With over 25,000 page views, How To Handle Disrespectful Students is one of the most popular articles on this website—and for good reason.
A disrespectful student can get under a teacher’s skin like almost nothing else.
When confronted with disrespect, it’s easy to take it personally. This is a normal reaction from a passionate teacher.
But it’s a colossal mistake.
Because when you take behavior personally, you’re likely to react in ways that make managing that student’s behavior much more difficult.
Your leverage and influence will then plummet right along with his or her behavior.
But if you can refrain from doing what comes naturally, then you can hold the disrespectful student accountable and still retain your ability to influence future behavior.
Here’s how:
Lose the battle.
When a student is disrespectful to you, you have to be willing to lose the battle. In other words, you must resist the urge to admonish, scold, lecture, get even, or otherwise attempt to put the student in their place.
Don’t take it personally.
Disrespect comes from a place inside the student that has nothing to do with you. So don’t take it personally. Your job is to help the student see the error of his or her ways so that it doesn’t happen again.
Stay calm.
Take a deep breath to quell any angry feelings rising up inside you. Remind yourself that you’ll be much more effective, and the situation will go much smoother, if you maintain emotional control.
Pause.
In the immediate moments following the incident, don’t say a word. Simply maintain eye contact with the student and wait. Let their words hang in the air for several seconds, leaving no doubt about what was said, how it was said, and who is responsible for saying it.
End it.
It’s important not to escalate the situation, but to end it as quickly as possible. Your pause and unwillingness to react is unnerving and will leave the student devoid of anything to say. As soon as you break eye contact and walk away, the incident is over.
Move on.
Refrain from enforcing a consequence—for now. Just continue on with whatever you were doing. Leave the student standing there, unsure of what to do. It’s always best to get back to normalcy as quickly as possible for the sake of the rest of your students.
Do nothing.
Proceed with your day as if nothing happened. Don’t approach the student. Don’t try to talk to him or her about what happened. Don’t do anything until you’re confident that the student has mentally moved on from the situation.
Enforce.
As soon as the student is calm and the incident is forgotten, approach and deliver your consequence. I recommend bypassing the warning step of your classroom management plan and sending the student directly to time-out. Say simply, “You broke rule number four. Grab your work and go to time-out.”
Notify.
For overt disrespect, the parents should be notified. A letter home is most effective. It also adds a layer of accountability that lasts beyond the day of the incident. Near the end of the school day, hand the student your letter and walk away–without adding a lecture. Let accountability speak for you.
Note: For more information on this topic, including a sample letter home, see the article, Why A Letter Home Is An Effective Consequence.
Let remorse set in.
When you handle disrespect this way, without lecturing or scolding or taking it personally, even the most obstinate student will be affected by his or her mistake. So much so that you’re likely to get a sincere and unforced apology.
A Lesson Learned
By following these steps, you can turn a student’s disrespect into a memorable lesson. The steps work because they heap the entire burden of responsibility on the student’s shoulders, with none of it clinging to you.
He or she can’t blame you or be resentful of you—thus undermining the lesson—because you didn’t try to get even. You didn’t have to win the battle. You didn’t yell, threaten, scold, or lower yourself to the same level of disrespect.
You kept your cool and allowed accountability to work, which is the right thing to do for both you and the student.
Thanks for reading.
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{ 16 comments… read them below or add one }
Thank you Michael, every post you make is so helpful to establishing good practice early in my career. And not reacting emotionally is a great way to avoid burn-out too. Regards Stephanie
Thanks Stephanie!
Excellent article. Well written, too. It is so true that blowing up may give the student the reaction they may have been trying to get from you. In that case, you will have lost the battle. And, because all eyes are on you, it’s a battle you will start to lose with all the kids. It reminds me of a time my own daughter threw a tantrum in the store. I just stood there and watched her wriggle on the floor and scream. After a moment, I turned away and started shopping again. I was amazed at how quickly the tantrum ended when she wasn’t getting the response she wanted. It can sometimes be the same with disrespect in the class.
Chris Bowen
Author of “Our Kids: Building Relationships in the Classroom”
Hi Chris,
You’re right. And great illustration with your daughter. Thanks for sharing.
Michael
Hi, Michael. I’ve emailed before and greatly appreciate all your advice and thinking. I have a question regarding handling a disrespectful student. I have one student who, at times, will challenge when he is held accountable for behaviors and has a time-out as a consequence. He might question, challenge, argue. At that point, I know what not to do (from your posts). I know not to argue back or explain, etc. But do I just stand, waiting for the student to move to their time-out? Do I use the broken record technique? I mean, I have initiated a time-out and the student is arguing with me about the nature of the consequence. What do I do to get them there? Is there additional consequences for disrespect (to be given at a later time)? Thanks!
