That was the moment I understood what adultism looks like in practice.

By the time we got into the middle of the crowd, Jasmine was there. She was standing between two girls who looked like they were about to fight, arms out, voice raised, talking them down. She had gotten there before us. She had seen the conflict building, she had moved into the space, and she had done exactly what we were trained to do: she had used the tools she had to de-escalate a situation that would have ended in suspension for someone.

And we almost grabbed her anyway. Our protocol for crowd control dictated immediate adult intervention and student removal, regardless of the student's role.

The principal stopped us. She saw what I missed in the split second before we rushed in: Jasmine wasn't the problem. Jasmine was the solution. But our training, our reflexes, our default mindset had already decided what role Jasmine played in every conflict she entered. We saw a crowd gathering and we saw Jasmine moving toward it, and our brains completed the story before the scene did. We had labeled her before we arrived.

That is adultism. It is the reflex that assumes student behavior is the obstacle and adult intervention is the answer. It is the mental shortcut that sees a student with a discipline history and assumes they are the aggressor before they open their mouth. It is the perversion of the societal agreement that says adults care for children, a perversion that uses the power that agreement grants us for our own convenience rather than for the child's maximization.

The Societal Agreement and Its Perversion

There is an unspoken agreement in every school building. Adults are granted authority over students because students are not yet fully formed. They do not have the life experience, the neurological development, or the legal standing to make all their own decisions. That agreement exists to protect them, to guide them, to create the conditions where they can grow into who they are becoming. It is a necessary hierarchy (more students than adults, adults holding the ultimate authority) because children need adults to hold that space for them.

I have no quarrel with that arrangement. I have a quarrel with how often adults abuse it.

The agreement says adults will make decisions for children. It does not say adults will make decisions for their own comfort. It does not say adults will default to retributive responses because those responses are faster, easier, or more familiar. It does not say adults will assume the student with the longest discipline record is always the one who needs punishment. The agreement says adults will care for children. When we use that authority to save ourselves time, to avoid difficult conversations, to protect our own comfort, we have perverted the agreement. That perversion has a name. It is adultism.

When Adult Convenience Becomes Adultism

Consider how adultism operates in schools. It shows up in the small decisions that accumulate into a culture. It shows up when a teacher sends a student out of the room rather than adjusting their instruction. It shows up when an administrator chooses suspension because it is easier than holding a conversation. It shows up when adults assume that a student's history predicts their behavior in every future moment, rather than considering that the student might have grown, learned, or changed since the last incident.

I have seen adults defend these choices with language about structure and expectations, and I have seen them defend these choices with language about safety. But when I dig beneath the surface, what I usually find is adult convenience dressed up as principle. The student who disrupts my lesson is easier to remove than to teach. The student who has a fight is easier to suspend than to understand. The student who challenges my authority is easier to punish than to engage.

This is the mindset that blocks connection. Restorative practices refer to approaches that focus on building and repairing relationships rather than solely on punishment or discipline, and they require adults to prioritize relationship over efficiency. Connection is the thing that restorative practices require because the work of repairing harm and rebuilding trust can only happen when adults and students are genuinely connected.

Connection as the Antidote: What the Shift Looks Like

Restorative practices ask adults to do something extraordinarily difficult: they ask us to prioritize relationship over efficiency. They ask us to sit with the discomfort of a conflict rather than resolving it through the familiar machinery of punishment. They ask us to trust that students, given better tools, will use them. Even when the student in front of us has not yet demonstrated that capacity.

That trust requires us to examine our own mindset. It requires us to ask, before every interaction: am I choosing this response because it is convenient for me, or because it will maximize this student? Am I defaulting to retribution because it is familiar, or am I choosing restoration because it is right?

When I think about the day Jasmine stood between those two girls, I understand something I did not understand in the moment. The principal and I had prepared for failure. We had a plan for how to contain Jasmine when she predictably caused trouble. We had built our entire intervention around the assumption that she would be the problem. And when she was not the problem, when she was, in fact, doing the very thing we claimed to want students to learn -- conflict resolution and de-escalation -- we almost stopped her anyway.

What would have happened if we had approached Jasmine with a different mindset? What if we had asked, before she arrived at our program, not how we would manage her but how she might help us? What if we had seen her not as a student with a history but as a student with capacity?

The adult who wants to build connection must first examine their own mindset. Before any interaction with a student, ask: Is this decision for my convenience or for the student's growth? Am I choosing retribution because it's familiar, or restoration because it's right?

Real-world constraints matter here. Time pressures, large class sizes, inadequate training, and staff burnout all make reflective practice difficult. For overwhelmed practitioners, a concrete starting point is this: before responding to a behavior incident, pause and name what you are feeling -- frustration, fear, urgency -- and ask whether that feeling is serving the student's growth or your own comfort. That simple check is a beginning.

Restorative approaches do not require ignoring safety. When a student poses an immediate physical threat, intervention that protects others is necessary. The point is not to never remove a student but to examine whether removal is truly about safety or about convenience. When a conflict can be de-escalated through conversation, that option should be equally available alongside any safety protocol.

Students who have experienced years of punitive discipline may initially resist restorative approaches. They have learned that adult intentions cannot be trusted. Persistence matters here -- research on behavior change suggests that new patterns take time to take hold, and consistent use of restorative language over weeks and months builds the trust that early resistance obscures.

The tool of connection begins with the adult's willingness to re-examine the authority adultism grants them, choosing to wield it for student growth rather than adult convenience, and to trust that students, given better tools, will rise to meet them.