GRADED: Behavior Intervention

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You’re not a behavior specialist. You’re not a Tier 2 team of one. And you’re definitely not the defiance whisperer.

But… if you’re stuck dealing with behavior anyway, you might as well make it worth it.

In this episode, I’ll show you how school counselors can actually win the long game with behavior intervention—without losing time, credibility, or your mind in the process.

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All names, stories, and case studies in this episode are fictionalized composites drawn from real-world circumstances. Any resemblance to actual students, families, or school personnel is coincidental. Details have been altered to protect privacy.

Chapters

• 0:14 The Behavior Question on Campus
• 2:23 Role Ethics vs. Real-World Demands
• 3:28 Post‑COVID Behavior Has Changed
• 5:33 Two Counselors, Two Outcomes
• 8:45 Benefits—When Counselors Step In Well
• 11:42 The Boundary Risks and Role Creep
• 13:20 Intervention vs. Discipline—The Line
• 16:00 Language That Shifts a School
• 17:00 What Works: De‑escalate, Debrief, Document
• 18:30 Grading Counselor Behavior Work
• 20:10 From Specialist to Behavior Leader
• 21:19 Masterclass Invite & Closing

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:08

I'm about to tell you something that might sound controversial. School counselors should get involved in behavior intervention. Not because it's in your job description, but because it's your fastest path to professional credibility and autonomy on campus. All right, so let me explain. Imagine this, and it won't be hard. A student is melting down in the hallway. And then a teacher sticks their head out of the classroom and says, Can someone get the counselor? If you have been in this job for more than five minutes, you know what's coming next. And I guarantee it wasn't in the grad school brochure. You know, the ones where the counselors are sitting in these peaceful rooms, not racing toward flying chairs? If that picture had been there, half of us would have thought twice about becoming school counselors. But here we are. We are the ones on speed dial when things get loud, when they get disruptive, or when they just get plain hard. So today we're asking: should school counselors act as behavior specialists? What are the real pros and cons? And how can we step in without losing sight of what we were actually trained to do? Hey, school counselor, welcome back. In this episode of our graded series, we're tackling the question almost every school counselor wrestles with. Should school counselors act as behavior specialists? Because even if your district says you're not responsible for discipline, your walkie tells a different story. It goes off every time a student refuses to move, shuts down, or blows up. So where's the line between support and discipline? If you're ready for some straight talk, my friend, a little clarity and maybe a touch of rebellion, you are in the right place. I'm Steph Johnson, and this is the School for School Counselors podcast. All right, so let's start this volatile conversation with a truth that I think we can all agree on. School counselors were never meant to function as disciplinarians. Ask us ethical standards for school counselors make that clear. Counselors avoid disciplinary duties and instead collaborate with administrators to develop discipline policies that are fair, equitable, and developmentally appropriate. Peer-reviewed literature backs that up. Research describes our role in multi-tiered systems as consultative and preventative, not disciplinary. Counselor prep programs are supposed to train future counselors to lead tier one systems, facilitate small groups, and analyze data, not deliver consequences. And yet, the reality on campuses looks so very different. When schools are understaffed, stressed, and stretched thin, call the counselor becomes the default intervention plan. And here's the thing: student behavior hasn't just increased post-COVID. It's fundamentally changed. Multiple national studies confirm what most of us are seeing daily. More intensity, more volatility, and more dysregulation than before the pandemic. Here's a number that should worry every single one of us. 87% of educators, almost nine out of 10, say student behavior challenges have intensified since the pandemic. The CDC's Youth Risk Behavior Survey showed a dramatic rise in adolescent distress with symptoms of anxiety and depression strongly linked to classroom dysregulation. Why? Well, because the scaffolding that used to exist completely collapsed when we were all isolated. Kids lost months, and in some cases, a year or two of daily practice in emotional regulation. And these months mattered developmentally. The consistent routines, the social modeling, and the adult coaching that build frustration tolerance and impulse control just weren't there. Many students returned to classrooms with thinner frustration tolerance, higher reactivity, and less impulse control. But there's another shift in this landscape that we also need to name. And a lot of people, I don't think, want us calling this out, but it's very real. Some families fundamentally changed their relationship with school during the pandemic. When education moved home, some parents disengaged entirely and never fully re-engaged. Attendance became optional. Academic expectations at home softened. And for some students, the message they absorbed was that school really isn't a priority. So now we're seeing the collision of these two forces. Students who lack the regulation skills they would have developed, and students who lack the foundational belief that showing up and engaging actually matters. Picture this: a seventh grader who thrived when school was online now can't handle group work. The noise, the proximity, maybe the unpredictability, it becomes complete sensory overload. Three years ago, this kid would have powered through, but now fight or flight kicks in and suddenly you're being called to the cafeteria to rescue. Or consider the ninth grader whose parents stopped enforcing attendance during remote learning. School became something you logged into when convenient and ignored when it wasn't. That student is now physically back in the building, but the internal framework that says education matters never rebuilt itself. And the adults are running on empty too. Teachers are fatigued, admin are stretched thin, and patience is a precious resource. So, yes, behavior has changed in our schools. It's not just louder, though, it's deeper, it's more complex, and it's more neurologically rooted. And that's why school counselors are being called to assist with behavior now more than ever. Because in many schools, we're one of the few professionals with any training in