Neuroscience shows that humans develop their abilities for emotional self-regulation through connections with reliable caregivers who soothe and model in a process called "co-regulation." Since many troubled young people have not experienced a reliable, comforting presence, they have difficulty regulating their emotions and impulses. Co-regulation…

Since friendship and peer relationships are particularly important to teenagers, students with passive aggressive behaviors frequently and intentionally "set up" more aggressive peers to get them to react and to lose control, guaranteeing a behavioral consequence. As a result, the victim of being set up or "manipulated" also ends up being…

Learning is a life-long process. Professionals involved in programs that incorporate training for youth recognize the multi-faceted components that lead to building skill. In this article, Judith Schubert, president of the Crisis Prevention Institute, explores the relationship between staff training and training for youth. Ms. Schubert draws from…

Schools have widely used suspension and related punitive practices, in spite of their proven ineffectiveness. This article discusses the role of Aggression Replacement Training (ART) as part of a schoolwide positive behavior support initiative. Grounded in theory and research, ART focuses on the proactive teaching of acceptable behaviors to…

A long-established agency for troubled children was following a philosophy based on behavioral control and treatment of pathology. As staff examined their beliefs about the process of change, the climate evolved from enforcing behavior control to empowering youth to develop positive strengths. A charter school was created and new behavior…