Teachers’ Emotional and Educational Reactions toward Children with Behavioral Problems: Implication for School-Based Counseling Work with Teachers

Abstract

Disruptive behaviour and conduct problems among children have a significant effect in their school presence, and affect the quality of their interactions with their teachers. As a consequence, teachers face difficulties in their work, resulting in higher dropout rates and burn out, while students are not supported adequately. The present review discusses the need for teachers working with children exhibiting challenging behaviour to receive help from professionals, in order to gain better insight into the psychological processes of such children. Studying the interaction between disruptive children and their teachers within the classroom, it can be deducted that each child requires an understanding of the roots of their problematic behaviour, as it is critical to find out which clinical/ therapeutic or psychosocial/psycho-educational intervention fits best each case. The need for the implementation of a holistic model that incorporates therapeutic interventions in school is explained; it is critical to integrate counsellors, who will connect with the children and alleviate part of the stress that causes the disruptive behaviour. Meanwhile, the role of counsellors in this context should be to facilitate communication among students and teachers, helping the latter to gain a psychodynamic insight into each case, and to handle conscious or unconscious hostile feelings and rejecting attitudes toward the-problematic‖ pupil. Finally, key points are presented that summarize the steps that need to be done in order to develop a productive and functioning relationship among all parts within a school framework.

Student Disaffection: The Contribution of Greek In-service Kindergarten Teachers in Engaging Each Preschooler in Learning

“…In relevant research of the University of Crete in Greece, in-service teachers report that they do feel insufficiently prepared to manage challenging behaviours in the classroom and make the right choice and the most effective use of teaching techniques in each situation [4,34]. The participants express their need to be supported by school psychologists or counselors who are trained in educational issues and have experience of a collaborative partnership with education staff.…”

“…Educators and research communities have become preoccupied with increasingly high levels of student "detachment" from learning [1][2][3]. In-service teachers strongly emphasise the growing complexity of contemporary students' social, emotional, and behavioural difficulties and the higher demands placed upon them with regards to effective dealing with everyday issues within classroom context [4].…”

“…In general, the quality of student-teacher relations contributes to developing either "cycles of student engagement" or "cycles of disaffection" [1,14,16,19,20]. Teachers' emotional and instructional support is communicated to students and has a pervasive impact on the way in which students feel that their needs are met [4,[21][22][23][24][25][26]. In fact, teacher's support facilitates student engagement in learning [1,10,11,16,19,25].…”

“…Teachers may experience student disaffection as a factor that hinders their teaching and undermines their self-efficacy [1,3,10]. Students' unresponsiveness or misbehaviour may make teachers feel rejected, disturbed, and provoked realising that their efforts bring forth only partial or no results [4]. Students challenging behaviour may constitute a personal shortcoming and a significant source of anxiety and concern for the teachers and undermine their professional competence and efficacy.…”

“…Besides, students' restless, disruptive, and provocative behaviour may result in increasing coercion from a teacher [1,3,4]. In case that teachers show coercion or indifference to already-disengaged students, neglecting their needs may reproduce disaffection, making matters worse [15,16].…”