Today I successfully controlled a highly emotional situation
And I had a revelation right in the middle of it.
During a typical activity, my kids were moving around on the carpet and a situation occurred between a student became upset after gaining negative attention through a series of tattling, accidental bumping into, and becoming embarrassed. This embarrassment only
caused him to become more upset when his yelling and fussing gained even more attention and escalated even further. In order to regain focus and remedy the situation, I removed him from the situation and tried to "logically talk him down" (by saying "we don't yell at friends", "I cant help you if you're yelling at me", etc.) all while he repeatedly yelled "No!" in my face.
When this didn't work, I placed him out of the view of the others and knelt down to his level. I am normally a patient person, especially understanding when it comes to children, but that is the moment when I realized how not-calm I was. I thought his behavior was ridiculous for his age, and I could tell that was affecting me. I thought to myself, "I am not helping right now." I did a quick self-check and adjusted my own manner and feelings. Instead of a "what the heck is happening right now?!" attitude, I adjusted to a "how can I transform this to a calmer atmosphere?" attitude.
No jokes here, but the positive change in our interaction was almost instant. I felt my face relax and I softly repeated his name to regain focus on him. How does he feel right now? How can I help him? What does he need? After a few seconds of this, I was able to start a relatively normal conversation with him and he was able to calm down in a separate area while I continued with the rest of the class.
This is where the lesson comes in. Through that experience, I was able to fully realize how much teachers have to be able to self-regulate themselves before they can expect their students to do it. These are just little humans who are still new to this world and even to themselves and they need a model to not just teach them, but also show them. Find out what they need and show them acceptable ways to react to stressful situations. Show them how to successfully interact with others. Show them respect. Show them that you care about them. Show them love.
Be safe and sweet, y'all.
