Promoting Child Resilience: Understanding and Building Skills for School Success

1. Understanding and Building Resiliency Tamra Cajo LCSW

2. Goals • Learn about the protective factors children need to learn in early childhood to prepare children to enter the school system • Factors that impact children learning these protective factors. • Learn concrete strategies that can be used to help to develop specific social emotional skills by age

3. Resources used for Training • The Devereux Early Childhood Assessment (DECA): Strength-based assessment designed to promote resilience in children • ACT Raising Safe Kids • SPARCS: Structured Psychotherapy for Adolescents Responding to Chronic Stress • Helping the Noncompliant child

6. Training Rules Be Reflective Be Open-Minded Be Adaptable

7. Discussion • What are some examples of stressful experiences that children can be exposed to?

8. Children are under a lot of Stress • Increasing stress impacting the children • Parents are more stressed • More stimulation from electronic media • Unhealthy living (ie food/exercise) • Little time to teach children to deal with stress • Dealing with Special Needs

9. Effects of stress • State of constant stress • Body is not functioning to full capacity • Shallow breathing • Tightening of muscles • Poor posture • Results: • Impulsivity • Children are hyper alert and become oppositional • Not able to control emotions • Difficulty focusing/concentrating/learning • Trouble with getting to sleep/staying asleep • Difficulty getting along with peers Source: Global Family Yoga

10. Risk Factors Source: ACT Raising Safe Kids

11. What can we do? • Build Resiliency • To be able bounce back • The ability to become strong, healthy, or successful again after something bad happens (Merriam-Webster)

12. How do webuildResiliency? • Building or Creating Protective Factors: • Skills that children LEARN to help deal/cope in an healthier way with the challenges of life.

13. Protective Factors Source: ACT Raising Safe Kids

14. Being Intentional

15. Protective Factors (early childhood) • Attachment/Relationships: mutual strong and long lasting relationship between a child significant adult • Initiative: the child’s ability to use independent thought to meet his or her needs • Self-Regulation/Self Control: • the child’s ability to gain control of bodily functions, manage powerful emotions, and maintain focus and attention • the child’s ability to experience a range of feelings and express them using the words and actions that society deems appropriate Source: Devereux Early Childhood Assessment (DECA)/ (Shonkoff & Phillips, 2000).

16. Protective Factors for School-Age Children • Self-Awareness: A child’s realistic understanding of her/his strengths and limitations and consistent desire for self-improvement. • Self-Management: A child’s success in controlling his/her emotions and behaviors to complete a task or succeed in a new or challenging situation. • Social Awareness: A child’s capacity to interact with others in a way that shows respect for their ideas and behaviors, recognizes her/his impact on them, and uses cooperation and tolerance in social situations. • Relationship Skills: A child’s consistent performance of socially acceptable actions that promote and maintain positive connections with others. • Goal-Directed Behavior: A child’s initiation of, and persistence in completing, tasks of varying difficulty. • Decision Making:  A child’s approach to problem solving that involves learning from others and from previous experiences, using values to guide action, and accepting responsibility for decisions. • Personal Responsibility: A child’s tendency to be careful and reliable in her/his actions and in contributing to group efforts. • Optimistic Thinking: A child’s attitude of confidence, hopefulness, and positive thinking regarding herself/himself and her/his life situations in the past, present, and future.

18. Attachment/Relationships Attachment is about teaching children to relate to others in a respectful manner and the ability to trust and form bonds with safe others • Does the child feel safe, secure and protected? • Is the child overly needy and indiscriminate in approaching new people? • Does the child show resistance to appropriate displays of affection? • Is the child likable? Depending on how we model relationships in the home and relate to the child, is how the child will relate to others.

19. Attachment Children learning attachment look like: • 0 to 18 months: Child will be able to experience a reciprocal relationship where the parents/primary caregiver is empathetic to the child’s needs • 18 to 36 months: Child is more aware of feelings or other and still enjoy adult’s attention; his or her play often shows care and love for others • 3rd to 5th year: Child is able to make friends and seek help from others when needed; they have more of a capacity to show empathy

20. Video Clip Still Face Experiment https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apzXGEbZht0

21. Small Group Activity Instructions: One person is drawing a picture and the other is only doing a commentary of what drawing. Give a commentary of what the person is doing Do not give commands Do not teach Do not ask questions Do not interpret The child is in charge of play

22. Small Group Activity • Work with the same partner, one person will share a story. The other person does not talk. • After the story is complete, repeat the story back to your partner. If not sure or don’t remember, ask for clarification. • Is that right?

