Inclusive Behavior Management Tip 10:
Celebrate Successes
Updated: December 15, 2025. Reviewer: Dr. Rose Sebastian, Ed.D.
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Celebrate the Wins
Celebrate the students’ wins– and your own. If your classroom is a little best chaotic and awful than it was the day before, reward yourself– and the students. If a challenging student gets through the day without challenging you, celebrate it. Hang your hat on the small wins– and don’t obsess about how far you have left to go.
Students today come to school with enormous mental health challenges and problems at home. Being a teacher today is like being a social worker who is graded on test scores. It is not easy– and it is not on you that things in your classroom aren’t perfect. So stop beating yourself up and celebrate whatever you can.
That also goes for the students. Celebrate and notice the small wins– the time they didn’t say that awful thing to their classmate or actually tried to take a deep breath before responding.
Behavior modification is SLOW and incremental. You can only effectively target one behavior at a time, and it takes week. So celebrate whatever you can along the way.
Tracking Progress
Collect Data
Sometimes a student needs more help, whether that is more services or a different placement. In our budget strapped era, you won’t get it without data. You need data of:
- What supports a student is given, how often, and for how long
- What the students’ behaviors are, how often, and how severe
- What interventions you have tried– documenting that you were systematic and tried each for at least 6 weeks (yes, that long).
Have a digital or physical document where you note when the student went to check in with the guidance counselor/whoever because checking in with that person is an intervention– and you want to document every person the student talked to.
Document what you do in the classroom too. Did you modify the work for the student to reduce frustration? Did you give them an alternate activity, let them sit in a preferred seat, worked with them one on one? Document.
The data is good because it can show progress. But for a classroom or special education teacher, the data is a lifeline that can, if a student is continuing to struggle, make a case for a 1:1, for counseling services, or for other supports.
Celebrate Progress
Behavior modification is hard for you and the student. Celebrate hitting milestones and benchmarks. That could be giving a student a treat or reward– but it can also be just acknowledging it to the student and giving them a high-five. It can also be a positive email home– that means the world to both parents and a student who is used to the bad emails.
Given how many behaviors relate to a student’s desire for attention, make sure to give them attention for the good stuff, whatever that might be.
And it is okay to celebrate that a student cussed but didn’t hit someone– it’s is still progress and that is what you are celebrating. If you wait until perfection to celebrate, you are going to be waiting a LONG time. So come up with systems to track progress and call out each incremental step on the way to success.
Don’t forget to celebrate yourself and your team too. Because it is hard work for ALL of you!