behavioral function or regulation. So we just can't say that's not my job. We have to decide how to show up in this new landscape without losing who we are. Which brings us to what actually happens when we do step into behavior intervention. Let me tell you about two different counselors. The first one was drowning. She was getting eight to 12 behavior calls a week, spending six to eight hours weekly in reactive crisis mode. She had zero time for her planned small groups. She felt like a glorified security guard. Her office became the holding cell for kids who couldn't regulate, and teachers started looking to her as the person who handled problems. She was exhausted, resentful, and seriously considering leaving the profession altogether. The second counselor started with the same call volume, eight to twelve calls per week, but she did something different. After every single intervention, she'd spend 60 seconds debriefing with the teacher. Just one question. What were you noticing right before things escalated? Within three weeks, her calls dropped to three to five per week. She reclaimed four hours for proactive work. Not because student behavior magically improved, wouldn't that be nice? But because teachers started catching patterns earlier. They began making small instructional adjustments and they learned to read the room differently. Same school, same population, different approach. That's the difference between being a band aid and being a consultant. So let's break down what makes school counselor involvement in behavior either powerful or problematic. In order to do that, we've got to talk about what we're bringing to the table. And one of the greatest benefits we bring is a mental health lens. Research shows that when counselors lead positive behavior efforts with developmental framing, staff begin to view misbehavior as communication rather than defiance. That's an enormous shift and one that can start with us. Also, students often trust counselors more than authority figures. That trust allows for faster de-escalation and deeper repair. We're not just calming kids down, we're co-regulating. And that's something that very few other adults on our campuses are trained to do, or let's be honest, can really be successful with. And you know what this looks like in practice. You're not matching the students' intensity, you're not standing over them, barking at them, demanding compliance. You are lending your nervous system to theirs until they can find their footing again. That is advanced clinical work, and it matters. Also, in the peer-reviewed literature, teachers consistently describe consultation with school counselors as the most impactful support they receive. School counselors can help teachers decode student behavior and make the instructional changes. That's true collaboration. It's not crisis management. And this is where the real leverage lives. Every consultation conversation you have is an investment in reducing future crises. But to be fair, each of these positives carries risk if we don't protect our boundaries. Research consistently finds that when school counselors are assigned duties outside their scope, like discipline or supervision or testing, our burnout rates skyrocket. I am sure this is no surprise to you. Role conflict is one of the strongest predictors of counselor exhaustion. Every time we absorb work that belongs to someone else, we drain the bandwidth that keeps us effective. But then we begin to walk the tightrope. We step into support behavior, but to the teachers, our presence becomes the consequence. To the student, sometimes being sent to you feels punitive. And suddenly you're playing a role that was never meant to be yours. When call the counselor becomes the default, it usually means tier one supports are weak. Studies show that when school counselors lead Tier One efforts proactively, referrals drop. And when they function reactively, referrals spike. The truth is your effectiveness at putting out fires can actually prevent your campus from building a fire prevention system. This is where it hurts to be good at de-escalating students in the moment. So here's where most podcasts or school counseling influencers would tell you to just set better boundaries and walk away. But I'm not going to do that because it's not realistic and you know it, don't you? Instead, I'm going to show you how to turn this liability into your biggest leadership asset. But before we go further, let's stop. And I need you to be honest with yourself about something. There are three signs that you've crossed from intervention into discipline territory. One, you're deciding consequences instead of suggesting supports. If you're the one deciding you're suspended or you owe the teacher an apology, you've drifted into discipline land. Second, students start avoiding you because they think you'll get them in trouble. If kids are jumping into the bathrooms when they see you coming, that's a reputation problem. And third, you're being asked to supervise instead of consult. If your role has become watch this kid or keep him out of class, you are being misused. And if you've checked even one of those, we need to talk real quick about boundaries. This doesn't make you a bad counselor, it makes you human, right? But you're a human working in a system that feels freaking impossible. What actually matters in these scenarios is what you do next. I'll be honest with you, I've crossed that line. Early in my career, I became the consequence. I didn't mean to, but when you're drowning and everybody's shouting for help, you grab whatever can keep you afloat, right? And it took me two years to rebuild my reputation from the person who handles the problems to the person who helps us understand problems. And I'm sharing this so that you know if you're there right now, there is a way to come back. So with that, let's name something that I think a lot of us worry about. If I'm intervening in behavior, am I doing discipline? Write this down. This is going to be important. Discipline asks, how do I make this stop? Intervention asks, what does this student need? If you can answer the second question, you're in your lane. If you're only answering the first question, how do I make this stop, you've drifted. Because discipline is about control. Intervention is about regulation and repair. If you're saying, let's figure out what happened and how you can fix this, that's intervention. And if you're saying, you're gonna have to come with me and come out of class, you've crossed into discipline territory. If you're helping a student calm, reflect, and re-enter, stay the course. But if you're assigning or enforcing a consequence, even a veiled consequence, you've crossed the line. And that awareness, moment to moment, is how we keep our integrity intact. So here's how