28/10/2021
Are we adding more fuel to children’s fire?
This is a simple image explaining the two ways a scenario can go depending on us as adults reaction.
Imagine this moment, a child about 2 and a half years old very upset that they csnt close their lunchbox properly. They try and get frustrated, try again, get angry, a teacher tells them to “calm down” and as they try for the third time, they then throw their lunchbox at one of the teachers.
The teacher then became distressed at what had happened, they were unable to control themselves, they yelled “I don’t get paid enough for this” and proceeds to tell the child off.
The child becomes more distressed that their behaviours has caused someone they loved, yell and storm away. The child became even more upset and starts yelling and then they run over to their friends block creations on the floor and hit them all over.
The poor child was already in a state of stress cause by the lunchbox, the reaction by the other teacher added fuel to the child’s fire and it got worse.
Did the child mean to throw the lunchbox? Maybe? But they did mean hit a teacher? I don’t believe so. Did the child have the ability to regulate their emotions? Definitely not.
If the teacher had been in an emotional safe space of calm themselves, this could have gone differently.
One of the biggest things we can do is adults is regulate our own emotions, when we are calm we can help children to get to that place too.
Guess what? That’s seriously hard. I know.
It’s not always possible and there is so much ‘work’ we have to put in as adults to get ourselves to be in a position to support young children.
Children need calm to help support them to move through emotions and come back to a state of safety.
No one is perfect and it’s not human to expect everyone to do this every time but being aware of how we can use our emotions to help children builds resiliency and emotional intelligence.
