Yes, Early headstat can see all sorts of unique behaviors. For a lot of these children, remember they have experienced some sort of trauma and their brains have been wired to be on high alert and in fear much of the time. Modeling is one of your strongest teaching skills. Model behavior and have them practice it. Any serve and return activities build the trust and sense of safety they may not have experience as a baby. Roll a ball back and forth, you push a car, then the child pushes the car and over and over. In moments of success or happiness find a way to include positive touch. So if they push the car gently after you push the car gently, you might high five them, touch pointer fingers, bump shoulders and tell them how nice it was to see them push the car gently. At this age, they need you to teach them all these social skills to feel comfortable just being at school. When emotions are high, obviously any deep breathing techniques you can do will help. I've just held bawling kids and breathed deeply myself and they tend to calm down eventually even if they can't get the breath in. Make them their own visual book if need be or add more visuals to the space. Find calming techniques they like. Singing, breathing, drawing, jumping, walking. Acknowledge and state their feelings: "Wow Casey, you seem really sad, today is a sad day. It's okay to feel sad. Sometimes I feel sad too. Look at me and lets breathe in and out really slowly..." When you don't know what to do, just breathe smile, and narrate whats happening with a calm voice. " Oh, I see we are angry, oh now you are throwing toys, some friends get scared when we throw toys. I'm going to pick up the toys, picking up toys keeps our classroom safe and clean..." Narrating helps you be in the moment and you don't need to find the right words to say. You got this!!!
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Becky Merklein
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