Inclusive Behavior Management Tip 8:
Target Your Response Based on the Crisis Cycle
Updated: December 15, 2025. Reviewer: Dr. Rose Sebastian, Ed.D.
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Know What to Say, When
Think of a student who is pretty calm. Then they get some bad new from home and get a little agitated. Then they find out that their girlfriend is walking with someone else and get enraged. Then they see a pic of her kissing someone else and they explode. Then post explosion they stay agitated for a bit, yelling and cussing. Then maybe they cry or put their head down and look sad– and then they are calm again.
This is called the crisis cycle. As students move through it, we have to change how we interact. When a kid is throwing a table, it isn’t the right moment to have a philosophical conversation.
Here are the basics of the cycle– but there is a lot more to learn! This site has a nice graphic of the cycle. This one has a more detailed explanation. Finally, this one has a nice list of what to do/say at each stage.
Understanding the Crisis Cycle
Baseline
Yawn. Boring. This is before the drama starts, when you have a deep conversation with a student and there are no red flags. You can plan for the future, talk through options, and act normal.
Trigger
Then bam. Something happens. The student gets triggered. They haven’t exploded yet but they aren’t acting normal. If you can, you figure out the trigger and address it– but mostly you try to do a lot of rehearsal at baseline state so that the student is ready to cope when that trigger hits.
Escalation
If you’re lucky, the student uses their self-regulation strategies at the trigger and they go back to baseline. If you aren’t, the student starts to escalate. Little things suddenly matter a lot and it might seem like everything you say or do is wrong. Try to offer contained choices– this or that. Show empathy. Offer a safe space to calm down. See if you can help them use their coping strategies. The goal is to get them to move down the escalation ladder back to baseline.
Crisis
This is the explosion. The fight, the throwing of a desk, the storming out of class and punching a wall. Your job is to focus on safety. Move other students away. Back away yourself. The focus here is on safety. Call for help. Keep what you say to the student short and simple. At this stage, students aren’t processing what you say so you have to be as simple as possible.
De-escalation
No crisis lasts forever. At some point, the worst of the crisis seems over, but the student is not calm. Maybe they get mad all over again and re-escalate. Maybe they are just breathing hard or doing atypical behaviors. The goal here is not to engage in deep conversation to keep the student coming down the ladder. Give them a safe space to be. Keep things simple and calm. Don’t talk through what happened– just focus on calming the student.
Stabilization and Recovery
The student is now de-escalated. They are acting and talking normally– and breathing normally. This is when you start to rehash the incident and to work on problem solving and learning from what happened so that the crisis doesn’t happen again. This is where you plan for the future and discuss any consequences. Once that is done, if the student stays calm, you are back at baseline, really hoping the cycle doesn’t start again.
