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Helping Children Focus in School After Trauma…

When children experience trauma, it can be difficult to focus and stay engaged in the classroom. Fortunately, many social-emotional learning activities can help children develop the skills they need to stay focused and engaged in the classroom. Here are 10 ways children can use social-emotional learning activities to help them focus in the classroom after experiencing trauma.

1. Positive Self-Talk: Positive self-talk can be a powerful tool for helping children to stay focused and engaged in the classroom. Encourage your child to practice positive self-talk by repeating mantras and affirmations to themselves throughout the day. This will help them to stay positive and motivated, even when facing challenging tasks.

2. Mindfulness: Mindfulness activities can help children to stay in the present moment and pay attention to what is happening in the classroom. Encourage your child to practice mindfulness activities like deep breathing and body scans to help them stay focused and engaged.

3. Visualization: Visualization activities can help children to create positive images in their minds, which can help them stay focused and engaged in the classroom. Encourage your child to practice visualization activities, such as imagining a peaceful place or positive future, to help them stay on task.

4. Social Skills: Social skills can help children stay engaged in the classroom and positively interact with their peers. Encourage your child to practice social skills, such as active listening, problem-solving, and conflict resolution.

5. Emotional Regulation: Emotional regulation activities can help children to manage their emotions and stay focused in the classroom. Encourage your child to practice emotional regulation activities like deep breathing, progressive muscle relaxation, and positive self-talk.

6. Self-Awareness: Self-awareness activities can help children to understand their emotions, thoughts, and behaviors. Encourage your child to practice self-awareness activities such as journaling, reflecting on their experiences, and talking to a trusted adult.

7. Goal Setting: Goal-setting activities can help children to stay focused and motivated in the classroom. Encourage your child to set short-term goals that are achievable and to create a plan for how to reach those goals.

8. Problem-Solving: Problem-solving activities can help children to think flexibly and stay focused in the classroom. Encourage your child to practice problem-solving activities, such as brainstorming, making lists, and breaking down tasks into smaller steps.

9. Self-Care: Self-care activities can help children to stay focused and engaged in the classroom. Encourage your child to practice self-care activities such as getting enough sleep, eating healthy meals, and engaging in physical activity.

10. Connecting With Others: Connecting with others can help children to stay focused and engaged in the classroom. Encourage your child to connect with peers by talking to them, listening to their stories, and engaging in conversations.

Ron Huxley can help your and your child focus and learn after dealing with stress and trauma. Ron Huxley is a licensed therapist specializing in anxiety and trauma. Contact him today!

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The Calm Classroom: 10 Trauma Sensitive Tools

Trauma impacts children’s ability to stay calm and focus. It disrupts normal developmental growth and makes learning hard. Parents and teachers can use these 10 trauma sensitive tools to have a calmer classroom (and home):

Click here to get the Calm Classroom PDF here!

Model Emotional Self-Regulation by naming and responding to intense feelings.

Clear, Assertive, Comfortable Communication establishes trust and structure.

Use Suggestion Boxes and allow students to express needs and have a voice in their world.

Use “Two-By-Ten” to challenge students for 10 minutes two times a day to build connections.

Use Calming Corners filled with sensory items and thinking puzzles.

Consider Classroom Design to organize, label, and give clear directions.

School Discipline Policies can be communicated clearly and allow students to ask questions to increase ownership and empowerment.

Say “Ouch/Oops” to model social emotional learning skills and manage hurt feelings and conflicts in the classroom.

Take “Brain Breaks” throughout the day to stay grounded, prevent dissociation, and keep present focused.

Use Culturally Responsive and Faith-Based activities to allow the child to feel safe and comfortable and bridge trauma tools used in the home.

These are just a few of the trauma-informed tools and tips you can use when you take our free course at TraumaToolbox.com or contact Ron about holding a trauma-informed workshop at your school or agency. Email Ron at rehuxley@gmail.com or call 805-709-2023 today.

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40% of Students Exposed to Traumatic Stress

According to a recent article by Greater Good Magazine “Data suggests that, on average, every classroom has at least one student affected by trauma. According to the National Child Traumatic Stress Network, close to 40 percent of students in the U.S. has been exposed to some form of traumatic stressor in their lives, with sexual assault, physical assault, and witnessing domestic violence being the three most prevalent.”

