Host Amanda Werner discusses how schools often misinterpret student “defiance” as willful disobedience when it may reflect nervous system distress, trauma responses, autism, or ADHD. She shares her experience as a former teacher and as an autistic parent of an autistic/ADHD child, describing how her child’s early “defiance” led to an autism diagnosis and how she previously blamed students and parents. Amanda reviews behaviors commonly labeled defiant (not following directions, talking back, unfinished work, leaving class, sneaking items) and explains how multi-step instructions can overwhelm working memory and sensory processing. She recounts supporting a student with severe outbursts by providing an isolated space and flexibility. She urges a mindset shift from “they won’t” to “they can’t right now,” using curiosity, questions, reduced demands, alternatives, and breaks to prevent escalation.

00:00 Welcome and Topic
01:04 Autism and Defiance
02:26 Teacher Misreads
03:38 Not Defiant Drowning
05:05 What Defiance Looks
06:10 Shoes and Support
09:08 Compliance and Meltdowns
09:52 Overload and Steps
11:38 Talking Back Reframed
14:07 Mindset Shift Cant
15:27 Curiosity Over Consequences
17:39 Wrap Up and Thanks

Transcript

Amanda: [00:00:00] Welcome back to the podcast. I’m Amanda Werner, your host, and this podcast is all about empowering students. Now, I want to talk today about defiance. Defiance. There’s a lot of that happening in schools, a lot of kids. Who seemed to be defiant, who seemed to be checked out, who seemed to be, um, not doing okay.

And I noticed a lot of teachers, myself included when I was still teaching, um, talking about how all they do all day is manage behaviors. So I think this episode is a really important one because it’s about. What we mistake for defiance, and I think [00:01:00] that

I’d love to tell you about my kid, um, they were diagnosed with autism in 2021. I was diagnosed in 2025 and in 2021 they were in first grade. What happened before that? Why, you know, why, why did we get this, this, uh, diagnosis and I’m just gonna say one word, defiance. Um, preschool and kindergarten. Just anytime I drop my kid off, there was, and, and then pick them up.

There was, uh, this. Misunderstanding. But at the time I thought that it was my fault. I thought it was my husband’s fault that my kid was being [00:02:00] defiant and spoiled. And, um, just a brat.

This is really hard to talk about. I’m actually trying to write a book about this. Um. About autism, about misunderstandings, about autistic behavior. So I I, I think back to when I was a teacher, before I was even a mom and I didn’t have kids. I taught for how many years? I think I taught for about eight years before having a kid.

I only have one kid, by the way. Um, they’re 11. And, uh, before I had a kid, I definitely [00:03:00] did a lot of blaming. Uh, I definitely, uh, just assumed. Defiance. Assumed laziness, assumed bad. Parenting, assumed you know a lot about the behaviors that I was seeing in kids in my classroom, but I understand now both as a teacher, a former teacher, an autistic person with a DHD, and a mom of a kid with a DHD and autism.

That most of these students weren’t defiant. They were drowning. And there are students like this in your classroom right now. Students whose behavior looks like defiance, looks like they’re choosing to make your life hard, looks like they don’t care, but what if they’re not [00:04:00] choosing any of this? What if you’re seeing nervous system distress?

What if you’re seeing trauma responses? What if you’re seeing autism behaviors? A DHD behaviors? That’s what we’re gonna be talking about today, and I’m excited to talk about this today because I’ve been wanting to talk about this a lot. I’ve been a teacher for 16 years and all of those years I had no idea I was autistic too.

I’m here to tell you right now that I got a lot wrong throughout my career, misreading my students and their behavior, and I think that I probably said some things that hurt kids, and so I want you to learn about this so that you don’t make the same mistakes I did, and so that your kids really benefit from having a teacher who’s [00:05:00] knowledgeable about all of this.

So let’s get started. So let’s start by naming what we typically identify as defiant behavior. It’s the student who’s driving you up the wall, the student who’s not following directions, who won’t sit still, who is back talking you or laughing behind your back, um, or the student who just never gets their work done is constantly chatty, um, is constantly going to the bathroom, is sneaking foods, sneaking phones.

Right, like all of this, and I want you to think about like, what does it feel like in your body when I, when I mention all of these things, like what is most triggering or angering for you? What have you assumed these behaviors mean about the kid? What [00:06:00] have you seen? And what did you assume based on what you saw or observed, and what was your reaction to all of this?

Me personally, I mean, I had a kid one year who would throw his shoes. Like he would get angry and throw his shoes around the classroom and run away and scream, and it was really, really hard. And just to put it as lightly as I can, I did not like this kid. He made my hard, my life really, really hard and I had a lot of assumptions about his behavior.

Um, and I had a lot of challenges and struggles helping him and trying to like him. Um. [00:07:00] And he, he actually did have a few diagnoses, but none of them were autism or A DHD and looking back on it, I don’t know. I mean, I, I think he was probably misdiagnosed, but

there could be a lot going on. It, it, it is very, very helpful for parents to seek support outside of the school, but also to seek, seek support from the school, the school psychologists, the counselors, things like that. Especially for these really huge behaviors that are like, continually happening every day, day in and day out.

Like a kid throwing their shoes around the room and screaming at the top of their lungs. Um, that’s that something needs to be done. Resources need to be brought in, you know, and the school I was at, nothing, no one supported me. I mean, we had lots of [00:08:00] meetings, but nothing really happened. Um, because of this, I had to figure it out.

