DCRC Blog

More and more, we are seeing pet therapy popping up in our communities. Often times it’s hard to put into words just what animals help us achieve, but our minds and bodies can feel the effects. The benefits of animals assisting in the learning process for both teachers and children go far beyond what we could possibly imagine. When we think about building and supporting resilience and social-emotional learning in young children, incorporating animals into our classrooms/spaces is an innovative way to accomplish this. Animals help teach and reinforce necessary skills that help children become resilient.
We all need resilience to get through life’s challenges. It is critical to start building children’s resilience and to implement social-emotional learning during the early years of their life, so that they can use these skills as they grow and develop into adulthood. Bringing animals safely into the mix can be an added strategy to help us get there.

Here are some benefits of bringing animals into the learning environment…

Co-regulation is when adults help children calm down during a stressful situation. Self-regulation is an essential skill for children to develop, in order to be able to successfully maneuver through life’s ups and downs. Building self-regulation begins with co-regulation.

The development of self-regulation is dependent on a predictable, responsive, and supportive environment from a trusted adult. Self-regulation is a learned skill that needs to be modeled and supported for the child until they are able to do it for themselves. A child with healthy self-regulation skills is better able to manage their emotions, make appropriate decisions, and learn more effectively. The most important part of successfully co-regulating with a child is for the trusted adult to be regulated themselves. This allows the adult to be able to provide a safe and calm presence to support the child during a challenge, not adding to the stress the child is experiencing.

Here are nine tips for co-regulating with a child…

Behaviors adults find challenging from children can come in many forms. The most common ones, or the ones we can actually see, occur when children are externalizing (acting out) their feelings. Hitting and destroying toys are just two examples. These are more obvious and usually get more attention. Many children use this type of behavior to express the complex emotions they have yet to understand because they need our help, more boundaries, more skills, and often more connection with the adults in their lives.

Another type of behavior that adults may see from children can come in the form of internalizing (acting in) feelings. Hiding under a table and refusing to speak are two examples. These moments happen when feelings stay inside and are expressed with more self-destructive or avoidant behavior. Internalized behaviors are often easily ignored, but they still require adult support and attention.

Here are just a few strategies to try out when working through either external or internal challenging behaviors with a young child…

Good relationships between teachers and families are important in order for children to succeed. Teachers and families have an impact on children in a special way. When these positive efforts are combined, teachers and families can work as a team to help a child. Wonderful, supportive relationships between school and home can form when we rethink our own role. In the classroom, if we think of our role as not simply caring for and educating children, but as helping families get off to the right start, then our goals change. As parents, we should think of our role as the first, most important and long-lasting teacher our children will have. When teachers and families work together to share their knowledge and expertise, they form a partnership to help each child grow, learn, and succeed!

Here are ten ways to promote resilience using home and school partnerships…

A young child’s learning environment includes outside spaces, indoor places, and everything in between – toys, learning materials, wall displays, and equipment. It also includes the children and adults who interact in these spaces. A well-planned environment reflects the culture, home language, and interests of all children and their families. The learning environment has an important impact on children’s efforts to build relationships, play and learn, eat, and rest.

What does a resilience-promoting environment look like? How can one transform an environment into one that supports the social and emotional development of young children? Here are some ideas…

FLIP IT is a strategy that offers a simple, kind, strength-based, commonsense and effective four-step process to address children’s day-to-day behaviors that adults find challenging. The four steps are embodied in the FLIP mnemonic which stands for F – Feelings, L – Limits, I – Inquiries and P – Prompts. FLIP IT is nothing new, but transforms best practice into a strategy that is easy to remember, applicable in a variety of challenging situations and portable. It helps adults in supporting the social and emotional development of young children and in reducing instances of challenging behavior.

This blog post won’t be getting too much into this strategy though, because there are key prerequisites that are extremely helpful to have in place before even trying the FLIP IT strategy – or any strategy for that matter – for the first time.

We must continue to find solutions that protect and strengthen children and families. Universal social and emotional screening in early care and education settings is one such solution. This process of systematically and reliably identifying those children who need attention offers a tremendous opportunity to intervene early and before the problems escalate further. And, based on a recently released review of 18 such screening tools, the Devereux Early Childhood Assessment (DECA) received the highest scores of technical adequacy and usability within early childhood settings.

Feelings are at the root of all behavior. When children have good feelings at their roots, positive behavior will grow like a healthy tree full of leaves. When behavior is negative, we must check the roots.

Children do not always understand the negative feelings they experience or why they internalize or externalize those feelings. Unhealthy or destructive behavior from children often gets big reactions from adults, who just want the behavior to stop. If we address the behavior without addressing the root feelings, the tree will grow unhealthy leaves (negative behavior).

All that being said, it’s not easy to pinpoint what might be the root cause of a challenging behavior. And when you do get to the root, what’s next? What does the child need from us in order to learn and cope in healthy ways?

Here are some common behaviors (leaves), possible reasons behind them (roots), and what children might need from us adults to help them along the way.

Resilient people tend to have something in their lives that helps them overcome challenges and move on in positive ways. The strengths that help resilient people bounce back are protective factors. Protective factors can be strengthened throughout life, and there are four key protective factors which all adults should continually nurture: relationships, internal beliefs, initiative, and self-control. Our team wants to help you do that!

We invite you to participate in a five-week Resiliency Challenge, where we will focus on those four key protective factors, and help you promote your own resilience – which we like to call “building your bounce.”

When teachers and families build strong relationships/partnerships based on respect and trust, they can work together to provide continuity for children and promote resilience. This is why the importance of teachers/caregivers building relationships with children and their families cannot be overlooked. With that said, it can be challenging for those relationships to form. Busy programs, busy families…we all know the drill. So we want to give you seven ideas for building relationships with children and families we feel are simple and that we hope you’ll try.