Positive Chaos

Have you ever felt that your classroom management turned you into more of a referee than a teacher? In Positive Behavior Principles, Dan St. Romain poses this question to every educator who’s ever struggled to balance teaching content with managing conduct. He argues that behavior problems aren’t simply matters of compliance—they’re opportunities for instruction. Much like academic skills, behavioral habits must be taught, modeled, and practiced to be strengthened.

St. Romain contends that decades of education have relied too heavily on reward-punishment systems that treat misbehavior as a moral failure rather than a developmental or skill-based gap. This book reframes discipline from a punitive measure into a teaching moment. His position parallels psychologists like George Sugai and Alfie Kohn, who emphasize prosocial, educational approaches (PBIS and intrinsic motivation, respectively). The heart of St. Romain’s argument is alignment: for discipline to work, strategies must reflect educators’ beliefs, and beliefs must view behavior as teachable, relational, and skill-based—not just enforceable.

A Framework of Nine Principles

Across nine principles, St. Romain offers a roadmap that mirrors the tiers of the Positive Behavior Supports model. The first four—relationship, ritual and novelty, channeling, and modeling—focus on prevention. They teach us how to design environments where good behaviors thrive naturally. The next three—attention, development, and skill-building—guide intervention. They show how to support students who need more targeted help. The final two—stress response and habits—deal with crisis and deep behavioral patterns, revealing how to de-escalate, shift habits, and rebuild trust.

This gradual hierarchy mirrors the PBIS “triangle,” moving from universal to targeted to intensive supports. At every level, the book insists we replace quick fixes with sustained teaching. St. Romain tells one story of a teacher who faced a chronically disruptive student and discovered that improving their relationship—not stricter punishments—changed the behavior. As one elderly resident told him while helping a defiant child crawl out from behind a piano, “The only thing that really matters is relationships.” That sentiment becomes the emotional foundation of all nine principles.

From Punishment to Teaching

St. Romain’s framework grew out of frustration—seeing classrooms where teachers were caught in cycles of redirection, consequence, and resentment. His insight was to transform discipline into instruction. Rather than sending students to ISS, teachers could use that time to teach social skills like conflict resolution or self-regulation. Over time, the system redefines discipline as education in character, empathy, and resilience. He likens the shift to changing how we respond to learning deficits: “When a student struggles to read, we teach. When a student struggles to behave, we should teach too.”

This teaching lens requires understanding developmental levels and the neuroscience behind behavior. Stress, habits, and modeling all shape conduct more powerfully than simple incentives. In chapter after chapter, St. Romain blends psychology and practice—drawing on figures like Lev Vygotsky for the importance of meeting students where they are (their behavioral zone of proximal development), and Paul MacLean for understanding how stress shifts the brain from thinking to reacting. Each idea helps teachers reframe behavior problems as growth opportunities rather than failures of control.

Why These Ideas Matter

Misbehavior drains a teacher’s focus, morale, and instructional time. Yet, as St. Romain emphasizes, focusing on alignment—of beliefs, relationships, and strategies—can transform schools from punitive institutions into learning communities. When educators model empathy and consistency, they shape behavior from the inside out. Healthy relationships, developmental insight, and skill teaching prepare students not just for compliance but for life after school—to be independent, ethical, and compassionate humans. Character development, he reminds us, is the ultimate goal of positive behavior principles.

Core message

Discipline isn’t about enforcing rules—it’s about teaching skills, modeling empathy, and nurturing character through strong relationships. Every behavioral challenge is a chance to teach, not punish.

By the end of Positive Behavior Principles, you realize the greatest transformation happens when philosophy meets practice. When teachers shift from seeing misbehavior as a threat to viewing it as a teachable moment, classrooms evolve—from systems of control to communities of learning rooted in compassion, reflection, and skill.

St. Romain begins his principle sequence with what he calls the “foundation for all others”: healthy relationships. He illustrates this through a touching story from his early career at an early childhood center. When a child named Zach hid behind a piano during a holiday performance, St. Romain tried logical discipline—only to watch the situation worsen. An elderly resident resolved it instantly by talking with Zach kindly and asking for his help with a walker. Zach emerged smiling. For St. Romain, this moment revealed that connection changes behavior more effectively than consequence.

The Interpersonal Dance

Behavior never occurs in isolation. Each teacher-student interaction becomes a kind of dance: both sides react and adjust, shaping the outcome. One misstep—a defensive comment, a sarcastic tone—can turn a gentle redirection into a power struggle. The metaphor of a tennis match captures this reciprocity: every hit and return changes the rhythm. When we fixate on blaming the student (“He should know better”), we ignore our half of the dance. Shifting focus from blame to interaction helps teachers approach problems with curiosity instead of control.

