Notice your body. Lengthen your spine by sitting tall and straight. Feel your feet planted on the floor. Focus on your belly and imagine a balloon in that space. Breathe in slowly and deeply through your nostrils, imagining the balloon inflating, getting bigger, larger. Hold. Then slowly exhale through your mouth, imagining the balloon deflating….
Now that the school year has begun, start setting your students up for success! Here are some proactive strategies you can implement immediately: Get to Know Your Students Get to know your students FOR REAL, and help them get to know each other. Find out about each students’ history. Create an inclusive learning environment where…
Looking through my email I saw “Handle with Care” in the subject line along with a student’s name. I became nervous, anxious, and then concerned for the student, thinking, “this has begun… it is a reality now.” It was the first time a name had come to me since we began Handle with Care (HWC), a limited pilot process through…
A calming corner (also known as a calm down corner or comfort corner) is a small, designated space located within a classroom. The purpose of a calming corner is to help support self-regulation while keeping students in the classroom if they need a break from instruction time or a group activity. When students experience stress…
Sensory rooms are therapeutic spaces that provide students with personalized sensory inputs to meet their individual needs. These rooms are not just for students with impairments, however, but for ALL children. Using a variety of tools, sensory-based activities are developed for each child based upon their need to calm, focus, or become more engaged and…
Anyone who works with people who have experienced trauma knows that trauma can take a toll on the human heart, for both the victims of trauma and those that assist with the healing of trauma. For those of us who assist in the various capacities of helping with the healing of trauma, we, too, need…
*Student identifying info has been changed to maintain confidentiality. It’s 7:45 on a Tuesday morning. The call that comes over my walkie talkie is not unfamiliar. “Skillet is needed on the bus. Skillet is needed on the bus.” Skillet, a tall, lanky golden doodle/labradoodle mix (Skillet’s staff photo above) is already on his feet before I…
I have been thinking about ACEs lately. Not the 4-of-a-kind, win-big-in-poker aces, but those pesky Adverse Childhood Experiences ACEs. As the opioid epidemic in our communities brings death and misery to our families, we have amassed resources in response. Adult recovery agencies and hospitals provide medical withdrawal and ongoing support for recovery. Law enforcement, hospital…
Positive early childhood experiences are essential for later success in school, the workplace, and the community. Services for children who have experienced Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) or those living in chronic toxic stress, including poverty, have been shown to positively impact outcomes across developmental domains of health, language and communication, cognitive development, and social/emotional development….
The experience of trauma is often difficult to communicate through words, and is more easily described through sensory-based interventions. Sensory-based interventions are non-language activities like drawing, imagery and other forms of expressive art that help children convey the way they now see themselves, others and the world around them as a result of their trauma…
I am an elementary principal who works in the “kid business” and every year I meet so many students.They are so diverse in every sense of the word – some are topping the growth charts, some are barely making the growth chart, some have blonde hair, red hair, brown hair, black hair…you get the picture. Previously,…
After 17 years of facilitating grief and trauma recovery, I recently experienced something that led me to a completely new understanding of the importance of the work we do at TLC and the programs we have developed and refined. As well as being a trauma counselor, I am also the author of the TLC/STARR Adults in…
Benefits of Anxiety Art Anxiety Art is a powerful strategy for building resilience in kids. Today, anxiety is one of the most prevalent children’s mental health issues with the average age of onset for anxiety disorders being 6 years of age (Merikangas et al., 2010). Anxiety consists of many specific disorders including panic, OCD, specific…
Being strength-based suggests that the way we interact and respond to children is rooted in the way we view them. As practitioners focused on promoting resilience in at risk children, we must maintain a positive focus even when children are difficult for us to understand. When children exhibit challenging behaviors, deficit mindsets are more prevalent….
Children with a history of traumatic experiences exhibit greater oppositional defiant behaviors than children without exposure to trauma. This is most likely the result of the negative physiological impact trauma has on core regulatory systems, compromising a child’s ability to regulate and process sensory inputs. Changes in the body’s critical stress response system prevent the…