Skip to content

How To Deal With Overconfident Students? Find Out Here!

How should we handle over-confident students who are stubborn?

When a kid enters the teenage years, they often appear cool and believe that anything they do is right.

They are frequently over-confident or arrogant students, which further results in enormous disappointments and a tough time for the teacher.

With a classroom full of obstinate, over-confident students all day long, it is simple to feel defeated.

But try not to give up.

Let’s first comprehend what traits over-confident/arrogant students have. 

The Traits

Students that are over-confident/arrogant tend to be noisy and loud. They argue their position by speaking vociferously and strongly.They always look to the outside world for approval.

Dealing With The Issue

Make overconfident students aware of their overconfidence in order to deal with them.
That is the initial action.

One of the finest methods to handle students who are overconfident is to adapt to their carelessness.

Make sure your student understands that each individual student is different and has distinct abilities and qualities. 

Teach your children to take criticism well and to work to improve their shortcomings and therefore their skill in academia..

One of the finest methods to reduce arrogance is through this. Others are able to identify your weaknesses because they are viewing you from a different angle.

The Bare Minimum

Your passion for teaching as a brand-new lecturer can dramatically decrease when you are confronted by a few pupils who have exaggeratedly high self-esteem.

These students act impolitely in class because they appear to think they know a lot of things and are therefore correct in most of their opinions, if not all of them.

Since your position is just temporary, you may be tempted to provide “the bare minimum” as a teacher in order to avoid becoming annoyed or insulted by these children.

However, please be aware that it might not be the best course of action, although these kinds of temptations seem to be rather common.

It can be enticing to put in less effort if students don’t seem engaged in reading, learning, or putting in the hard work and reward the instructor’s ease in student evaluations.

The Disengagement Bargain

In fact, Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa analyze “the disengagement bargain,” a sort of tacit agreement between college teachers and students to achieve the absolute minimum, in their 2010 book Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses. 

The “disengagement bargain,” which Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa study, is a sort of unspoken understanding between college teachers and students that each will do the absolute minimum.

Teachers who read this book very early in their career may be saddened that the disengagement compact actually exists.

It most definitely doesn’t fit the description of the kind of teacher you may aspire to be because the teachers who may have had the most impact on your life (i.e., whose instruction had meaning for you) didn’t just perform the bare minimum. 

So you may make the decision early on to “give pupils your best” rather than be the kind of teacher who only performs the bare minimum.

It could help if you require a stable teaching position since it will give you more incentive to do well in your profession.

However, this book is still a pretty good strategy for dealing with overconfident or arrogant students.

After all, exhibiting knowledge and working with such students to enhance their work are the most obvious ways to show such pupils that they are overconfident. 

For instance, the criticism provided on term papers is often very critical and detailed though teachers may also try to be encouraging.

However, they may also give them the option to revise their assignments.

Consequently, this is what could happen happen, when a really conceited student writes an overconfident term paper.

The teacher rigorously corrects it, detailing all of the ways in which it needed improvement, the student would receive a C- (or whatever), they would rewrite it a few times to improve, and eventually they would realize that they had been overconfident. 

This has always been one of the most crucial aspects of teaching.

Students frequently don’t comprehend why their teachers do what they do or appreciate the learning process until later, in large part because the process itself isn’t always enjoyable.

So don’t believe that being a worse teacher is justified by the fact that pupils occasionally fail to grasp the significance of events as they are occurring.

Inner Security

Some say the greatest method to deal with someone who is overconfident is to connect with your own sense of inner security.

Nothing an overconfident individual can they say or do will bring you down if you can develop your own confidence.

So let’s further discuss how to develop your own inner security.

You can be caught up in the survival brain trigger loop given the current state of chaos and anxiety in the world.

More than ever, we require skills to cultivate inner stability in order to survive these turbulent times.

We can achieve this through generating growth-promoting mind stories.

Mind Stories

A mind story is a comprehensive interpretation of a situation that includes characters, motivations, and a theme story line, much as how a novelist would create a comprehensive portrait of a certain reality. 

If life is a game, then the goal of the game is to teach you to take control of your interpretations rather than letting social programs drive you.

Typically, individuals just let life happen to them.

They follow predetermined scripts drawn from the media, their parents, and society, and they let those rules guide their interpretations, which give rise to particular feelings and unpleasant behaviors. 

A framework for changing your limiting mind story and gaining inner security is provided below.

The MindStory Inner Coach book is where the model was taken from.

In addition to your ordinary commitments and anxieties, this life skill will assist you in managing the stress caused by the global pandemic. 

Using a 5-step procedure, this methodology enables you to alter your constricting mind stories.

Name the problem.

Distinguish the issue from the details.

Examine the restricted version of your mental narrative.

Examine a more motivating mental narrative

Make sure the new story in your head sticks. 

1. Naming the problem: Our brains process numerous objects and ideas at once. You can arrange your grocery list while considering the open projects for your company.

Issues should be documented for clarification.

By writing things down, you bring your thoughts to the forefront where you may use your Neocortex or higher brain consciousness to organize them.

2. Distinguish the issue from the details: Separate the facts from your interpretation in this step by avoiding the use of any adjectives, adverbs, or descriptive terminology.
Maintain your objectivity.

Even though this step is brief and to the point, completing these two tasks will considerably advance your search for a solution.

