How To Build Behavior-Influencing Relationships With Students

A positive, trusting relationship with students is a core principle of SCM. After all, it’s the most important factor in creating a classroom they want to be part of.

Which, in turn, inspires intrinsic motivation, models patience and kindness, and makes your consequences matter to them.

The problem is that most teachers get it wrong.

The most common advice about how to build relationships—that is, proactively and one at a time—is at best time-consuming. At worst, it makes students uncomfortable and pushes them away rather than drawing them near.

So what follows are three guidelines that will make building behavior-influencing relationships predictable and effortless—no matter your grade level, where you teach, or who happens to be on your roster.

1. Never create friction.

Simply by refusing to create friction—through glaring, lecturing, scolding, or otherwise showing displeasure—your students will adore and admire you.

Once they can count on this, and know you’ll never jump down their throat or react emotionally, a whole world opens up few teachers are aware of.

If you do nothing else, you’ll have a good relationship with all students.

The key is to commit. Decide right now to never again use your words, expressions, or body language to coerce, intimidate, guilt, or air disappointment in an effort to curb misbehavior.

In fact, don’t personally try to change their behavior at all. Counterintuitive as it seems, doing so will only make your relationship with them, and by extension their behavior, worse, not better.

2. Be pleasant.

Instead of creating friction, your goal each day is to be pleasant. That’s it. You don’t have to be especially charismatic. You don’t have to be cool or up to date on the latest music or trends.

You don’t have to entertain, have a magnetic personality, or be blessed with the gift of gab.

You just need to be consistently pleasant. It seems almost too simple, but it works like magic. Consistent pleasantness will cause students to come to you.

It draws them organically. Without doing anything else, they’ll want to be around you, talk to you, and get to know you better.

This makes your relationship with them easy, natural, and on their terms. There is nothing forced, awkward, or uncomfortable about it. It’s just no-strings-attached mutual likability and honest rapport.

3. Lean on your classroom management plan.

The two guidelines above are only possible through a total reliance on your classroom management plan to hold students accountable for misbehavior.

You must remove you from the equation and let it do the heavy lifting.

Not only is this much more effective in eliminating misbehavior than getting personally involved, but it safeguards your influence with them.

It frees the student who misbehaves to reflect on their mistakes rather than be angry at you or preoccupied by your annoyed or hurtful reaction to their misbehavior.

It causes the student to separate you the person from the consequence they’ve earned and well deserved, which places 100% of the responsibility for breaking rules on their shoulders—where it belongs and can do its transformational work.

Your World Will Change

There is much confusion over how best to build relationships with students. The standard advice to go to them and try to engage them in small talk or find commonalities will only make things more difficult.

Forcing the issue, speeding up the process, and trying to be someone you’re not is a surefire way to sabotage your end goal.

Add to it inconsistency in following a classroom management plan or the habit of showing displeasure in response to misbehavior and your classroom can quickly become an unhappy place few will want to be part of.

The good news is that the only true predictable way to build strong and rewarding relationships also happens to be the easiest.

Never again create friction with students no matter how egregious their behavior. Be consistently pleasant, from a distance and with all students, letting them come to you.

Let your classroom management plan do the job it was intended.

Within a month, your world will change. Smiling, happy faces will greet you each day. Behavior will improve and intrinsic motivation will begin seeping into every corner of your classroom.

And you’ll know a joy in teaching few others experience.

