Not all children and youth will respond the same way to scripted interventions. Children and youth require intervention strategies that are designed to meet their wide-ranging needs in order to be successful during and after school years. Yet, educators and counselors apply behavior strategies to promote prosocial behavior without exploring whether, and to what extent, social thinking caused the behavior itself. This article provides a historical overview on behavior- and emotion-based principles and discusses implications for using strategies that are based on developmental and learning theories that recognize human variance and facilitate emotional competence.