Those Who Need Us Most

Students most in need of strong relationships—the bottom tier of the PBIS triangle—are often the hardest to connect with. They’ve learned survival habits: If I don’t trust you, I won’t get hurt. St. Romain suggests vulnerability as an educator’s tool. Being consistent, patient, and willing to engage despite resistance slowly breaks through these protective walls. Parents can also carry emotional baggage that causes distance. Understanding their hesitations reframes noncommunication as fear, not indifference.

Why Disconnection Is Dangerous

When students lack meaningful connections, warped beliefs fill the void: “No one cares about me,” “Teachers hate me.” These mindsets breed apathy or even violence. St. Romain cites research reviewing school shootings—where perpetrators felt excluded or unseen. No security system, he argues, can fix that. The antidote is human connection. A single adult relationship can anchor a student’s sense of belonging and prevent desperation.

Building Relationships Intentionally

St. Romain provides clear strategies that scale: have individual chats rather than group admonishments, talk about non-school topics, notice haircuts or mood changes, praise privately, and match mentors with students who truly connect. Give students leadership roles that signal trust, and allow counselors space to focus on emotional development. These cumulative small actions teach empathy through experience. When teachers prioritize “knowing” a student before “fixing” them, disciplinary issues often dissolve naturally.

Key lesson

Every behavioral problem begins and ends in a relationship. When you change the interaction, you change the outcome. Connection is not a strategy—it’s the soil from which all learning grows.

Why do some classrooms feel alive while others breed restlessness? St. Romain discovered the answer observing two classes of the same students—one engaged, one chaotic. The difference wasn’t stricter behavior management; it was the teaching style. The engaged teacher intertwined predictable rituals with exciting novelty, turning lessons into rhythmic yet stimulating experiences. Students crave both consistency and surprise, and effective teaching demands balance between the two.

Classrooms Then and Now

Older models of education thrived on rituals—rows, lectures, quiet compliance. But today’s world of instant gratification and media saturation rewired attention spans. Students raised on social media and video games expect novelty. The flood of information and entertainment has conditioned them to crave high stimulation and dislike passive routines. Yet excess novelty triggers anxiety; too little breeds boredom. Hence, teachers must balance stability (rituals) with engagement (novelty).

The Science of Attention

Novelty activates the brain’s attention networks, while ritual grounds students emotionally. Predictable routines provide safety and structure, enabling risk-taking in learning. Like psychologist David Sousa explains, the brain likes patterns but notices change. When teachers vary tone, pacing, or location, they trigger attention resets. St. Romain highlights how even moving around the room or altering speech rhythm grabs focus and prevents behavioral disengagement.

Practical Strategies

• Create strong rituals: consistent schedules, clear beginnings and endings, predictable transitions, and class handshakes or greetings.
• Embed novelty intentionally: teach in different locations, use visuals and props, vary your voice, integrate games and music, or let students teach each other.
• Prepare students for changes—novelty can initially escalate behavior. Over time, teach them to handle stimulation calmly.

St. Romain reminds readers that engagement is not entertainment. You don’t have to be a comedian; you must be a designer of curiosity. Personality doesn’t define effective novelty—planning does.

Core insight

Rituals create safety; novelty sparks curiosity. When structure and stimulation coexist, student engagement rises and behavioral issues decline.

How often do you tell students to “stop talking” or “sit still”? St. Romain flips that reflex on its head. Rather than fighting behaviors that stem from basic needs—talking and moving—teachers should channel them constructively. Trying to suppress natural impulses only triggers resistance. His third principle teaches that you can’t stop a flood; you have to redirect the current.

The Brain’s Traffic Jam

Traditional auditory-heavy teaching causes cognitive overload. Too much listening clogs mental highways, leading to distraction and misbehavior. By activating multiple learning channels—visual, auditory, kinesthetic—teachers relieve congestion and keep the brain engaged. Multimodal teaching isn’t just for learning styles; it’s behavioral prevention. Movement increases oxygen, talking aids processing, and both reduce stress.

Healthy Outlet Strategies

• Use turn and talks and small group discussions to meet students’ social needs.
• Incorporate gestures, movement breaks, and physical responding (“thumbs up if this makes sense”).
• Design classrooms with flexible zones—corners for collaboration, standing areas, walking reviews.

When novelty first rises—during new activities—expect temporary chaos. Rather than abandoning movement lessons, teach students how to manage that excitement. Practice makes novelty normal. St. Romain compares this principle to Geoffrey and Renate Caine’s “Brain/Mind Is Social” and “Learning Engages the Entire Physiology” rules. Humans aren’t passive learners; we learn through action and interaction.

