There’s something about this time of year. The days get shorter. The mornings are colder. Energy wanes, patience thins, and the rhythm that once carried classrooms in September starts to skip a few beats. Educators know the signs before they even name them - the shift in tone, the uptick in tension, the feeling that the same expectations that worked just weeks ago suddenly need reinforcement. It’s seasonal, but it’s also systemic. And it’s precisely where Proactive and Responsive Discipline (PRD) comes alive.

At its core, PRD isn’t about reacting to behavior — it’s about understanding it, anticipating it, and teaching through it. At this time of year, the behaviors we see most often are not those of “bad kids” acting out, but rather predictable human responses to change, fatigue, the need for belonging, and the environments we’ve helped create.

Let’s look at the 7 Big Behaviors that tend to surface in classrooms and hallways during this season — and how a PRD lens helps us respond with intention, compassion, and skill.

As academic pressure builds and the novelty of the school year fades, students begin testing limits again. What may look like disrespect is often a young person trying to reclaim some sense of control in a world that feels increasingly demanding or unpredictable.

PRD Response: Instead of seeing defiance as disobedience, we view it as data — a signal of unmet needs around autonomy, voice, or connection.

Proactive moves might include classroom agreements written with students, choice in assignments, and daily opportunities for leadership. Responsively, we lean on calm consistency: affirming boundaries while preserving dignity. The question becomes, “How do I protect the relationship and the learning?” not “How do I win this moment?”

By November, many students have quietly checked out. They’re present but not engaged — missing assignments, heads down, or retreating into screens. Avoidance is one of the most misunderstood behaviors in schools because it’s easy to label it as laziness rather than a protective response to fear of failure or overwhelm.

PRD Response: We create psychological safety first. PRD invites adults to ask, What’s behind the behavior? Not What’s wrong with this student? Proactively, it means embedding relational check-ins, reteaching skills, and adjusting workload pacing. Responsively, it means using restorative questions that restore belonging rather than shame.

The social fabric of classrooms frays more easily this time of year. Group projects, social media tension, and unspoken hierarchies surface. Small slights turn into full-blown conflicts. Many schools misdiagnose these as “drama,” but beneath the surface are unhealed hurts, identity conflicts, and a longing to belong.

PRD Response: PRD helps adults pause and see conflict as a teachable moment. Proactive approaches include relationship mapping — ensuring no student is relationally invisible — and explicit teaching of empathy and communication skills. Responsive approaches might include structured circles or reflection conversations guided by prompts like, “What do you need to feel seen again?” The goal isn’t to eliminate conflict — it’s to elevate how we navigate it.

4. Verbal Outbursts and Emotional Flooding
Whether it’s yelling, cursing, or crying, emotional flooding often happens when students’ nervous systems are maxed out. The holiday season can amplify stress at home, fatigue, or hunger. Sometimes, the most regulated adult in a child’s life is their teacher.

PRD Response:Emotional regulation starts with the adults. Proactive discipline includes teaching self-awareness tools like calm corners, reflection routines, and micro-breaks that normalize pausing instead of punishing. Responsive discipline looks like co-regulation — being that calm presence in the storm — so that safety is restored before instruction resumes. We don’t match their energy; we model what safety looks like.

As days get darker, attendance issues rise. Some students experience seasonal mood shifts or increased responsibilities at home. For others, school doesn’t yet feel like a place of psychological safety. Chronic absenteeism isn’t about disinterest; it’s about belonging, relevance, and accessibility.

PRD Response: Proactively, we build routines of recognition — greeting every student by name, creating rituals of welcome, and celebrating small wins for showing up. Responsively, we collaborate with families and students to identify barriers and co-design solutions. The PRD lens always centers partnership, not punishment. When students know they matter, they show up.

Younger students especially show the strain of seasonal transitions through physical means — hitting, pushing, grabbing — because they haven’t yet built the vocabulary for their emotions. Older students may display impulsive choices that mirror the same root cause: emotional overload and unregulated energy.

