating “Problem Child” Behavior (And 5 Ways to Reverse It)
The Implementation Gap Problem: American schools have the best educational research in the world, they just don’t use it. From Matt: “When I was in grad school in Finland, I talked to the Minister of Education there. I learned how, in the 80s, their education system was bottom of the barrel. Now it’s thriving. So I asked him, ‘What did you guys do to transform it?’ He looked at me and said, ‘Well, there’s this one great country that funds and executes the majority of education research in the world, and we just read it and use it. You guessed it — it’s the United States.’”
Bad behavior in school = unmet needs. Matt’s first day on the job as school counselor and the principal warned him, “We have a real behavioral problem.” Here’s what Matt saw: kids with challenging behavior (talking, running, not paying attention, having meltdowns when things got hard) were being sent to the principal’s office left and right, where they had to sit and stare at a wall in silence for a long time by themselves. And here’s the issue: these kids needed connection and skill-building in order to truly transform their behavior, but none of the adults in the building had time to provide either. The solution was shaming them, instead. When this becomes a chronic cycle, it creates what we know as “The Problem Child.”
Enter: the story of “The Problem Child.” Classroom rules exist to create belonging, and revoking a kid’s sense of belonging is one of the worst things you can do to them. It tells them, “You don’t belong here. You’re not good enough.” Over time, they absorb that self-identifier. It becomes the story they tell themselves. They start to look for ways to intentionally break the rules because it makes them feel safe, because it aligns with their identity and the story they’re telling themselves about who they are. Tragic, I know. But here’s what we can do to prevent that.
The 5 ways to reverse-engineer your kid’s bad behavior:
Belonging — never discipline in a way that says "you don't fit in here." The single most damaging move is making your kid feel excluded. At home that's the silent treatment, the "what is wrong with you," the sending-to-your-room-as-banishment. Correct the behavior while keeping your kid firmly inside the community: the standard is high because you belong, not as a condition of belonging.
Coherence — answer the why, don't fall back on “because I said so.” A kid who challenges or asks "why do I have to do this?" isn't being defiant, he's asking for the respect of an explanation. This is perfectly reasonable and also a green flag that your kid is a critical thinker. So always make sure you give your kid the why behind a rule. It’s not a “you vs. me” dynamic. Help equip them with knowledge, understanding, and awareness about the situation so they can actually learn and grow skills. While kids absolutely need to respect their parents, parents need to respect their kids just the same.
Autonomy — give them true independence and kids will raise their own bar. I could write a million essays about the kids who do this at Alpha (maybe I should, let me know), but the takeaway is that once you stop micromanaging your kid and start trusting them with true autonomy, they are free to soar. Start by letting your kids help set the rules and consequences at home. While micromanaging encourages rebellion and sneaking around, ownership primes the environment for excellence.
Movement — let them move! Matt claims that at least 50% of behavior problems would disappear with more movement. No adult sits still for seven hours. Before you treat frustration as defiance, try a physical reset, then a quick check-in: “Scale of zero to ten, how ready do you feel? Anything I can do to get you to a ten?”
Accomplishment — help your kid build the skills they need. This sounds obvious, but you can’t punish your kid into a skill they don’t have yet. So instead of just cracking down, help them succeed at building skills. Focus on the behavior you want to change, decide what “doing it right” looks like, and give your kid an easy way to rack up small wins. Here’s a few examples of how we’ve done this with students at Alpha:
The kid with negative self-talk: his guides set a goal for kinder self-talk, tracked how often he hit it, and let him earn a reward he cared about (in his case, Dragon Ball Z crystal balls).
The kid who distracts everyone around him: they split his day into 30-minute chunks, and he earned a point for every chunk he left his neighbors alone and chose to move his body instead of distracting others.
Trash talk between siblings or friends: hand out respectful communication points. For example, reward a fist bump instead of “ha, you’re out.” A “you worked really hard” instead of “you blew it for us.”
The takeaway for parents and teachers: behavior management is less cranking up the punishment and more leaning into connection and skill-building.
Matt and I covered so much more in this conversation, so if this has changed the way you view your kid’s “bad behavior,” I strongly encourage you to give the full episode a listen.
