Webinar Review: "Success with Strong-willed, Stubborn, or Downright Defiant Kids"

I just finished watching Dr. Charles Fay’s on-demand webinar. (You can order it, here.) 

Well, I shouldn’t say “just finished watching”, I should say:

           I just began changing the way I look at myself and my students. 

As an avid devotee of Love and Logic principles, I went into the webinar with many expectations and a few presumptions. For example, I anticipated that I’d be learning some great stuff, but I also figured eh, recorded presentation. Happily, Dr. Fay not only exceeded my expectations, but also my presumptions. At least five times over the course of my three viewings (I decided to watch the parts separately), my husband asked me, “What in the world are you watching?”

That’s because I found myself nodding, smiling, laughing, furiously typing, making strange noises (awww), intermittently calling out “Gold! Garbage!” or “Nooooo problem,” and at one point, holding back a few tears.  He could not imagine what video I had put on. 

I appreciate that Dr. Fay has a presentation style that immediately engages your interest. His knack for timing as well as his use of vivid facial expression do help us overcome the relative stillness of the recording and presentation.  I also appreciate that I could stop, pause,  and go back, things that the face-to-face participants could not do. But more than anything, I recognize the value of the message he offers to those of us who are dealing with some pretty difficult situations with stubborn and defiant students. 

The strategies offered are clear and immediately relevant to the classroom. Those, coupled with the painfully familiar examples (Do I really say those things to 

students?), afford both new and veteran teachers solid, tangible things to do along the spectrum of behavioral issues we encounter every day.

The “Three Es of Love and Logic are also very clear.  And I cringed as I saw where, exactly, I tended to mis-step, and then I thought, “My gosh, Fay!  Help us deal with other adults!!” 

Are we not our own worst enemies when it comes to setting examples, letting experience guide learning, and empathizing?  Here's a place to learn how to overcome that!

This webinar’s cost is far outweighed by the change it can invoke in your classroom. The accompanying workbook alone is teacher gold.  

If you find that a student (or students) is sometimes holding your class hostage with his or her stubborn or defiant behavior, you’ll want to check out these strategies and see how, exactly, you can develop a mindset that can cope with just about anything kids can throw at you.   

Pardon me while I let my 21 year-old son’s poor decision—to spend money on a t-shirt instead of gas to go to work—do the teaching… 

Mindy and some of her former students wrote Transparent Teaching of Adolescents, a discussion of effective teaching strategies for high school.