23. Large Group Activity Good boss versus Bad boss activity

24. Initiative Initiative is about teaching children to navigate the world they live in: • Is it a nervous world? • Is it a scary or dangerous world? • Is it a safe world where problems can be overcome? Depending on how we teach the child initiative and then in turn how the child sees the world is how the child will be open to new experiences

25. Initiative • Children learning initiative looks like: • 0 to 18 months: Child is learning to move independently to explore himself and his surroundings • 18 to 36 months: Child is beginning to communicate with words and becoming more independent • 3rd through 5th year: Child is learning to make friends; she is much more verbal and is learning that others have different opinions from her

26. Video • It’s Too Heavy Video • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ycoXiEDBZk

27. Small Group Activity One person will draw a person. The other person will do a commentary similar to the previous exercise but…. • Will sometimes tell them what to do and what not to do. • Will interpret before the child says anything. • Will teach when the child is drawing

28. Small Group Activity Yes and…!

29. Self-Regulation/Self-Control Self-control is about the child’s ability to cope with problems, and to learn to respond to problems in an appropriate manner • Is the caregiver responding to the child’s different emotional states? • Does the child feel a need to be aggressive and fight to solve problems? • Does the child know what to do when she or he is feeling sad or mad? • Is the child easily frustrated when things go wrong? • Is the child easy to soothe, either on his own or with help, when problems come up? Babies and young children will cry and get angry. The goal is to help them deal with these emotions in a healthy way.

30. Self-Regulation/Self-Control • Children learning self-control look like: • 1st year: Caregiver is responsible for maintaining an infant’s regulation and will respond to any changes and give meaning to child’s behavior. Child will have various ways to calm him or herself down by accepting hugs, swaddling, distraction with toys or blankets. • 2nd year: Child is now beginning to be able to voice his or her disappointments and frustrations, but will be able to seek help, express basic thoughts, or even comfort themselves with favorite toy like a Teddy Bear • 3rd through 5th years: Child has more of a voice and is able to express a wider range of emotions; he or she is also learning to delay the need for gratification and resolve problems with lessening adult intervention

31. Emotional Literacy The ability to identify, understand and respond to emotions in oneself and others in a healthy manner

32. How to teach? • We express our own feelings in a healthy way • We give children permission to be able to express their emotions. • How did you feel when…..? • We help children label their feelings • We reflect with children on situations and discuss feelings • We explain ahead of time healthy ways to express feelings • We accept and support the child’s expression of their feelings, redirecting them to use healthy expressions of their feelings when needed • We highlight when children are using healthy forms of expression

33. Small Group Discussion • What are children allowed to do when they have strong emotions in your classroom? • How do you teach emotions in the classroom? • Do children get to express their emotions? • How often do children get to practice strategies to manage emotions?

34. How are you feeling?

35. Some suggested • Whole Body Yoga • Mindfulness – connecting with body • Meditations • Breathing techniques

36. Examples of differenttypes of breaths • Calming breaths: • Smell the flowers, blow out the candles • Balloon breath • Wings • Energizing breaths: • Reach for the Sun • Helping with Anger • Milkshake breath • Bee Breath • Release extra energy (good when children are over-excited): Firework breath • Connecting mind/body (good before needing to concentrate)- Choo Choo breath

37. Concept of Conflict • It is part of our life and of children’s life too. • We all respond to anger differently. • Conflict can cause anger when we don’t understand the situation (or identify the problem). Source: ACT Raising Safe Kids

38. How to Resolve Conflicts • Identify the problem and the feelings of everybody involved in the conflict. • Determine possible alternative solutions. • Evaluate the alternative solutions. • Act, choosing the best solution. • Learn from what you did to solve the conflict. Source: ACT Raising Safe Kids

41. Creating a Routineor Ritual in theClassroom • Definition: a sequence of actions regularly followed; • Why important for children? • Children know what to expect. • Can teach children on a regular basis a particular skill.

42. Sample Social Emotional Routine • Before Students Arrive • Write a class note that is fun and positive on board • Personal Greeting to each student with handshake and a smile. This would include a personal good morning phrase that includes the child’s name. • Class meeting at beginning of day • Class meeting at end of day • Students would reflect and report on one nice thing that someone did for them that day and comment on how they felt. • Personal Greeting to each student with handshake and a smile. This would include at least one positive thing that noticed about their day. Source: Resilience Begins with Beliefs

43. Small Group Activity • Create a routine incorporating opportunities where children can practice the protective factors of attachment, initiative and self-control.

46. Questions??????