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22 thoughts on “How To Build Behavior-Influencing Relationships With Students”

  1. Hi Michael,
    I could not agree more. Teachers have many different personalities from quiet and reserved to outgoing and super social. Any teacher along the spectrum of personality can have great rapport with students or dysfunctional/non-existent rapport.
    I observed a 10th grade geometry class yesterday. It is a large class with around 35 students. This teacher is well liked. Every student stayed in their seat from bell to bell and she had them in the palm of her hand.
    Her personality could not be more different than mine. While I am outgoing, talkative, and use lots of humor in my teaching, Mrs. S. is reserved, has a naturally quiet voice, and would never joke about math.
    But I have never met a more naturally friendly person nor seen a teacher less likely to get her feathers ruffled. She smiles while she is explaining concepts and students can just tell that she loves math and that it is really important to her that every student understands the concepts.
    They have to listen carefully to hear her because she is so soft spoken (a lesson I could learn) and they do. The students know she genuinely likes them and I can’t imagine her even raising her voice or glaring.
    As Michael also pointed out, she has other things supporting her excellent classroom management. She is super organized and there is no downtime during the class period. She has outstanding content mastery and an ability to explain it on a 10th grade level. And she has firm boundaries and a consistent classroom management plan.
    The bottom line: I never hear students say a bad word about Mrs. S.; on the contrary, she is universally popular because of her quiet rapport with students.

    Reply
  2. Any advice for how to respond when you have told a student “no” (can I go to the bathroom? can I go get my notebook? can I go talk to another teacher who just put a grade in that I don’t like) and they keep asking?

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    • Yes! I have that issue especially with 9th graders. I say “You asked and I gave you an answer.” or ” Yes, you can go after I am done with instructing the class” about 90% of the time the student forgets they needed to go somewhere.

      Reply
    • Hi Becky,

      I agree with Diane in that they don’t “need” to go anywhere when they repeatedly ask but change the destination. As a high school teacher, I have learned they usually want to go to either vape or talk on their phone. I simply tell them on the second ask (with a friendly voice and a smile), “I need you to take your seat and if you get up again or ask to go anywhere I will send you to the office.” Of course, this only works because I work in a school with a highly supportive and effective administration team. If I did not have that back-up, I would come up with another effective consequence if they kept asking. By this time of year, students rarely ask anymore because they already know the answer.

      I do let students use the bathroom, although they have a 3 minute time limit to get back, and only one student may be gone at a time. I do not allow students to go to other classrooms, to the library to print stuff out or return books, to the counseling office to “check on something,” etc. For the nurse, we have a form that says what time they left the classroom and the nurse fills out when they arrived, and vice versa when they return. All in all, very few students leave my classroom.

      It is also one of my stated classroom policies. That way it’s written up front where everyone can see it every day and I apply it very consistently.

      I hope that helps!

      Reply
    • I simply repeat, “You asked a question and I gave you the answer. I can see it wasn’t the answer you wanted, but it’s still my answer.”

      As Michael points out, do it without raising your voice, edging your tone, or otherwise showing annoyance.

      They’ll often respond, “Can I PLEASE go the bathroom? MAY I?” To which I respond, “It’s not about your manners. We’re in class now and you have a job to do.” (Again, without any snarkiness).

      If it’s a kid that usually doesn’t ask and seems to be in some level of “biological discomfort” I’ll usually say, “When the minute hand is on the 5” or some other landmark like “After our first activity”. If they really need to go, they’ll ask again–sincerely–if not, they’ve probably forgotten about it by then.

      Reply
  3. I entered teaching late in life. I decided to do this to have a positive impact on youth. The opposite is happening. I have great difficulty adjusting to the lack of respect, low motivation and general antipathy toward school and anyone in leadership. But that is a product of the experiences most of our students have had and continue to have. I have unwittingly fit into that pattern of reinforcing the negative.
    I am in a rut and I know it. I have allowed my emotion to show when students are out of line. One class in particular is so loud and unruly that nothing seems to cause them to quiet down and work. I have raised my voice, which leads to further ignoring of my attention signal or any attempt to quiet them. I agree from experience that showing emotion only makes the behavior worse. It is already Feb, and I wonder if I can change and if they can change. I need to change. It is not easy.
    Yesterday I asked one student to hold up a blank index card if I show anger or disapproval of behavior. The blank card is a reminder to me to have a blank affect- correction is just a reminder of expectations and consistently holding to the consequences. ALL of my buttons are pushed daily (and the buttons work). Any suggestions on changing me? If it does nothing for student behavior, at least it would help me to not be exhausted and angry.

