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Are you feeling swamped by the demands of being a principal? From juggling emails, calls, and decisions to boosting test scores and wading through endless paperwork, the pressure is real.
But imagine a scenario where you no longer feel this overwhelming stress. Picture yourself as a more resilient leader, concentrating on enhancing your school rather than merely coping with the daily tasks that currently consume your time.
I‘m Barb Flowers. Drawing upon my eight-year experience as an elementary principal, with a Ph.D. in Educational Leadership and certification as a life coach, Along the way, I've mentored and coached school leaders, guiding them to change their mindset, set boundaries and focus on their own well-being while navigating their roles.
Each episode offers practical insights on time management, communication, overcoming overwhelm, boosting confidence, and fostering a positive mindset. We'll also discuss topics like working with stakeholders, implementing new initiatives, and managing discipline. Let's set boundaries, focus on well-being, and reignite your passion for being a principal. Welcome to "The Principal's Handbook."
I firmly believe that to be an impactful educator, you must first become a confident and well-rounded individual. Join us in this journey to empower and enhance your confidence as a school leader.
Why Discipline Feels So Hard as a Principal (And What to Do Instead)
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Speaker: [00:00:00] Hey everyone. Welcome to the Principal's Handbook. In this episode, we're talking about why discipline feels so hard as a principal and what to do instead. So that's all coming up next on The Principal's Handbook.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the Principal's Handbook, your go-to resource for principals looking to revamp their leadership approach and prioritize self-care. I'm Barb Flowers, a certified life coach with eight years of experience as an elementary principal. Tune in each week as we delve into strategies for boosting mental resilience, managing time effectively, and nurturing overall wellness.
From tackling daily challenges to maintaining a healthy work-life balance. We'll navigate the complexities of school leadership together. Join me in fostering your sense of purpose as a principal and reigniting your passion for the job. Welcome to a podcast where your wellbeing is the top priority. I.
Speaker: , Welcome to the podcast. Today we are talking about why discipline feels so hard [00:01:00] as a principal.
Most principles that I coach. Don't go into being a principal or school leadership because they wanna deal with discipline. When I talk to principals, that's the first thing they usually wanna get off their plate, and I totally get it.
That's me, like I love instructional leadership. Discipline is not my favorite thing. I have grown over time to feel better about it as I've become more confident as a principal in handling discipline. I used to hate it because I felt like it was an area that I wasn't as confident in. So that was something.
But now I look at it. , I don't like when there's a lot of urgency to it. What I really focused on is building a lot of systems.
I think the hardest thing as a principal, is when, before nine o'clock, you've already dealt with five different discipline issues. You're pulling kids off the bus or you're calling kids down for. Social media things right away. That's really hard when you start your day with all of these discipline issues, or you have teachers coming to you who are frustrated, or you have emails from parents who are frustrated about behaviors or complaining [00:02:00] about a situation.
And so when this happens, you start to get stressed about discipline. I totally get it. And underneath of it all, what you hear from teachers is nothing happens to kids. Right. And that starts to erode at your self-confidence as a leader. I have to say, one of the challenges I face, I'm a principal in Ohio, , I'm in a K two building, is we really have become limited on consequences.
Even, and I know from talking to principals in other states, that's really happened that there's all of these. Constraints around discipline now and I think it's well intentioned to come with a restorative approach to discipline and all of that, but it is really hard when there hasn't been training.
And in the current building I'm in, we really haven't had any training or time to talk about restorative approaches and what that looks like. And so it can just feel like your hands are tied and there's not a lot that you can do. , For a lot of principals, behavior dominates the day.
They really are feeling that. Urgency. They feel like they want to be instructional leaders. They [00:03:00] want to be in classrooms, but they're pulled away because they're just dealing with discipline and all of the hard things of being a principal. , It could be that even they have consequences. They feel inconsistent.
I know for me, sometimes we have consequences that feel like they don't work, . If there's not follow through at home or if parents aren't supporting. Some kids don't care if there's a consequence. , Also decisions can feel like guesswork. , Maybe you have conversations with parents or teachers that just linger or a teacher frustration feels really personal for you, ?
There's all these things that you could be dealing with as the reality of a principal who's dealing with discipline. And this is where a lot of principals feel that frustration. They get stuck and it's not because they don't care, but because they don't have a system and you feel defeated before you even start.
