08/20/2026
There is always one kid who seems to know EXACTLY which button to push. And one year, mine knew where the entire control panel was.
He wasn't a bad kid. Let me say that first.
But there were days when I was pretty sure he woke up, stretched, ate breakfast, and thought:
*I wonder what Mr. Stark has planned today.
*Let's see what happens if I don't do ANY of it.* 😅
Come to the carpet? He suddenly needed a drink.
Clean up? He had become deeply emotionally attached to whatever he was holding.
Line up? This was apparently the perfect time to inspect something on the opposite side of the classroom.
Sit down? Stand.
Use a quiet voice? Broadcast.
If I said, “Please don't touch that,” I swear sometimes I could actually SEE his hand considering its options.
And here's the thing.
I was doing all the things teachers are supposed to do. I was clear and consistent. I had routines and I reinforced expectations. I gave choices and I praised the behavior I wanted to see. I redirected and then I followed through.
Some days it worked.
Some days it felt like I was trying to negotiate a peace treaty with someone who had recently learned to tie one shoe.
And after enough days like that, something starts happening inside the teacher. You start watching for it. Before the child has even done anything, part of your brain is already waiting. *Here we go.*
You see him getting wiggly on the carpet.
*Don't.*
You see him looking toward his friend.
*Please don't.*
You see that little grin.
*Oh, for the love...*
And without realizing it, you can start having the next behavior problem before the kid does.
One morning, he came in differently. No big entrance. No obvious problem.
Just...different. He put his backpack down and sat at the table.
Normally he would have been talking.
Or moving. Or investigating something that absolutely did not require investigation at 8:07 in the morning.
But he sat. Quietly.
Now, you'd think a kindergarten teacher would celebrate this.
*Look! He's sitting quietly!*
Except when you spend enough time with five-year-olds, you learn something: Sometimes quiet is louder than chaos.
I walked over. “Hey, buddy.”
Nothing.
I crouched beside him. “You okay?”
He shrugged.
Ah. The universal five-year-old response meaning anything from *I'm perfectly fine* to *my entire world has collapsed and I will provide no additional information.*
So I didn't push. I just sat beside him. For a little while, neither of us said anything. The classroom kept happening around us... And we just sat there.
Eventually, he leaned toward me... Just a little. Then he started talking. Not much, but enough.
Something had happened before school. It wasn't something I could fix. There wasn't a teacher strategy for it. No behavior chart, no consequence, and no perfectly worded redirection.
It was just something hard happening in the life of a very small person who didn't have very many words for hard things yet.
And suddenly I thought about all those other mornings.
The wandering.
The refusing.
The talking.
The touching.
The constant need to be somewhere other than wherever I had asked him to be.
And I wondered: *How many times had I been trying to stop a behavior when I should have been trying to understand a kid?*
That question bothered me.
Because let's be clear. Understanding WHY a child does something doesn't mean the behavior suddenly becomes okay.
If you throw a crayon because you're angry, we still have to deal with the thrown crayon.
If you hurt someone because you're frustrated, we still have to keep people safe.
If the expectation is that we clean up, you don't receive a lifetime cleaning exemption because you had a rough morning.
Connection isn't the absence of boundaries.
Kids need boundaries.
They need predictable adults.
They need to know that when the world feels messy, the classroom still makes sense.
But that morning reminded me that sometimes the child standing on the other side of the expectation isn't asking: **“What can I get away with?”**
Sometimes he's asking: **“Are you still on my side?”**
That's a completely different question.
So I started trying something different with him. Not instead of expectations. Before them. I noticed him before I noticed his behavior.
A quick conversation in the morning.
A joke while everyone unpacked.
A job I knew he'd take seriously.
Thirty seconds beside him before a transition I knew was usually hard.
Nothing dramatic.
No inspirational music played.
Morgan Freeman did not narrate our breakthrough. 😂
I just made sure that some of our interactions happened when he WASN'T in trouble... and slowly, something changed.
Not overnight. He didn't suddenly float into the classroom each morning surrounded by woodland creatures and quietly complete every task.
He was still five. He still tested things. I still said his name in that special teacher tone that contains an entire paragraph.
But there were fewer battles... And when there was a problem, I could reach him faster.
Sometimes I'd catch his eye from across the room and that was enough.
Sometimes I'd walk over and quietly say, “You know what to do.” And he did.
Not because I had finally figured out how to control him... Because somewhere along the way, we had stopped feeling like opponents.
That's a distinction I think about a lot.
Classroom management can start to feel like a contest if we're not careful.
Teacher versus behavior.
Adult versus child.
Who is going to win?
But I don't want to win against a five-year-old.
I want the five-year-old to win.
I want him to learn how to handle frustration.
How to recover from a mistake.
How to function in a group.
How to trust an adult enough to accept correction without hearing rejection.
How to know: *Mr. Stark can be unhappy with what I did and still be happy I'm here.*
That's the goal.
Years later, I don't remember every time that kid got out of line. I couldn't tell you what consequence I gave on some random Tuesday. I don't remember most of the things that felt SO important in the moment.
But I remember sitting beside him that morning. I remember the shrug. I remember realizing that the child I'd been trying so hard to manage needed me to know him better... And I remember what happened when I did.
Not perfection... Connection.
Connection gave all those expectations somewhere to land.
So if you've got THAT kid this year—the one who already knows where your buttons are...
Teach the routine. Hold the expectation. Be consistent.
But somewhere between all the correcting and redirecting, make sure that kid gets to experience you when nothing is wrong. Because sometimes the most powerful classroom management move isn't gaining more control.
It's making sure a five-year-old knows: *We're on the same team.* ❤️
👇 Teachers, tell me about a student who taught YOU that there was more happening underneath the behavior than you first realized.
No names. No identifying details. Just the lesson they left with you.
