January 2019 – Writer's Self-Regulation Project

Enough about me! Let’s talk about me.

Lisa Corbett Lisa Corbett January 17, 2019 0 Comment

My Grandma used to have a sign like this (it feels like it was exactly like this!) handing on the wall in her office at work:

Taken from http://www.quotemaster.org/Paddling 16 Jan 2019

She worked as the County Clerk for a long time, and I don’t really know what that means other than to say it was an elected position, and people spent a lot of time coming in mad about things, but leaving satisfied with her help. She ran unopposed for the last 10 terms of her career. I mostly remember the above sign because I couldn’t believe my grandma had a swear word on her wall IN A PUBLIC PLACE! I thought about it again this week when I was using some of my self-reg skills in the classroom.

I’ve been thinking about it specifically because for a long time, this was me. On the outside, things mostly looked OK. There were certainly a few times when a good friend would look at me when I sat down for lunch and say, “You look terrible. What’s up?’ (Good friends do that for us!!) But mostly I was carrying on. However, I was a wreck on the inside. I wasn’t sleeping. I was eating lots of junk. My house was never in order. I was putting so much energy into making everything look okay that I was exhausted beyond exhausted. A few Junes ago, in fact, I was expecting to be diagnosed with some horrible disease over the summer. That’s how terrible I felt all the time.

Thanks to what I have learned about self-reg, I figured out some ways to manage my own stress. I am now more like this duck:

It’s taken a lot of work to get to that point. Of course I’m not lying around relaxing all the time. I’m a bit stressed by report cards right now, and a bit frustrated by the mess on my desk. But over all I am managing my stress well. It’s got me thinking so much more about how to teach stress management skills to kids.

During a presentation at a recent staff meeting, we asked people to rate an activity on a scale of 1-10 with 1 meaning the activity would not relax them at all, and 10 meaning it would really help. One of the options was to participate in a sports activity. I will honestly say I would be a zero, maybe a 1, for this activity. But lots of people were an 8,9 or 10. It really got me thinking about how important it is to let kids – or maybe I mean help kids – choose activities for calming, and not try to force something on them. It’s also got me thinking about how easy it is to allow people to think everything is okay when it isn’ t. Kids can do that too.

Podcast #4

Lisa Corbett Ginette Blacker, Jennifer Rogers, Lisa Corbett, Nicole Bentley January 10, 2019January 10, 2019podcast 0 Comment

A few of us got together yesterday to work on a presentation we are going to be giving to the staff at our school soon. We started our time together by recording a podcast! All of us are noticing such big differences in our work with students. We had no trouble at all talking about it.

A few people have told me they are listening to these podcasts. Thanks! We are uploading them to Soundcloud, and that service is blocked on our school server. If you are having trouble getting it to work, this is probably why. You’ll have to listen at home while you’re doing dishes, or on your phone while you run, or in your car on your way to places.

Beyond the Classroom

nicolebentley Nicole Bentley January 10, 2019January 10, 2019 1 Comment

During the holidays, I had the opportunity to observe self-regulation beyond the classroom.

I traveled to Cuba and upon arriving at the airport, there was quite a long line waiting to clear immigration. In front of me was a family of two parents and three children. One child, about 7, was poking his siblings and name calling, clearly bothering them. After the sibling asked the other child to stop, the parent stepped in, asking them to stop. When this was not effective, the parent threatened that the child would have time-out when they arrived at their hotel. This also did not stop the child’s behaviour and it continued the entire time we waited in line.

My learning through this self-regulation project had me looking at this situation through a different lens. It was an early morning flight and the child likely did not get enough sleep. Then, they spent 4 hours sitting, had a different eating schedule and were still dressed for Canadian weather while in a tropical country. We were entering a strange country which would have created uncertainty as well as the excitement of new experiences.

While there was nothing that could be done about the line however, there were things that could have been done to lessen the child’s stress. Examples include, a change of clothing or snack, engaging the child in a discussion “I can’t wait to get to the hotel! Should we eat first or go swimming?” Another option would be to give the child a task, “Can you count how many people are in front of us?”

My learning on self-regulation provided many other options to react aside from a time-out that may have achieved better results.

Misbehaviour vs. Stress behaviour (part 2)

Lisa Corbett Lisa Corbett January 7, 2019 2 Comments

I’m reading our new book, “Calm, Alert and Learning” by Dr. Stuart Shanker. I just finished chapter 4, which is called “The Social Domain”. Social stressors are especially hard for me personally, so they are the ones that I feel I can relate to the most when I am thinking about how children are behaving, and the stressors they might be experiencing. On page 85, he writes:

“It is essential that we look at students through a different lens, to shift from thinking in terms of behaviour management to figuring out why we see certain behaviours and what can be done to help these students learn to self-regulate.”

He is, at this point in the book, writing about a workshop given to teachers to help them understand self-regulation. He goes on to explain that the important thing to keep in mind when it comes to a child’s behaviour is to focus on 1) the cause of the behaviour, and 2) how to mitigate the stressors on the child…(also page 85)

I have so enjoyed having two weeks at home. We were on a vacation for the first week, and even though we were around other people (strangers!) almost the entire time, I didn’t have to be social with very many of them. And the people I was being social with were all family. The second week was spent in the house. Literally! I don’t think we left more than once. I have enjoyed this. This morning, however, I am getting ready to go back to school and thinking about how different it is going to be. I have to talk to people all day (which I don’t mind, it’s just a little bit of a stressor for me.) I have to actually think about the clothing I am going to put on (though I think most people wouldn’t mind if I arrived at work in a t-shirt and yoga pants!)

As Charlotte often reminds us, behaviour is communication. I’m already anticipating some behaviour that I may see in class today. It will be hard for people to get up early today so they might be a bit tired (biological stress), they will be thinking about getting back to hard work (emotional stress), they will be working (cognitive stress) and they will be around other people all day (possible social stress.) This morning I am reminding myself that any misbehaviour I might see today is likely caused by some stress on the system, and that I should look carefully at these behaviour and try to figure out what the children might be trying to communicate to me.