And so you know, what you think about is there's so many behaviors, and this is such a problem with behavior, but it really comes down to. What systems can we have in [00:04:00] place? It's not always tougher consequences. It's not about your teachers or working harder, it's really about getting clear about what the issue is, having consistency and a repeatable system.
And so when discipline, I always talk to principals when it feels unclear for others. Everything feels personal and it feels exhausting because , teachers are sharing frustrations with you and that feels personal. You're the person leading the building. I know I've experienced all of this and so that's why I can say this is even this year talking to teachers, we've, , combined two buildings.
There was two grade levels in one building and one grade level in another. And we've combined them all and it's been really good. But with that, resources are different. And so it looks different. And so it can feel very personal , when people are upset about it and have a problem.
And so you have to really work on your own mindset and think about how to not take that personal. But what I wanna do is talk about a four-part structure, , that is. Going to actually help you with discipline and [00:05:00] help how you think about discipline. So the first part is your mindset. And I know that this seems silly to talk about mindset when it comes to discipline, but in every coaching program that I have, mindset is the key piece to it because I have realized over time I've gotten so much better with my mindset and that.
Been what has really controlled my stress. When other people are stressed about things, I don't think they're that big of a deal, and it really comes from my mindset. It's how I've been able to change my thinking over time. It's how I've been able to just be more positive in the leadership role, even when things are really stressful.
And so. If you're feeling reactive all the time, everything feels heavier. And if you aren't managing your mindset and you're feeling reactive and you're upset and maybe you are, , upset with teachers or students or parents, or you feel like there's a lack of support or your district and you're playing the blame game, you know that's creating negative thoughts.
I always talk about my t cycle, , your thoughts, create your emotions, which create your actions. And so. If [00:06:00] you're feeling really negative towards any group in the building, it's gonna create these negative thoughts and negative emotions, negative actions, and so I've had to just stop, right?
If I find myself feeling negative about kids, teachers, or parents, I have to stop and think about where's that coming from, , and come from a place of empathy that always helps me a lot. , Is to come from a place of empathy. And then if I'm feeling overwhelmed, like there are days where I have a lot of discipline in my building, there are some extreme discipline, issues in my own building and.
I have to find myself just staying calm and really talking to myself that I will take this one situation at a time. There are times when there's a big group of students in my office and I'm working through some, , difficult situations, and I just tell myself, I will take this. Situation one step at a time.
The other piece to my mindset is I don't absorb teacher frustration if teachers are frustrated. I want to understand why I want to support them, but I can't absorb that frustration myself, and I've learned that over time. [00:07:00] I am the leader of the building. I can't react. I can't get emotional. I have to stay in a space where I'm leading from the things that I can control.
So that's a big piece of my mindset is what in this situation can I control? And how can I support the teachers in that? And I always try to have that attitude, but there are some times where I just have to take a breath and know that it's not my frustration or not my emotion to carry. So that's been a huge thing with my mindset.
So I really encourage you to think about your mindset. The second one is to think about consequences that make sense. So again, , I talked about briefly earlier, in elementary especially, it feels like our hands are tied with consequences and there's only limited things that we can do, but it's really important that we match the student's behavior to our response.
. If it's available to do a restorative, , consequence. I always think that's best. You know, if,, If the student made a mess, have them , clean it up. If a student was [00:08:00] unkind, have them be kind. How can you really make that , restorative somehow?
. And then creating clarity so staff understands the decisions around consequences. I'd have to do this a lot, and it's not about being defensive. This is really important. It's not about being emotional and defensive with staff, but I try to explain to them, if they want a student sent home, this might be a student that wants to go home.
And if I'm giving them what they want, it's no longer a consequence. So having that conversation of the why, people need to hear that, and I think it's really important that we're able to have those clarifying conversations without being defensive. And then when staff feel like nothing happens to kids, have a conversation about it.
It's hard. It's hard to have those conversations. It's hard to be vulnerable. It's hard to open yourself up to, , maybe I've seen where staff yell, they get upset, they cry, but it's okay. Like they are feeling a very strong emotion towards this. And so it's. Letting people vent that out and having conversations [00:09:00] with you, taking in the pieces that you can and trying to control the pieces of it that you can control, but thinking about the consequences that you're giving kids, are you happy with those consequences?
I always say at the end of the day, we as the administrators have to live with the consequences that we're giving kids, and so if we're going too harsh, we have to live with that. If we're going too easy, we have to live with that, and so we have to feel really confident in those consequences that we give.
