How to Stop Taking Away Recess As a Punishment

Dear Kid Whisperer,

We are having a disagreement at our elementary school. We used to be able to take away recess as a punishment. Now, we can’t. I understand our principal’s point of view: we had probably 20% of our students staying inside for recess because of behavior. On the other hand, student behavior became worse when we stopped holding kids in from recess, and the teachers feel like they are helpless now. Who is right, who is wrong, and what do we do now? -Kristen, Indianapolis, Indiana

Kristen,

During the Dark Ages, people asked bad questions about things like medicine and other sciences: “Did my headache not go away because the leeches were poorly applied?” Or, “Did Ralph not come back from his vacation because his ship fell off the edge of the earth?”

When you ask the wrong questions, you will always get the wrong answers.

Similarly, you are asking bad questions about students because we are in the Dark Ages of Behavior Management. This is not your fault.

The question should not be whether or not to “use recess” as a punishment. The question should be whether or not you should use punishment at all.

Answer: No, you should not.

This is a punishment because it arbitrarily puts pain on a kid and because it teaches the kid nothing. When human mammals have random pain put upon them, they seek to win that power struggle by digging in their heels and, often, by seeking revenge. This is why you have more and more students throughout the year being punished at recess: they’d rather control adults with negative behaviors than lose the power struggle and go out to recess.

A Delayed Learning Opportunity, on the other hand, is delayed with empathy and then given, with empathy, during any convenient non-instructional time. It is a lesson whereby the student is required, through appropriate guidance, to solve the problem they have caused (which teaches the skills necessary to be responsible), or they are required to practice the positive behavior that they are struggling with. It is treated as a lesson of learning because that’s exactly what it is.

Punishment during recess will involve more and more kids having recess arbitrarily taken away. Delayed Learning Opportunities will involve students learning how to properly be in a school beginning in August, and then being able to just properly be in a school for the rest of their school careers.

After properly delaying a learning opportunity, this is how I might give the learning opportunity at your school to two third graders during any non-instructional time:

Kid Whisperer: Looks like you two are currently struggling with not causing a problem with each other.

Kid #1: He’s the one who…

Kid Whisperer: Yeesh. I don’t argue. How long do you both need to practice not causing a problem with each other: 10 minutes or 15 minutes?

Kid #1: 10 minutes.

Kid #2: I plead the fifth on account of this being stupid.

Kid Whisperer: 10 minutes is fine. OK, you both can just sit here and read or talk or play a game or stare at the wall. You just can’t sleep because you can’t learn to not cause problems and sleep at the same time. Your time starts now. I’ll count each and every minute during which you successfully avoid causing problems. I’ll like you no matter how long it takes to learn this.

If you are saying to yourself, “WHAT?!?! They can talk to each other or play a game??” remember, it’s not about punishment. It’s about learning and skill acquisition! It’s OK if they like it!

Punishment only teaches kids to dislike authority figures. Using Delayed Learning Opportunities teaches skills for a healthy, happy life.