Last week we spoke about how time spent in play and playing games with rules like pretending to be guards at a factory or The Floor is Lava can help children learn:
Direction-following
Self-regulation
Impulse control
How Children Actually Learn to Self-Regulate
Do you dream of a classroom of children who can self-regulate and calm when they’re upset?
….maybe children even help each other in those hard moments?
Do you wish you and your coworkers – and children’s families – were all on the same page with strategies to support young children who exhibit challenging behavior to learn to self-regulate?
The Floor is Lava and Old School Games like Red Light, Green Light: Brilliant for Teaching Self-Regulation (Research Based)
Today’s blog post is for you, if you’re like any of these teachers…
Roxanne, who is concerned about: impulse control.
Meenakshi, who says the children in her class throw things around in the classroom, even their shoes.
Suzie, who reports struggling with grabbing that has now progressed to biting from an autistic child with a learning delay – there is no obvious trigger but transitions can be especially tricky.
Rosemary, who says she sees self-regulation issues when children cannot do exactly what they want, for as long as they want (especially with the iPad).
M. Jimenez, who reports that the behaviors they see are: not following directions, resisting transitions, impulsiveness, hard time with transitions and sharing toys.
Jennifer, who has a child snatching toys, yelling "no" loudly, and hitting/pretend hitting.
Maria, who says she has lots of disrespect in the room. Children who choose not to follow directions or don’t acknowledge a direction being given.
Estela, who says lately children want immediate response to needs and wants and just can't wait.
Which one of those situations do you relate to most?
Teaching Self-Regulation Skills to Young Children
I think we can all agree that one of the things we most need to teach children who hit, kick, tantrum, or throw things is how to self-regulate.
Children need to learn to self-regulate throughout the day, but especially when they’re upset!
Those children who seem to go from 0-10 in the blink of an eye, flip their lids over the littlest things, or who hurt their peers?
Common wisdom in our early childhood field is that we need to help them learn self-regulation skills.
Yes, other skills are needed. How to recognize and name those big emotions.…how to ask for what they want and need (with words, rather than their hands!)
But first and foremost, I hear teachers looking for strategies to teach self-regulation.
Perhaps you dream of a classroom…
Preventing Challenging Behavior in Preschool: We Need Strategies that are Simple Yet Powerful (and Actually Work)
In last blog I said I’d share some examples of how simple yet powerful changes can prevent or quickly de-escalate challenging behaviors.
When we’re on the challenging behavior hamster wheel it's easy to think “nothing is working” and therefore expect that the solution must be complicated.
But, oftentimes nothing could be further from the truth!
Early Childhood Classrooms: The Myth of Complicated
What if instead of trying to cajole children to clean up and come to snack we offered them the opportunity to come to the snack table throughout a 1- hour center time?
What if instead of trying to distract or reprimanding young children who want to climb and touch and move we revamped classrooms so they could climb and touch and move throughout the day?