PRD Response: The proactive side means teaching regulation before dysregulation happens — through brain breaks, movement, and consistent emotional vocabulary. Responsively, we separate the deed from the doer, focusing on restoration and repair, not removal. The PRD approach insists on the long view — we’re shaping humans, not managing moments.

This time of year, as fatigue grows, so does reactivity. Comments about identity, background, or difference start to surface more frequently — sometimes in jest, sometimes with malice. These moments test a school’s culture and a staff’s readiness to respond in ways that teach, not just discipline.

PRD Response: Proactive discipline means making identity safety part of daily culture — pronouncing names correctly, affirming representation in curriculum, and addressing harm quickly but with care. Responsively, PRD guides us to hold firm boundaries: naming harm, facilitating accountability, and restoring safety through guided reflection rather than public shaming. As one principal said recently, “Our response to harm either teaches repair or repeats it.”

For District and School Leaders: Feeding the Adults Who Feed the Kids

The behavioral shifts we see in students this time of year are mirrored in adults, too. Teachers are stretched thin. Energy reserves are low. Emotional bandwidth is often running on fumes. As the late Tracy Kidder reminded us, “If you don’t feed the teachers, they eat the kids.” This isn’t about snacks in the lounge — it’s about nourishment through belonging, voice, and support. PRD doesn’t just apply to student behavior; it’s also a mirror for adult culture. Leaders must proactively create environments where staff feel seen, valued, and heard — where emotional labor is acknowledged, and empathy is modeled from the top down. When adults feel psychologically safe, they are far more capable of extending that same safety to students.

As bell hooks wrote,“There can be no love without justice.” The justice she speaks of isn’t legal — it’s relational. It’s the daily fairness, care, and respect we extend to one another in spaces of shared labor and shared humanity. Leadership, especially in these months, means leading with both structure and softness —holding the line and the heart at once. Dr. Asa G. Hilliard III once said,“I have never encountered a child who could not learn, but I have encountered many children who were not taught.” The same applies to our adults. If we want teachers who regulate, relate, and respond, we must teach, support, and model those same skills in our professional communities. Feed the teachers. Coach the coaches. Care for the caregivers.

Because culture cascades from leadership, and how we lead through this season determines whether our staff feel sustained or spent when spring arrives.

The Through Line: Adult Behavior Drives Student Behavior

Each of these seven behaviors is a mirror — reflecting what our systems either reinforce or neglect.

PRD calls us to look beyond compliance and toward competence. It invites adults to model the very skills we hope to see in our students: self-regulation, empathy, communication, and reflection. The most transformative schools aren’t those that avoid behavior — they’re the ones that build systems capable of holding it with care. In PRD, every adult becomes a co-regulator, every classroom becomes a lab for life skills, and every moment of misbehavior becomes an invitation to teach what’s missing rather than punish what’s present. When we do this work well, we don’t just prevent suspensions — we build capacity. We stop seeing behavior as “the problem” and start seeing it as the curriculum.

A Seasonal Reminder

This season will test our patience, but it also offers us a mirror. The magic isn’t in avoiding the storm — it’s in learning how to navigate it together. As the daylight shortens, our consistency must lengthen. As emotions heighten, our empathy must deepen. And as behaviors spike, our belief in growth must hold steady. PRD isn’t just a framework for discipline — it’s a way of seeing. A way of believing that relationships are the most powerful intervention we have. Because the truth is this: Kids don’t need perfect adults — they need present ones.

Those who choose teaching over telling, connection over correction, and community over control. And if we can hold that truth through the noise of this season, we’ll find that what’s often called “behavioral chaos” is actually the sound of students — and adults — learning how to be human together.

Want to learn more about Proactive and Responsive Discipline and the training we offer at CharacterStrong? Explore our PRD approach and professional learning opportunities on our website by clicking here.

Dr. Darian C. Jones

Program Implementation Specialist | CharacterStrong

Always leading with heart, joy, and a Dr Pepper.