Key point

Channel talking and movement into the lesson. When students’ needs are met proactively, misbehavior doesn’t need to surface reactively.

Children learn far more from watching than listening. St. Romain’s fourth principle insists that modeled behaviors are internalized. Every tone, gesture, and action in a classroom becomes a live lesson. If teachers preach respect but show sarcasm, students learn sarcasm—not respect. He recounts a student named Anthony who called teachers “hypocrites” for yelling to demand calmness. Anthony’s insight uncovers our blind spots: adults often model what we seek to stop.

Direct Instruction vs. Modeling

Direct teaching (explaining rules) happens consciously; modeling happens constantly. Manners, tone, resilience—these are absorbed unconsciously through repetition. The author confesses learning this painfully when his own son noticed he didn’t say “please” or “thank you” at dinner, despite teaching those manners. Children spot inconsistency faster than teachers realize.

Body Language, Tone, and Volume

Crossed arms can shout louder than words. St. Romain’s colleague helped him see that his posture alone triggered defensiveness from students. Taking care of facial expression, voice tone, and physical stance communicates calm respect. Volume and sarcasm amplify negativity; neutral tone conveys authority through composure.

Feedback and Awareness

Using the Johari Window model, St. Romain reminds educators that blind spots—behaviors we don’t see in ourselves but others do—undermine our modeling. Filming lessons or asking peers for feedback exposes what we unconsciously teach. Respect, he says, must be given unconditionally to model it effectively. Even when students are rude, respect is not earned—it’s demonstrated to teach reciprocity.

Takeaway

Students mirror their environment. Every choice you make—word, gesture, or tone—writes invisible lessons. Model what you want to multiply.

Attention is power. St. Romain’s fifth principle teaches that whatever receives attention—good or bad—grows. This truth flips discipline strategies on their head. Instead of shining light on misbehavior, educators must direct attention toward positive actions. He proves the point with the story of Trent, an ADHD student who constantly ran from class. Teachers chased him daily, inadvertently reinforcing his habit. When adults stopped chasing and calmly ignored the running, Trent returned to class unaided. His behavior extinguished not from consequence, but from the subtraction of attention.

Why Negative Attention Reinforces Problems

Students crave connection, even if it’s through disruption. For some—like Margaret, who preferred the adjustment room because “at least someone talks to me there”—negative attention feels safer than isolation. This means that yelling, proximity control, or publicly calling out students can feed exactly what we hope to stop. Over time, repeated negative exchanges turn into criticism rituals that students tune out or internalize as hopelessness.

Breaking the Ripple Effect

When one student grabs attention, the class follows. To reverse this ripple, engage the other 80% first: pull their focus to instruction or a novel activity. Attention can only stay in one place at a time—redirecting it toward learning dissolves the power of disruption. Planned ignoring and private redirection safeguard dignity while avoiding escalation.

Tools for Positive Attention

• Increase praise and encouragement; minimize public criticism.
• Use interactive teaching—gestures, callbacks, and novelty—to naturally hold attention.
• Use eye contact strategically: frequent, friendly, and consistent—not punitive “looks.”

Practice insight

Attention magnifies behavior. Feed the growth you want by focusing on positive choices—and starve the negatives through quiet consistency.

Why do certain students act younger than their age? St. Romain’s sixth principle exposes a frequent blind spot: chronological age doesn’t always match emotional or social maturity. Understanding developmental stages helps educators respond with empathy instead of frustration. This principle insists that behavior should be seen developmentally, not judgmentally.

The Fifth-Grade Boys

While running social skills groups, St. Romain worked with six fifth-grade boys labeled as disruptive. Teachers complained of missing assignments and poor attention. He discovered their problem wasn’t intentional defiance but organizational immaturity—they functioned like third graders. When he adjusted instruction to their developmental level, structure replaced chaos and behavior improved. Developmental mismatches were the real culprit.

The Many Ages Within One Child

St. Romain divides development into five domains: physical, cognitive, social, emotional, and ethical. Each grows unevenly. A twelve-year-old might be cognitively advanced but emotionally eight. Some children argue when corrected because emotions override reasoning. Others withdraw because social skills lag behind. These discrepancies require differentiated behavioral support—what he calls the Behavioral Zone of Proximal Development (modeled after Vygotsky).

How Adults Misread Youth

Adults often expect students to “act their age,” equating size or grade with maturity. This “ageism bias,” he argues, creates impatience and resentment. Just as you wouldn’t demand a toddler read chapter books, you shouldn’t expect a socially immature teen to handle rejection gracefully. Understanding lagging development replaces punishment with guided growth.

