Who's Driving Your Car?

October 17, 2007
Total Behavior

I've learned that despite the fact that students are quick to tell you that only they can control themselves, they really don't believe it. Whenever they are asked why they chose the behavior they chose, they will undoubtedly say "because he/she did something to me first" With this in mind, Vicki and I taught the student about total behavior and they now know why we keep asking them Who's driving your car?

We used running as our example. We asked four students to come up to the front of the room. One student was asked to show the action of running, another was asked to represent the thoughts a runner would be thinking, the third showed the physical responses to running and the fourth illustrated a runner's feelings while running.

Once we had all four "wheels spinning" we asked them to stop and then gave them a visual representation of a car in order to complete the analogy. The front right wheel of the car represented the action while the front left represents the thinking that took place. The back left was the emotional reaction to the running and the back right was the physiological reactions the body went through while carrying out the action. I hope you can picture this in your mind, as I have been unsuccessful in importing my drawing of a car.....

We then explained that the front wheels, the action and thoughts, are driving and directing the car while the back wheels, the physiology and emotions tend to follow along. All four part are there at the same time and if we change any one of the parts the others will change as well.

Translated into middle school language this meant that all behavior is total behavior. If they are angry, it is because they are choosing to be angry...no one is making them feel that way. They struggled with this idea because most believe that they can't really control how they feel. In order to illustrate this, we ran through another scenario. In this example, they were having a fight with their parents about something when the phone rings. The call is for them and upon hearing their best friends voice on the other end, they choose to be upbeat and happy rather than the anger of a few seconds ago. We made it very clear that feelings are acceptable, however punching someone because you are angry is not. So when student A grabs your notebook and you get upset, you can choose to grab it back and yell loudly, or you can ask nicely for it back. You can choose to let something ruin your day and possibly everyone else's or you can let it go.

This is tough not only for students but also for adults. We do indeed have the ability to drive our own car....why then do we all at times choose to let others have that control?