uses a solution-oriented language, focusing on the possible and changeable when working with
the student, and expressing to the child that…
All Students Can Learn Behavioral Self-Control
Now You Can Develop Therapeutic Teacher Skills
To learn how to cope with stressful or troublesome events, build positive attitudes and effective
life skills, and achieve their social and academic goals, schools provide the ideal environment in
which classroom teachers and related services personnel with the adequate training can teach
psycho-educational skills to children. Teaching psycho-educational skills to students relates
directly with the role of schools in preparing children to function effectively and to deal
competently with society’s demands. When we teach psycho-educational skills to students, we
are giving them the ability to understand and self-manage emotions and behavior, and we are
assisting them in developing resilience in coping with further troublesome events along the road.
Unfortunately, a great deal of this very much-needed information from the psycho-educational
literature never reaches teachers. In this psycho-education skill-building series, we recognize and
address this need. Now we can train teachers to resolve students’ behavior problems by applying
therapeutic techniques based on psycho-educational principles. Grounded in the author’s strong
psychological and educational background and expertise, the psycho-education skill-building
series takes full advantage of current psychological and educational theory and research to train
teachers in the child guidance techniques they need to become skillful behavior managers and
behavior change promoters.
Cognitions are ideas expressed through self-talking or self-images (thoughts) that direct the
processing of events (perceptions), and ultimately, behavior. According to the perceptual control
theory, people control perceptions, not actions (Maag, 1998). Cognitive psychology adds that,
although we cannot change what happened (the event), we can change the way we think about