Shawn
Hi Shawn,
You should turn and walk away. Better yet, whenever you send students to time-out, let them walk themselves there. Your only responsibility is to inform them that they must go. If they refuse, then enforce the next consequence–which should be a letter home. If you’re having repeated problems with this student, then read the article series, How To Turn Around Difficult Students.
Michael
What would suggest if a group of students within a class is trying to be disrespectful to the teacher by calling out an offensive word but not owning up who said it? (older students)
Hi Bern,
If you don’t know who said it, then it isn’t a good idea to confront the entire group of students. Peer pressure likely would make it difficult to get an honest answer out of them (assuming by older students you mean middle or high school). It’s best to pull students aside separately and privately to get to the bottom of it.
Michael
Great advice, but I have a lot of problems, as an English teacher at a junior high school and high school in Japan. First, it is illegal to send students out of the class, or make them stand up,which I agree to in principle. But if I call the misbehaving students for after school time-out, counseling, (which I am willing to supervise), they will just escape and not show up. It’s a joke to them.
So what can I do? I can take up to 20% off of their score, and I do that, following a warning, one point at a time. But most of the bad ones don’t care at all about their score. There are no fails at our school and they will get moved up the grades and even into high-school whatever their score is. They have nothing to fear.
I have been told by the leadership that it is irregular for any subject teacher to contact their parents, and that only the homeroom teacher should contact them so I can’t send a letter home, or make a phone call, (although I have one ahead and done it anyway.,before – although I had better stop because I don’t want to get in trouble with the leadership).
So that just leaves the homeroom teacher as a third party. And there is no system that the homeroom teacher should follow. If they want to help they may help, but if they don’t they won’t. They may even doubt me instead of the misbehaving students. Even the head-teacher has said it is better not to rely on them, or anyone else.
But there are no penalties at my disposal, I don’t know what is best.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Hi Ben,
You didn’t mention in-class time-out, which is what I recommend. Time-out is the most effective consequence IF your students enjoy being in your class. However, it sounds like they don’t respect you. One of the core principles of this website is to create a classroom your students love to be part of (leverage), and then separate them from it if they misbehave (time-out). This combination works regardless of where you teach or what your situation is.
Michael
Hi,
Thanks for your reply.
Sorry I should give more information. I teach classes of 40 students twice a week.
Most of the students are well behaved. There are a few students who cause all kinds of trouble: getting up out of their seat, throwing paper airplanes at me, and talking freely.
If I say to these bad boys move to time-out, they won’t move. What else can I do? I am not allowed to call the parents and the homeroom teacher may or may not help me.
Thanks
Ben
Hi Ben,
Not being able to observe you and not knowing what you’re currently doing for classroom management make it difficult for me to address your situation specifically. Do you have a classroom management plan? Have you been a regular reader of the website? Have you worked your way through the archive? You must have a solid understanding of smart classroom management principles before my answers would make any sense or be any help to you. The answer I gave to your first question (above) is the same one I’d give to this question. But again, it might not make much sense to you unless you spend some time in the archive.
Michael
This was a great article. Unfortunately, I read this a day too late.
I am a high school geometry teacher and I blew up at a disrespectful student and in turn, the whole class, this past Friday and am still feeling terrible. I felt terrible the whole time the blow up was going on in class, but I just couldn’t hold the anger and frustration in. I felt disrespected and attacked and I attacked back. Afterwards I sat at my desk and could feel the tears welling up partly because I was hurt and partly because I knew how badly I had handled the situation. My question is what do I do now? How do I proceed with the class? Do I ignore it like it never happened and resume business as usual? Do I address my behavior in some way and try to make sense of it for them? Any advice would be greatly appreciated. –brenda
Hi Brenda,
Don’t be too hard on yourself. It happens to the best of us. As for what to do about it, you can either move on as if nothing happened, resolving to never let your students get under your skin again, or you can apologize. If it’s wearing on you, then make a short and simple but heartfelt apology and then get on with it. Don’t spend much time on it or try to make sense of it for them. A simple apology is all that’s needed. Kids understand. And I think they’ll respect you all the more for it.
Michael
i teach 7th grade and today in class, i made a mistake and one of the students yell out bendejas in spanish, which led to an uproar laughter. i am first embarrassed and so upset at the kid. i dont know how to discipline him and how do i save face following day?
Hi Kathy,
Okay, I think I understand what the student said/meant. As far as saving face, you didn’t do anything wrong. There is nothing to be embarrassed about. They’re kids. Let it go in one ear and out the other. It was, however, extremely disrespectful. Presuming you have a classroom management plan, I would jump to your third consequence and send a letter home to parents/guardian. To read more about this, look through the Rules & Consequences category of the archive. And don’t give the incident another thought. It’s not worth it.
Michael