Um, and what I figured out was that he needed a space all to himself in the back of the room, hidden from everyone else, like behind this couch. Um. And I, I did a lot of bending that year. A lot of, like, I, he’s not screaming, he’s not throwing his shoes. Like, I’m happy, you know, like a lot of, like, I let a lot go.

Um, so that this kid wasn’t, um, having meltdowns in the middle of class and I, I learned the hard way that his, um. Need for, um, isolation from the class during certain subject areas was very, very [00:09:00] high. Uh, he would read his books and he had his toys around him, and, and he wasn’t disruptive. And so tr forcing kids to comply is not always the best idea and often can cause.

Meltdowns. Um, so what I saw was a defiant kid, but what was going on underneath was a lot more complex and I had to adapt to that. Um,

so let’s go a little bit deeper.

So when a kid refuses to do something, you say something like, you give instructions, like finish [00:10:00] what you’re working on, put your pencils down, close your books, put them in your desk, get your math journal out. Turn to page 23. Start the first three problems like. Those seem like, like very clear instructions.

Um, but that’s a lot of steps. That is a lot of steps. And a kid who is autistic or a DHD, they are probably gonna struggle with all those steps, right? So, and a kid that’s autistic especially might be distracted by other kids in the room. Noises, uh, their clothing, they might be thinking about their special interest.

They might be thinking about recesses in 20 minutes and they’re scared ’cause they don’t like recess. I mean, there could be so many things going on while you’re giving these steps and. [00:11:00] Especially A DHD kids, their working memory can only hold two, two instructions and the rest of the instructions disappear.

So what this means is they’re not choosing not to follow your directions. It’s, they are literally unable to retain all of that because they’re so overwhelmed in a classroom. They might freeze. They might melt down, they might just not do the work. And you might assume this is defiance, but really it’s just system overload, right?

Like this is so important. Alright, so next, what about talking back? What if a kid is talking back to you or arguing?

I really relate with this a lot like. In my classroom, I always told students why we were doing what we were doing and why it was important because I always needed to know why myself, [00:12:00] autistic people, often the reason they’re defiant is because they don’t understand why you’re asking them to do what they’re what you’re asking them to do.

They need to feel like what they’re doing is important and that it matters, and if it’s just busy work. They don’t understand what the point of it is when they could be doing something else that’s more important, you know, like learning about their special interest. So, and they, they need logic, they need instructions to feel like they’re important.

Um, so, and a lot of times they need very direct instruction, like very clear, explicit, like one. Just give them one. The next thing to do, just one direction. Um, a lot of autistic people also are verbal processors. I can relate with this [00:13:00] as well. So I need to be able to talk in order to make sense of my very messy, complicated brain.

It’s very messy in there and very overwhelming in there. And so being able to talk out loud, um. Is important. And so, and, and with a DHD it can be hard to suppress your thoughts and you might accidentally say something rude. Um, because your self-control, your impulse control is low. And so they might say something rude accidentally.

Um, and so that’s important to know too.

I think that that’s pretty much what I wanted to talk about today about reframing, defiance. There’s a lot [00:14:00] more I could say, but I think we’re gonna wrap it up here. So. There’s just a mindset shift that I think we all need to have when it comes to working with kids. And I’m saying this to myself too, ’cause I’m a parent of a neurodivergent child and all of their friends come over.

And so just always, instead of thinking this kid is being defiant on purpose. This kid won’t do this because they’re a big jerk. No, you gotta shift that to this kid can’t do this right now. I’m not sure why yet. But right now is not, they’re not able to. And then get curious about why, why aren’t they able to right now?

And this shift in [00:15:00] thinking it can change how you respond to this behavior instead of thinking of it as they won’t and they’re defiant, you know, and, and having consequences and sort of escalating the situation when you think a child can’t. They’re not able to right now, or there’s something getting in the way of them being able to do what you’re asking.

You can start to problem solve and offer support. So an old response to students not working or not doing what you ask. Might be like talking to them really sternly. You need to start working right now. What are you doing? If you don’t start in five minutes, you’re gonna miss recess, or you are gonna go to lunch late, or you’ve gotta go to, um, detention.

You know, the new response can be, I noticed you haven’t started yet. What’s making it hard for you to, to get started? So do you notice how it’s more like of a curiosity stance so that you can [00:16:00] offer supports as needed? That is such a huge shift in the interaction that you have between you and this student that is supposedly defiant, right?

Like, it, it just helps things not escalate into some sort of, you know, emotional argument. Um, so just making sure that you’re always pausing before you’re reacting to quote unquote defiant. Behavior. Being curious about what are some things that this kid might be going through right now? And even asking them, ’cause they are experts on their own experience.

I mean, they might not know. And you could offer suggestions of what you think might be going on for them and saying, well, maybe is it. Is the classroom too loud for you right [00:17:00] now? Or, you know, like if they, they don’t know why they can’t do the thing or that they’re arguing, um, you can offer less choices.

You can offer, um, alternatives, you can offer breaks. All of these things help so much more than being. Authoritarian, you know, authoritative. I always forget which one’s the bad one. Authoritarian or authoritative parent. I don’t know. You know what I mean? Um, alright. I hope this episode has helped and, um, that it’s shifted your thinking about those kids that are really getting on your nerves.

It’s, you know, spring is around the corner and kids’ behavior is. It’s definitely harder and harder to manage when it’s pretty outside, right? [00:18:00] Like so I just hope that this has helped and uh, and if it has, remember share it with someone or someone’s, you know. Thank you again for listening. Bye-bye.