Little People, BIG Emotions
by Suzy Rowland on June 15
4 min read:
Managing behaviour is one of the most important aspects of the early years practitioner’s role. If your learning and practice prioritizes the understanding of the presentation of infant and childhood behaviours, over the management of these behaviours, you are likely to experience significantly more positive outcomes.
Here’s why:
When we focus on management, we are usually concerned with imposing active interventions, requests, instructions, commands, in other words activating some version of the “I speak, you listen and respond” approach. This may work for employers when managing employees, but in the early years learning setting, where children enter at different developmental points and learn at differing rates, this may not be the most useful approach.
There is a growing awareness that targeted emotional support for children and young people, needs to take into account trauma-informed practice. This means that the history and experiences of the young person, are considered to have a likely psychological impact on the child; particularly if the child has been deprived of secure attachments with caregivers or has been neglected in any way. The word trauma conjures up images of intense and dramatic experiences such as war, famine, domestic abuse, violence, death or other disasters. But many psychologists agree that the trauma response is uniquely experienced by every child due to a combination of environment and temperament.
Childhood trauma is usually measured through a system of ACEs (Adverse Childhood Experiences). Examples of ACEs include extreme poverty, domestic abuse, household violence, refugee or war status. But childhood trauma can also include stressors such as emotional neglect, parental separation, divorce, substance abuse, mental illness or incarceration in the family. A single ACE can create attachment issues in a child, but more than five ‘ACEs’ experienced by one child, is likely to result in a level of childhood trauma that will severely impact the child’s behaviour in situations they interpret as stressful or dangerous. This is noticeable in situations that non-traumatised children would be able to tolerate.
What are the emotions behind the behaviour?
“Watch out for Ryan, he’s got a real temper on him…” says the teacher in Y3. “I’ve heard he really kicks off.” No-one knows that when he was one year old in nursery, his mother was pregnant and sadly lost the baby. What has this got to do with Ryan, I hear you say? Let me explain. Ryan’s mother was depressed and unable to properly attend to his needs; he only got her attention through crying or shouting. His behaviour appears to be disruptive, challenging or clingy, but he is reacting to the insecure parental attachment due to the early trauma he experienced in the family.
The difference between managing and understanding children’s emotions, is akin to the difference between being able to play the piano and playing the triangle (and I love the triangle, but let’s agree, it has its limits!). A management approach is inherently unbalanced and therefore unlikely to work with small children who are still developing their speech, cognitive and emotional skills.
The good news is you don’t need to make a choice between being a disciplinarian or being ‘soft’. As a practitioner, you only need to make small adjustments or corrections in your engagements with the young people in your care, to see huge changes in their emotional barometer. Taking a moment to pause and consciously decide to respond calmly and compassionately, before you engage with their emotional BIG feelings, is the difference between escalation and de-escalation. It’s not an easy task and will take some practice, but soon you will be able to step into the child’s world at eye-level to achieve the collaboration you know they are capable of. They need your help, your skills and tone to co-produce positive outcomes in their moment of hyper-arousal and response.
A child who appears to be out of control, is trying to process their trauma without the skills to articulate their distress. Your requirement is to change your perception towards that child. Assisting the child to manage their long-term toxic stress requires a specific mindset and a considered approach. Your exchanges and responses to their heightened state, can help the child to feel safe enough to vent their feelings without repercussion. Eventually they will learn to trust that releasing their emotions is a natural and healthy part of learning to be a grown-up. When they are out of their emotional fire and feeling calm, they are more likely to understand and hear your care and concern for them.
What you are aiming for is meaningful exchanges in minutes – it is as fast as that. Your interaction can flip a switch in that little person that will either cause them to combust or enable them to re-focus and re-gain a sense of calm. You may think that this is as random as flipping a coin and the reality is, it’s not going to work every time. Some days you will feel tired and on a short fuse yourself. But the benefits of catching yourself and committing to a high-quality interaction, is certainly worth your persistence and patience. The rewards will be truly worth it.
© Suzy Rowland
e: nadene@happyinschoolproject.com
S.E.N.D. in the Clowns by Suzy Rowland available to buy online or on Suzy’s website.