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Restorative Practices for Problem Behaviors or Conflicts
Understand what restorative practices are and get tips on how to use these skills.
What are Restorative Practices?
Restorative practices in schools focus on creating safe and supportive environments through using techniques and approaches that teach students accountability, respect, responsibility and how to repair relationships. These practices offer students the opportunity to learn from their behavior and mistakes by guiding them to ask how their choices affect others around them and what impact or consequences their choices have on the learning environment, their home, or their community.
By using questioning and guided learning opportunities, students are able to understand and reflect on their choices and how to make better choices in the future. Restorative practices are grounded in seeking the root causes and circumstances of problem behaviors or conflicts. Rather than approaching situations as isolated or treating students as “bad” or “good”. We believe that by recognizing that students are still learning about themselves and the world around them, now is the best time to learn how to interact with others and the environment with success.
How Can You Use Restorative Practices at Home?
Restorative practices can help families build stronger relationships and resolve conflicts in a positive way. Restorative practices focus on repairing harm through open communication. This communication can come in the form of:
- Affective Statements or “I” Messages
- Family Circles or Conferences
- Family Respect Agreements or Contracts
The goal is to understand each other and find solutions that meet everyone's needs. Restorative practices help families move forward with empathy, accountability, and skills for preventing future conflicts. When used consistently, they allow families to grow closer and create an environment of mutual understanding. Restorative practices give families tools to overcome challenges in a healthy way based on openness, listening, responsibility, and cooperation.
Restorative Practices
Expand AllRestorative Conversation with Affective Statements or “ I” Messages
If you want to talk to your child about their behavior at home, you can do so using a restorative conversation. The goals of a restorative approach is to help your child learn:
- How to see their behavior from both sides or different perspectives
- How their behavior impacts others
- How to take responsibility for their part in the problem or the harm done
- How to make a plan to fix it and move forward
Step 1: Make sure everyone is calm. It is best to talk when everyone is calm, not angry, and is open to talking. When people are angry or upset, especially children, they cannot learn or understand clearly what is being said or discussed.
Step 2: Ask these questions, both parent and child(ren) answer:
| Question | Why am I asking this? | Who should answer first? | Another way to ask (or backup questions if you get an “I don’t know”) |
|---|---|---|---|
| What happened? | To hear the story from both perspectives | Child | What was happening before I asked you to stop playing? What do you think I saw before I took the ____ away? |
| Who was impacted? | To understand impact of behavior | Child | How do you think _____ might have felt when you did that? Who saw you do that? How do you think they might have felt? |
| What part can you take responsibility for? | To take accountability | Adult* | What is a choice that you made? What would you do differently next time? |
How will we make things right?
| To make a plan to repair the harm | Child, with adult support if they struggle to identify next steps | How will we move forward? How will we fix it? What do you think your consequence should be? |
source: Jeffco County Schools
*Adults taking responsibility for their part first is a great way to teach a child to take responsibility for their part. Taking responsibility does not mean you are sorry. It just means you know you might have done something that made things more difficult for the other person.
Here are some examples:
- I could have been more clear in my expectations.
- I should have waited to ask you to do that until I had your full attention.
- I wish I hadn’t raised my voice. This situation is stressful for me, too.
If someone apologizes during the conversation, you can say:
- Thank you. How can you show that you’re sorry?
- I accept your apology, and how do we make things right?
You can also use a restorative conversation if two family members are arguing. Have each of them answer each question.
Family Circles or Conferences
Families can use practices like family circles or group conferences to bring everyone together to discuss a problem or issues. In a family conference, each person has a chance to share their perspective and feelings without interruption.
What is a Family Circle/ Conference?
- A tool for having meaningful conversations as a family.
- Can be done in a variety of ways at a variety of times.
- Helps build stronger bonds and open lines of communication
What is a Talking Piece?
- An object that can be used as a symbol to show who is talking at the moment. Only the person holding the Talking Piece is speaking.
- The members not holding the talking piece have the opportunity to listen.
When should we do a Family Circle?
- During meals or when preparing meals
- Car Rides/ Bus Rides
- During Bedtime/ Morning Routines
- Preparing for Something Stressful
- Homework Time
Ideas for Circle Prompts for Home:
- Sweet: good part of your day
- Sour: hard part of your day
- Service: something you did for someone else
- Goal for the Day…
- One thing everyone should know…
- One thing I am grateful for is…
- Something I did well today was… / Something I saw someone in our family do well today was…
- I am feeling _____ about _____ because….
- Reflections after a test/ event/ or other activity…
Family Respect Agreement/ Contract
Respect Agreements are a way to establish common expectations for how the family will treat one another within the home. Everyone participates in designing the agreement and signs their name.
First, the family decides what respect is: what does it look like, sound like and feel like?
Examples:
- “We show respect when we use kind words to speak to each other”
- “When we are angry, it is respectful to take time to calm down before we talk about it, we should not yell at our family. ”
The family develops 3-5 statements for each section.
- Children Respecting Parents
- Parents Respecting Children
- Siblings Respecting Siblings
- Everyone Respecting Our Home
Everyone in the family helps to create each section and signs the completed agreement. Then the family hangs the completed agreement up in the home where everyone can see it. Then the whole family can use the agreement to remember how to behave at home.
This is what the Agreement looks like:
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Workshops for families
Learn how to create a positive parenting environment at home with our GISD Restores - Parent Support Series workshops. Sessions will cover restorative disciplines such as:
- Family Respect Agreements: Creates rules for healthy discussion.
- "I" Messages: Helps families use supportive and accountable language.
- The Talking Piece/Talking Circles: A talking method where everyone has an equal role.
Interested in taking learning more? Ask your campus to hold a training session.
*This training is hosted by the GISD Behavior Program Specialists.
Contact us
For more information, contact: