The 3R Method: Your Blueprint for Lasting Behavior Change
In this post YOU will discover:
What the 3R Method is and how it relates to behavior change
When it comes to behavior, a phrase I find myself saying multiple times per week as a behavior specialist is, let’s bring it back to the basics. For many reasons, behavior becomes one of those topics that we overthink, overanalyze and therefore become overwhelmed. When we are feeling overwhelmed, even the slightest behavior from our students can be the tipping point for any of us. Knowing this, it’s my goal as a behavior specialist to remind educators how to bring it back to the basics and keep behavior change as simple as possible.
Behavior Change Takes Time
When it comes to behavior change, often called ‘behavior management’, it’s important to remember that behavior change takes time. It does not occur overnight and is something that requires practice every single day. Behavior change as a practice honors that while we are aiming to reduce one behavior, we are simultaneously increasing another behavior.
Behavior Change Involves Learning New Skills
Behaviors don’t disappear. They are shaped over time as we learn new ways to meet the same need that the behavior was providing. This is important to remember, because any skill takes time to learn, including behavior, which is ultimately learning new skills over time related to internal needs we are all having.
What is the 3R Method?
One way I’ve helped staff ‘bring it back to the basics’ lately, is through the 3R method.
That is, regulate, reflect, and reconnect.
The best part of this system is that YOU get to define what those terms mean to best fit the needs of not only your student, but also YOU! Because yes, YOU are an integral part of the behavior change practice.
YOU are an integral part of the behavior change practice.
Let’s start with regulate. What does that mean?
When we regulate, it means we return to our own baseline level. That level is different for everyone, which is why it’s important to know what your own baseline is, and learn to observe when your students are at their own baseline too. For some students, bouncing in their chair is baseline, and for others it may indicate elevated emotions of anxiousness or nervousness. When students are experiencing stress in their bodies, they have left what we can think of as their thinking brain, and have entered into their emotional brain. If the stress continues, they enter into their survival brain, which then ignites our fight, flight or freeze response.
Why Regulate First?
This is why regulation is the first step in the 3R method. Before we can do anything else, regulation is key. Through regulation we enter back into our thinking brain, so that we can reflect and reconnect with ourselves and our immediate environment. How we regulate is a topic all on its own. And that’s because everyone of us (and our students) regulates differently. Here are some simple ways to help your students regulate:
Provide time and space in a place that calming for the student
Have them share space with a trusted adult
Breathing exercises and/or body movement
Drawing or Doodling
Ripping cardboard or taking apart a tape ball
The list is endless. Talk with your students. Find out what helps them return to baseline and ensure that when they are experiencing stress in the classroom, that regulation remains the first step in the process.
Up Next is Reflection!
Next, we reflect. Why might that follow regulation? In addition to reflecting, other words we may use at this phase in the process is restore or repair. Ultimately, this phase has to do with understanding what was happening when the behavior happened. In addition to understanding, this is the phase where if any restorative work is necessary, we can assist the student in the process.
Parts to the Reflection Process
Reflecting is an essential part of a behavior change practice because it is through reflecting that we can learn to identify what triggered our behavior, what we were feeling when that happened and the behavior we did following that behavior. The connection between those three components are essential to helping to teach our students alternative ways to have their needs met within the classroom or school setting. The other essential learning that comes from reflecting, is we are able to identify proactive or preventative strategies to put into place in the future to reduce the likelihood of future behaviors!
Working With versus Elimination
Through reflection, we can help them to understand that emotions will continue to happen. But what we do when we experience that emotion can change. Instead of trying to eliminate emotions or eliminate behavior, through reflection we can help the students learn to work with the emotion they are feeling and work to utilize different behaviors to meet their needs.
How Can We Reflect?
Similar to regulation, there are several ways students can reflect. Some may choose to walk and talk about the situation with you. Other students may want to use a reflective tool on paper. Others may want to draw a comic strip showing the situation. How one reflects will change over time. Focus on the act of reflecting at this step as this will help reduce future occurrences of challenging behavior.
It’s Time to Reconnect!
We end with reconnect. What does this mean in the context of behavior change?
Once a student has regulated and they have reflected on the situation, it’s time to reconnect. It’s time to reconnect with them and create a fresh start for them in your class. It’s time to reconnect them with their peers. And it’s time to reconnect with their learning. Reconnection is going to look different for different students, and depending on the situation, it may look different for individual students as well. The goal of reconnection is just that, connection. Providing a fresh start, welcoming the student back when they are ready, and making adjustments to the academic content for a short time so that the student can readjust into their day without re-escalation.
Adapt the 3R Method to Work for YOU!
Like everything in education, the 3R method can be adapted to best fit your needs and your students. Here are a couple variations:
Regulate, restore, and re-enter
Regulate, repair, reconnect
Notice what comes first in any sequence - yes, regulation! In order to reflect and reconnect, students need to be back in their thinking brain, which only comes through regulation (and often it’s co-regulation for many of our students).
Let’s Get Started!
If you are looking to bring behavior change back to the basics, give the 3R method a try! Start with defining what regulate, reflect, and reconnect looks like and sounds like for your student. And don’t forget to involve them in the process!
Behavior change is a practice we engage with every day. Instead of management, focus on practice. And always remember, behavior is meaningful to the student, and solving a problem they are experiencing. Stay present. Stay focused. And most of all, stay curious!
Behavior change is a practice we engage with every day.