UConn flags rising misbehavior in kids
- Hartford Courant spotlighted a UConn-linked warning on May 9: elementary teachers say disruptive behavior is rising even among very young students. - Brandi Simonsen of UConn says behavior should be taught like academics, using tiny repeatable routines teachers can model, practice, and reinforce daily. - The bigger shift is post-pandemic schooling — more teachers say behavior now steals class time, and schools are split on fixes.
Classroom behavior is becoming its own school crisis — and teachers say it now starts much earlier than people expect. The striking part is not just older kids talking back or tuning out. It is first graders wandering during lessons, kicking nearby classmates, or needing constant redirection just to stay with the group. That is the problem a Hartford Courant piece highlighted on May 9, building on earlier reporting and UConn expertise around what schools should do next. ### What is the actual news here? The immediate news is that the Courant pushed this issue into the Connecticut conversation with Brandi Simonsen, a UConn professor of special education, arguing that schools cannot treat behavior as something children simply arrive knowing. Her basic point is simple — if schools explicitly teach reading routines, they may need to explicitly teach behavior routines too, especially in the early grades. (courant.com) ### What are teachers seeing? Teachers are describing behavior that is more constant, more disruptive, and in some cases more intense than the old baseline of normal little-kid restlessness. The examples in the broader reporting are concrete: students leaving their spots during instruction, spinning, kicking, yelling, or struggling to regulate emotions early in the school day. This is not framed as a one-off bad class. It is being described as a pattern that has ramped up, especially since the pandemic. (courant.com) ### Why does UConn’s advice matter? Because Simonsen is not saying “be stricter” in some vague way. She is talking about observable, teachable habits — the classroom equivalent of breaking a skill into steps. Think short routines like where eyes go, what hands do, when to repeat directions, how to transition, how to ask for help. Basically, the argument is that behavior gets better when expectations are concrete enough to practice, not just announce. (hechingerreport.org) ### Why not just punish misbehavior? Because punishment only tells a child what not to do. It does not always build the replacement behavior a classroom needs in the moment. The UConn-style approach comes out of positive behavioral supports — teaching, modeling, practicing, then reinforcing the behavior you want. That can sound soft, but it is actually pretty structured. The goal is to reduce ambiguity so children are not guessing what “pay attention” means. (courant.com) ### Is this just a Connecticut thing? No — that is what makes the story land. Nationally, teachers have been saying student behavior is getting worse, and recent surveys back that up. In Education Week’s 2026 State of Teaching survey of more than 5,800 teachers, 35% said student behavior was “a lot worse” than the year before, and 64% said it had worsened overall. RAND’s 2024 teacher survey also found managing student behavior was the most commonly named source of stress. (today.uconn.edu) ### Didn’t schools always deal with this? Yes — but the complaint now is about frequency and instructional loss. Federal data showed 32% of public school teachers in 2020–21 said student misbehavior interfered with teaching. That figure does not prove things are worse today, but it gives a baseline for how much class time behavior can consume. The newer reporting suggests many teachers feel the problem has intensified since then. (storage.printfriendly.com) ### So what changes in practice? The practical shift is that behavior becomes part of instruction, not a side issue. Teachers define a few visible routines, rehearse them often, and track whether students can actually do them. That sounds small, but turns out small routines are the whole point — they give young kids something concrete to succeed at before a lesson falls apart. (nces.ed.gov) ### Bottom line This story is really about a broken assumption. Schools used to assume many children would arrive ready for the basic choreography of class. More teachers now say that assumption no longer holds — so behavior has to be taught, practiced, and reinforced like any other foundational skill. (courant.com)