Practical Applications

• Informally assess social-emotional maturity to tailor expectations.
• Teach emotional vocabulary and self-regulation skills.
• Give leadership roles to foster independence.
• Be patient—development cannot be rushed.

Essential insight

Behavioral maturity isn’t chronological—it’s developmental. Meeting students where they are emotionally and socially is not enabling; it’s effective teaching.

“They never learn.” That phrase, heard in many schools, sparked St. Romain’s seventh principle—Behaviors are strengthened through skill development. He noticed that detention and ISS rooms were full of repeat offenders. The reason? Students weren't learning anything new. Teaching is the cure: when behavior deficits are treated as skill deficits, interventions become education rather than enforcement.

Why Punishment Fails

Traditional rewards and consequences focus on external control. “If you don’t behave, you’ll lose recess.” But long-term motivation must come from internal understanding. St. Romain encourages shifting from fear-based compliance to values-based instruction: helping students want to do what’s right, not manipulate systems to avoid punishment.

Core Behavioral Skills

He identifies lifelong behavior skills every student needs: following directions, paying attention, getting attention appropriately, respecting space, conflict resolution, taking responsibility, and making independent choices. These mirror social-emotional learning competencies and should be taught explicitly, practiced, and reinforced. He recommends role-playing, journaling, reflection rubrics, and connecting behaviors to logical outcomes (“When we use time wisely, we have more free time later.”)

Instruction over Compliance

Behavior teaching should mirror academic instruction: identify gaps, set goals, reteach until mastery. When students fail tests, we reteach. When they fail at behavior, we often punish. This disconnect weakens long-term growth. Just as in reading instruction, progress should be monitored and celebrated.

Teaching principle

Behavior change happens through education, not enforcement. Every misbehavior signals a skill not yet learned. Teach it, practice it, and watch habits reshape.

When students are in crisis, their brains aren’t processing logic—they’re surviving. The eighth principle explains that when overly stressed, the thinking brain shuts down. St. Romain retells an incident between an angry middle-schooler and vice principal. When the adult mentioned “calling your father” during the teen’s meltdown, the child flipped a desk. The consequence talk triggered fear, escalating emotional overload. Timing, not tone, was the real problem.

Responsive vs. Reactive Brain

Borrowing from Paul MacLean’s Triune Brain Model, St. Romain explains that thought (cerebrum) shuts down when the limbic system and amygdala activate under threat. Survival instincts—fight, flight, freeze—take over. You can only reason with students in the responsive state, not reactive. Hence, de-escalation always precedes teaching.

De-Escalation Toolkit

• Model calmness—emotions are contagious; neutral tone defuses tension.
• Ignore emotional outbursts; respond later to teach replacement language.
• Step away during peak stress; distance diffuses conflict.
• Use distraction or movement—send on a simple errand, change focus.

Once calm, teachers can revisit the incident and teach emotional management: counting, breathing, mindfulness. Timing ensures receptivity—the same rule applies when working with upset parents. As counselor Lori Desautels (Edutopia) notes, “Discipline should aim for behavior restoration, not retaliation.”

Essential reminder

You can’t teach logic to a survival brain. De-escalate first; instruct later. Calm restores access to reason.

The ninth principle closes the loop: chronic behaviors are habits, not choices. Once routines of misbehavior form, they become automatic. St. Romain calls this “behavioral compounded interest”—each repetition strengthens the neural pathway. Advanced interventions must focus on retraining patterns, not reprimanding decisions.

From Choice to Compulsion

As children age, patience wanes. What was seen as a skill gap in kindergarten becomes defiance in high school. The longer negative cycles persist, the harder they are to break. This learned helplessness fuels apathy (“Why try? I’ll just get in trouble again”). To rebuild hope, teachers must acknowledge habit strength and celebrate small wins.

Breaking Cycles Through Awareness

Awareness is the first step to change. When students recognize their own patterns, they gain choice. Discussing habits in class normalizes growth. Teachers can say, “Let’s work on breaking our habit of calling out without raising hands.” This reframes correction as collaboration, not confrontation.

Small Steps and Neural Rewiring

Practice makes new habits. Each successful repetition forms a healthier neural “road,” replacing the old. Just as Phillippa Lally’s research shows habits take months—not days—to form, educators must be patient. St. Romain encourages focusing on incrementally improved patterns: finding joy in flexibility, persistence, and empathy. Teachers help steer the interaction habits as much as students do—their reactions either reinforce or reshape routines.

Final thought

Lasting discipline means rewiring habits—both in students and adults. Change happens not by fixing children, but by changing the daily interactions that teach them how to think and act differently.