Try to sum up your problem in three factual sentences.

Finding answers and crafting a more inspiring narrative are the next exciting steps. 

For Step #3 & #4, we use the AVARA model.

A – Acceptance

V – Vision

A – Action

R – Reprogram

A – Attention

3. Examine the restricted version of your mental narrative:

Acceptance: In this phase, you express your unfavorable emotion along with the phrase “because of how I’m viewing my circumstances.”

For instance: Because of how I’m viewing my circumstances, I feel nervous.

By putting it this way, you are reminded that your feelings are not caused by outside events. Always your ideas, opinions, or interpretations.

Consider this. Another person might experience completely different emotions in the same circumstances.

Since these emotions frequently lurk beneath the surface of our consciousness, this activity also challenges you to consider your mental health. 

Even mature, grounded, and composed adults experience uneasy times when their survival brain conjures up dire scenarios.

You don’t want to argue with yourself about it, ignore it, or try to make it go away.
That only makes it stronger.

Understanding the problems and making room for self-compassion are two benefits of acceptance. 

Vision: Consider the future. If you continue to follow your present limiting mind story, what would be conceivable in three months? Be precise.

For example:  Because of my ongoing anxiety, which has given me several restless nights and prompted me to put off making a decision, I might become ill in three months. I’m not really thinking straight. 

Numerous researchers believe that persistent stress weakens your immune system.

Using the survival brain also turns off synchronicity, magic, and the phenomenon of things that appear to be emergencies but end up being gifts.

But the world changes as your perspective on it shifts. 

Action: What will your current perspective cause you to do or not do?

For example: I’m having trouble sleeping, spending an excessive amount of time reading and reviewing the same information on this virus, feeling as though I don’t have any decent options, becoming trapped in a state of bewilderment about how to go, thinking that every path is barred, and not making a decision.

How about your circumstance?

What steps are you doing that might not be in your best interests? 

Reprogram: You might investigate recent events that have made your problem more apparent in this stage.

Describe your stressor in the present tense.

For example: I wake up at 4:30 in the morning thinking about the 47 things I need to do to get ready for the move and fighting with myself over every decision, unsure of how to go.

So that we may return to it when you have the more empowering story in your head, choose a specific point in time in your scenario. 

Attention: Get to the more fundamental self-talk that is driving your current mind story in this step.

Although it may appear identical to what you wrote in the acceptance section, you may frequently get to something a little more fundamental here.

For example: I claimed that while purportedly helping others do so, I am unable to free myself from concern.

Life is working against me, and I’m not walking the talk. Consider your circumstance. What fundamental beliefs give you the most trouble? 

4. Examine a more motivating mental narrative:

In the fourth and final step, you create an empowering version of your existing limited mind story.

Therefore, having a written copy of your limiting mind story is helpful since you’ll utilize it as the foundation for changing your thinking. 

Acceptance: Re-frame the issue you recognized in Step #1 in an empowering manner. Beginning with the phrase “I have chosen to feel,” followed by a more uplifting emotion, and then a more appropriate meaning you could assign to the circumstance. 

For example: Because this circumstance is motivating me to examine my thoughts and because I am using myself as a teaching tool, I have decided to feel composed and in control. With fewer business events to attend, it’s simpler for me to make this change since I can concentrate solely on that. It’s pushing me outside of my comfort zone and forcing me to think creatively and ask for more aid. 

What better explanation can I give my problem that will make me feel better about it?

This is not meant to minimize the difficulty of what you are going through, but the human survival brain does have a tendency to overlook all advantages in favor of disadvantages.

Acceptance restores equilibrium. 

Vision: What is your possible future 3 months from now if you live from this more empowering mind story?

For example: By being more calm and centered, in 3 months I will likely have made wiser choices, had better sleep and stayed healthier.

Action: If you truly believed that the scenario described above was a done deal, what are some possible routes? Any approach will suffice. What actions can you take right away?

For example: Ask friends and service providers for assistance and never waver from your chosen course. Put a stop to all pointless activity until the move is complete. 

Reprogram: What is a similar upcoming event or experience that is now developing in a more empowering way? As if you were there right now, use the present tense.

For example: I remember this when I wake up in the middle of the night and tell myself that I can just think different things to ensure that I feel relaxed and in the right frame of mind to make judgments.

I don’t have to succumb to thoughts of survival looping. 

Attention: Examine your new, more confident self-talk in this step. Rewrite your limited mind tale by going back to it.

These are fundamental principles that you may not have accepted yet, but if you repeat them to yourself or write them down, your subconscious mind will eventually accept them since what you focus on expands. 

For example: “Every day in every way, I’m more calm and centred about the move”.

5. Make sure the new story in your head sticks. 

Pick one of the aforementioned action items, and divide it into manageable chunks so that you may start it right away.

For example, “Stop all pointless activity until the move is finished.”

Here are three easy steps to get started:

1) Two weeks later, send three clients an email to change their appointment times.

2) Shift the date of the book project on my calendar to two weeks from now.

3) Remove the following two weeks’ worth of yoga classes from the calendar. 

+ posts

A Wife, a mum and a Tutor! I am the Lead Editor at TheTutor.Link & also the Head Tutor there. I love teaching seeing young minds flourish. I also love blogging and sharing my experience on the world wide web.