The third thing is having a repeatable system. So every day you should not be reinventing how you do discipline. And so what I mean about this is clear flow of behaviors. Knowing what is a classroom managed behavior, an office managed behavior, having communication with the staff about that. , Knowing how you want to handle discipline, so I talk a lot about with the teachers.
, We had a lot of growing pains through who's recording the data, . They put in office referrals, but sometimes they've already handled the situation. So really having a system where you know, which situations people are [00:10:00] putting in as a referral, you're supposed to handle, what does that look like?
And having that consistent communication and then making sure you're reaching out to parents, right? , If you're handling the discipline, maybe the system is that, then you reach out to parents. I know that's how I do it. I record that in the discipline referral. . Knowing that I'm letting parents know about what consequences were given, what situation happened, all of that.
So making sure that with your discipline, there's some sort of repeatable system that you're doing. It's so easy with different situations to forget a step, to forget to call the parent, to forget, to notify the teacher about what happened with the discipline. To make sure that you are talking to kids when a discipline situation happens.
But if you have a system. It just becomes easier. It's like a habit, a routine that you don't even have to think about. So that's why those systems are so important so that you make sure that you're not missing a step. And then the fourth thing is leading conversations without carrying it. So this is kind of what I've talked about with the emotions, but you have to hold [00:11:00] boundaries without carrying the weight of all of the emotions that come with discipline.
Trust me, I get frustrated sometimes dealing with students. , And so I have to manage my emotions, right? Like I've talked to kids about the same situation, and so I have to manage my emotion and remember that I'm the adult. It's the same when I'm working with teachers, when I'm having conversations with teachers, I want to let them vent.
I want to let them share their frustrations. But I have to manage my own emotions and I have to know what I can control and what I can't. Same with parents. I have to manage my emotions in those situations I have to. Detach myself from the emotion of the situation and just focus on the facts. We always say fact over fiction, , because we really are in discipline focusing on the facts of the situation.
We don't wanna be focusing on the emotional piece of it. And I found myself early on in my career really getting emotional if something happened and I would discipline out of emotion. Where I would make a consequence like super harsh because of the emotion I was [00:12:00] feeling from it. And so it's really about being able to detach yourself from those emotions, not only with teachers and parents, but with kids as well.
After thinking about this four part structure, your mindset, consequences that make sense, a repeatable system, and leading conversations without carrying the emotion, I want you to think about how well you do in each of those areas.
Which area do you need to focus on? What is something that you could do to get better in that area right away? As we finish this school year, what do you need to do as behavior might amp up on how to finish strong? And what I wanna invite you to is I have a four week live coaching experience where we're going to be talking about each of these four areas.
In week one, it's all about the discipline mindset shift. Week two, we're talking about consequences that actually change behavior and working through that together. Week three is building a repeatable discipline system, and week four is leading those difficult discipline conversations.
So this isn't just about learning, it's [00:13:00] really taking away. Practical strategies that you can use. , So when you think about this too, I want you to think about your tier one, even into your tier two kits. So there might be things that are happening. That you wanna change with tier three that you get from this, but this is really about changing that tier one or tier two system, the bigger picture, , not just for those one or two kids.
If you're interested in that and wanna join us, we start Monday, April 13th, and we go to May 4th. So it's gonna be Monday, 7:00 PM Eastern time, and this is where you can make actual change in your leadership, where you're going to be able to have the support that you need to improve discipline to really have these conversations.
Because what I find with principals is there really isn't a lot of spaces to talk about discipline, to hear from others about how they're disciplining and what I have. Found with the group coaching, , that I've been holding is we just learned so much from each other, sharing our experiences, giving each other suggestions, and really having those [00:14:00] coaching conversations and focusing on our mindset.
So if you wanna join us, I'm gonna put the link for the program, , in the show notes. Feel free to check that out, but just remember you didn't become a principal to be the discipline office. I hear this so often. It's not usually. The reason you want to be a principal, you became a principal to lead instruction, to grow teachers, and to make an impact with students.
And so discipline should support that, but it shouldn't be your whole job. It shouldn't take over. And so when discipline is clear, when it's consistent, and when it's calm and emotion free. You get your time, your energy, and your leadership back. So I hope you join us for the Discipline Reset Group Coaching.
Like I said, more information is in the show notes. Click that link, check it out. But this week I want you to go through this four part structure, think about where you need improvement and focus on that as you finish the year. With hopefully less [00:15:00] discipline.