Fortunately, we can use trauma-informed learning tools to help! Visit our online course for more information for your child and your school: http://TraumaToolbox.com 

This is a free course and open to all stakeholders in your community. We are developing new courses in fall 2018. Take online quizzes, get downloadable reports, watch multimedia lessons and much more. Go now!

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The Emotionally Regulated Classroom

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It’s been reported that one out of every four children attending school has been exposed to a traumatic event that can affect their learning and/or behavior. Educators need the right information, with the right tools, to be prepared at the right time.

When children have experienced chronic and pervasive trauma, their thinking skills are literally hijacked by their emotional brain, shutting down their ability to focus, initiate tasks, follow directions, organize work, and control impulses. Everything a child needs to be successful in school.

The Emotionally Regulated Classroom:

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Educators can model emotional self-regulation for their students.

They can demonstrate how to notice, name, and respond to intense feelings instead of reacting to them. Doing so, will build resilience within and beyond the classroom.

Educators can use classroom design to prepare a space that promotes self-regulation. Classrooms should, generally, be well organized, clean, well-labeled, and provide resources for overwhelmed students.

Many of the principles and techniques used to interact with students with trauma are broadly applicable to conversations with all students.

Clear, assertive, comfortable communication can establish trust and provide structure.

However, it is important for educators to realize that the emotional and social needs of students with trauma are different.

Students should be made aware, in a clear, specific fashion, what their teachers and staff expect of them.

School discipline policies should be communicated at the beginning of the year to all students, faculty, and staff, and should be consistently described.

Allowing students an opportunity to inquire about, and even challenge, rules, will increase their sense of procedural justice.

If students perceive the procedures as basically transparent and fair, they are more likely to go along with an individual decision or policy they do not agree with.

Regulation Strategies for the Classroom:

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One strategy to regulated the classroom is called “Two Before Me.”

In a group discussion, a student may initially speak up whenever they have the opportunity & are called on.

However, after speaking, a student must wait for at least two other people to speak before they can raise their hand or contribute again.

This prevents conversations from being dominated by a limited few people and can reduce conflict/arguments.

Another strategy is the “Suggestion Box.”

Students with trauma often find it scary to communicate their needs or express displeasure.

Students who have been neglected may not be used to identifying or sharing needs at all.

To encourage these students to express their needs, supply them with a suggestion box or cubby hole in a circumspect place in your classroom.

Set aside a weekly or monthly time where the contents of the box are discussed or provide written answers to students concerns on a bulletin board.

You can name this box something other than a suggestion box. Perhaps call it a comment box or question box or come up with a name the class decides together. Remind students that it is OK to write feelings they are uncomfortable to say out loud as long as the feeling is not directed at a specific person, or intended to cause harm.

In the “Ouch/Oops” strategy,  the classroom learns how to manage hurt feelings and resolve conflicts.

If your class adopts this rule, anyone is free to say “Ouch” if something a peer or teacher says rubs them the wrong way.

For example, if someone said something hurtful, accusatory, or generally offensive, the person who caused the “Ouch” is required to say “Oops”. It is then up to the person who said “Ouch” to determine how the conflict should be resolved, like having a private discussion or a mediation with the teacher or other peers.

Educators will need to watch for misuses of this strategy, such as a student using “Ouch” frequently to derail a conversation or target a disliked peer. Also, students may “Ouch” something benign a teacher says that they don’t like, such as assignment due date. And students may refuse to respond with an “Oops” if there are no firm rules on it.

If necessary, educators may want to restrict this strategy to personal discussions to prevent misuse.  Generally speaking, older students are somewhat more likely to use “Ouch/Oops” strategy correctly but with some practice, it can be a useful regulation tool for all ages.

References:

https://store.samhsa.gov/product/TIP-57-Trauma-Informed-Care-in-Behavioral-Health-Services/SMA14-4816
http://kids-alliance.org/programs/education/edtoolkit/

Click to access TipSheetFor_Polyvictimization.pdf

Community Based Interventions
https://developingchild.harvard.edu/science/national-scientific-council-on-the-developing-child/

GET MORE Trauma-Informed Tools by contacting Ron Huxley at rehuxley@gmail.com for a consultation or in-services at your next event or conference. Click here for more information.