Does All Bad Behavior Come from Unmet Needs?

Is it really true that all behavior comes from unmet needs?

A lot of people are saying in the comments on my videos that Ross Green's books like The Explosive Child or Lost at School give them the idea that all behavior, especially all bad behavior, comes from unmet needs and therefore What?

That it should be justified, therefore we should tolerate it, therefore we should have so much empathy for the student that we just let them do it.

I think this is a fundamental misunderstanding of how behavior works and probably also a misrepresentation of Ross Green's ideas.

I can't imagine him actually coming out and saying...

all bad behavior is a result of unmet needs now certainly if you have unmet needs that is likely going to affect your behavior right like all of us if we're tired if we're hungry you know if we have some sort of major need that's not being met that is going to affect our behavior but that does not mean that all behavior stems purely from unmet needs that if we have a student who's throwing a desk it's because they need a snack.

Like maybe sometimes they're hangry, but that's not enough of an explanation.

And it's certainly not a justification.

And it doesn't give us a behavior blueprint for a school.

Like this is so reductive and so narrow that it can't possibly do the heavy lifting that people are asking it to do.

So I don't know exactly what his books say, but people are taking away some ideas that if they're there, they're definitely not correct.

Because Everybody has lots that affects their behavior, right?

There are tons of things that affect our behavior besides unmet needs.

We have motivation.

We have free will.

We have the ability to make our own decisions.

We have, you know, random factors in the environment, sure.

But I think the one that's worth emphasizing the most is the one that we best need to train students to develop, and that is their own their own self-control, right?

It doesn't really do much good to say, oh, you threw a desk because you had an unmet need.

Like that is so disempowering to the student because it takes the emphasis away from their ability to control themselves, right?

We need to inculcate that ability.

to control oneself, right?

And to make good decisions.

That's what school should be all about when it comes to behavior is making good decisions.

So I don't buy this idea that behavior comes from unmet needs.

Yes, if there's an unmet need, it's going to affect behavior, but it's not the whole picture and it's certainly not the full explanation for behavior that should make us just kind of roll over anytime a kid with some sort of unmet need that we perceive does something that's not acceptable, right?

Because where this inevitably leads is tolerance of intolerable behavior, right?

Especially violence, right?

We cannot have safe schools if we tolerate violence.

That's what it comes down to.

And when we justify all of that violence in the name of empathy, remember empathy and justification are two very different things.

We can feel sorry for someone.

We can feel empathy for someone without letting them continue to get away with what they're doing.

And when it comes to violence in schools, we always need to put a stop to it promptly or all of our concerns about trauma and, you know, our empathy for students get pushed onto the perpetrator and we don't think about everybody else.

So let me know what you think about this.