Some students seem calm no matter what.
Others escalate quickly, shut down, or stay on edge all day.
It’s easy to assume this is about attitude, effort, or personality.
But calm is not something students either have or don’t have.
Calm is a skill—and skills are learned.
A student’s nervous system is shaped by experience.
Students who have lived with chronic stress, trauma, unpredictability, or constant pressure often have nervous systems that stay on high alert. Their bodies learned early that staying ready was necessary for survival.
That doesn’t disappear when they walk into a classroom.
What looks like overreaction, defiance, or avoidance is often a nervous system doing exactly what it was trained to do: protect.
We often praise students who appear calm and label others as “difficult.”
But many “calm” students have simply had:
*Stable environments
*Consistent support
*Safe relationships
*Opportunities to learn regulation early
Meanwhile, students who struggle are often still learning skills others were taught long ago.
Judging the difference misses the opportunity to teach it.
For some students, the window between stress and reaction is incredibly small.
-A tone of voice.
-A correction in front of peers.
-A confusing direction.
Their nervous system moves faster than their thinking brain can catch up.
Without regulation skills, the body takes over.
Students don’t learn calm alone.
They learn it through relationships with regulated adults.
Before students can regulate themselves, they need adults who:
*Stay grounded during escalation
*Model breathing, pausing, and repair
*Offer support before consequence
*Separate behavior from identity
This is co-regulation and it’s how self-regulation develops.
Teaching calm doesn’t mean eliminating expectations.
It means:
*Practicing regulation during low-stress moments
*Naming what calm feels like in the body
*Normalizing the need for support
*Giving students tools they can return to again and again
*Over time, the nervous system learns a new pattern.
Calm is a skill, not a personality trait.
When we teach regulation instead of demanding it, students gain the capacity to respond—not just react.
Calm is taught, not demanded.
🎯 This week, notice a moment when a student needs co-regulation before correction.
📩 Subscribe to the Rise Blog for practical tools that help students build regulation skills.