you'll know when you've got this right. Listen to the language that teachers use when they call you. If they're saying things like, can you deal with her? That's discipline language. If they're saying, can you help me understand what's happening? That's intervention language. And your job is to shift their questions one conversation at a time. All right, so what's the answer then? We cannot avoid being called for behavior concerns. On most campuses, that is not possible, but we can control how we respond. So here's what works. And the first one you already know. Step in to de-escalate, but don't assign consequences. Keep your language grounded in regulation and support, not punishment or control. We also need to debrief afterward with staff. We need to have quick follow-up conversations, like, what did you notice right before the escalation? Because that builds capacity for the next time. And this is how consultation becomes leadership. Third, we got to protect the line. When we get asked about consequences in the moment, and y'all folks are going to try to push us into that box. We need to pivot gently. I can share what might help and regulate, but I'll leave the decisions about consequences to you or the principal. And then last, document what you see and make it visual. If you're called for the same patterns over and over and over again, my friend, that's data. So use it to advocate for systemic change. Don't just write down, Johnny Smith had five referrals this month. Create a chart. Show Monday mornings, always math class, always after transitions. Hand that to your administrator and say, we don't have a Johnny problem. We have a Monday morning transition problem. That's how you move from firefighter to systems leader. These moments are your chance to lead from within the chaos. So what I'm not saying is become the behavior police. I'm not saying to absorb work that doesn't belong to you. And I'm not saying to sacrifice your mental health or your professional well-being for a broken system. But what I am saying is that you can use these moments strategically. You can build influence while still protecting your integrity, and you can lead from within the chaos instead of drowning in it. So let's grade behavior intervention by school counselors. With regard to effectiveness for students, it gets a B. Because when we do that with clear boundaries and clinical framing, counselor involvement significantly reduces harm and models co-regulation in a way that very few others on your campus can do. With regard to alignment with our role, I'm going to give that a B minus. It's not our traditional school counseling role, to be sure, but it can be authentically aligned when we focus on regulation over discipline, when we look at consultation over rescue and prevention over reaction. And then in the category of systemic sustainability, I'm going to go C there because it requires intentional boundary setting and tier one investment. But when we handle that strategically, it builds the professional credibility that protects all aspects of your school counseling work. So altogether, that's going to come in to give behavior intervention as school counselors a grade of B minus. In the post-COVID landscape, behavior intervention has become one of the most powerful ways to build clout and authority on your campus. When you show up calm, clinically grounded, and effective in crisis moments, you'll earn the trust that translates to everywhere else, especially when it comes to being deferred to instead of micromanaged. Think about that. Every time you show up regulated when everyone else is losing it, you are making deposits in your credibility bank. And here's what that bank account buys you. The principal who stops questioning your schedules. The teacher who finally implements the strategies you suggested. The parent who trusts your judgment about their child. And the district that funds your additional training request. That's not theory. That is the career progression I've watched happen for counselors who master the balance. You don't need to become a behavior specialist. You need to become a behavior leader. You know, if there's one small upside to all of this post-COVID behavioral chaos, it's this. Campuses everywhere are craving adults who can lead through regulation instead of reaction. School counselors are uniquely positioned for that. Not because we have every answer, but because we're trained to slow the moment down, to look for the function beneath the behavior, and to help adults see patterns instead of problems. When we do that, when we respond with calm, when we document what we're seeing and we bring others into the conversation, we model what real leadership looks like in schools right now. Now, you may be thinking, Steph, this sounds great in theory, but I need actual language. What do I say when a teacher dumps a kid off in my office and tells me to handle it? What do I do when I'm getting called five times a day and I can't even do my actual school counseling job anymore? That's exactly what we're going to be covering next week in a live class called Behavior Intervention Without Burnout. We're going to walk through how this actually works in the real world in real life. And I'm also going to share the behavior breakthrough kit. It's the same resource so many have used to cut through the confusion and make quick decisions about behavior concerns. If you join us, you're going to get the Behavior Intervention Without Burnout masterclass that has practical strategies that actually work. This is field tested. We know it works. You'll get the behavior intervention playbook, which is your step-by-step guide to interventions that gets results, a behavior support flow chart. So you stop overthinking and know exactly what to do next. And oh, the best part of it all, I think, is the dysregulation versus defiance decision tree. Plus, I'm going to give you some podcast episode summaries with real takeaways that you can use immediately. So no more second guessing, no more wasted time. We're going to give you a clear plan to take action and to protect your role while you're actually helping students because behavior intervention is going to land on your plate. The question is whether you're going to step in as the band-aid that everybody else forgets about, or as the leader who changes how your entire building responds to dysregulation. If that's something that you need, you can find out more at schoolforschoolcounselors.com slash masterclass. All right, I will be back soon with another episode of the School for School Counselors podcast. In the meantime, remember you're not just managing behavior, you're modeling what regulated, thoughtful leadership looks like. And my friend, that matters more than you know. I'm Steph Johnson. Thanks for being here. Take care.