    Reply
    • Disagree with your having a student showing a card when he or she thinks you are showing disapproval. Everyone wants a participation trophy and that is a trigger for what is wrong, add to that , parental disinterest.,

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    • I feel the same way about my first class (7th grade). This is my 21st year teaching, and I am struggling. I feel like the tone of the class is so negative – “I need you to have a seat. Please turn around and get on task. No, you cannot go to the bathroom.” How do you avoid friction AND enforce your behavior management plan? The kids in this group get irritated if I say anything to them in regards to desired behaviors. I feel like I’m being overbearing and it makes me feel like a horrible person.

      Reply
      • AHHH maybe it is 7th grade all around the country…he he …our 7th grade is giving every teacher a run for the $$$..I am not a robot therefore this advice of absolutely no emotion is crazy to me. I am trying to limit and I am trying to turn negative ones into humor but at year 19 in teaching I am burning up.
        I have sincerely worked on the pleasant personality until I realize I am being abused here soo I am not sure what im going to do at this point.

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  4. I love this advice. I do not feel good when I “lose my cool.” I feel like someone that I am not. I am normally pleasant but I am human and am guilty of the glaring and displeasure and impatience in my voice although, I do not lecture or yell. I am a middle school teacher and the impulsiveness of the behavior at this age by some students can wear on you, and it can be very difficult to be patient and pleasant. For me, it is difficult to be consistent with my classroom management plan, and I think if were and I follow through with consequences I would be more pleasant with the students.

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  5. I’ve worked so hard on my teacher face. You know, the look you give when a student is doing something they are not suppose too. Are you saying not to glare at them?

    Reply
  6. I’ve changed a great deal since I started following the advice on this site but despite that I suffer the occasional lapse and lose my cool. This generally happens when I’m chasing an assignment for the umpteenth time and the grading period is coming to a close. Any suggestions on how I can improve in this area?
    NB I teach in Thailand and there’s no such thing as a failing grade.

    Reply
    • Gary,

      Your administration will have a form for the student to sign each time a student doesn’t take advantage of an opportunity to make up missing work. When you have three signatures, you no longer need to chase that work down and are allowed to issue a zero. (Students will still not be allowed to score below 50% overall because of the no-fail policy.)

      Reply
  7. Michael…I am of this opinion that teachers dealing with the students should depend on their class level….primary student n a secondary or senior sec student need more maturity to deal with ….
    However teacher must not hv personal grudge with any student ..an erring child need be counselled more often …

    Reply
  8. Michael,
    Love this reminder. I’m really consistent with my classroom management plan but have been having struggles lately. I realize it’s been in my habit since break ended (probably from being tired) of being sarcastic or snippy in my tone when I respond. Today I’ve forced myself to smile everytime I would normally frown or be less than positive. It’s been hard initially but the kids seem to respond wonderfully! Thanks!

    Reply
  9. Yep, I’m not so sure anyone comes right out and says it, but the standard advice about building relationships with students essentially says “go to them and force the issue” and it just doesn’t work. It can be confusing to students, awkward, annoying, etc. The best thing to do is just let them come to you, as they may, and build the relationships organically one student at a time.

    Reply
  10. I agree completely with this advice, however, am struggling with my Preschool students when they are repeatedly doing unsafe things, or more challenging is children’s play that continues to mimic violence or even sexual acts. I understand that the behavior can, and must be stopped immediately. They are obviously processing the world around them, but the behavior doesn’t change.

    Reply
  11. Good reminders in this article! Pleasantly leaning on the classroom management plan will work wonders. My only question is which classroom management plan to go with next year. I teach in a small, privately run school and we often have multi grade classrooms. Next year I will have 10 students from 6th to 8th grade. The high school management plan seems rather advanced for 6th graders but the elementary management plan would hardly be effective for 8th grade students. Any advice or suggestions?

    Reply

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