Social Emotional Learning and Mindfulness at NES

     

     The Social Emotional Learning and Mindfulness program at NES helps students become more skillful with their own emotions and in building positive relationships with others. Neuroscience research has shown that if you don’t have skills to work with your strong emotions and with the emotions of others, it can be very difficult to learn.  When we are upset, the part of our brain (pre-frontal cortex or Wizard Brain) that does our thinking and problem solving doesn’t work very well   Being able to manage our emotions, communicate feelings and needs, and resolve conflicts with others are important skills to develop in school as well as to be successful throughout our lives.

   On a daily basis, students at NES are taught to PAUSE, THINK, and then RESPOND. Our emotional Lizard Brains (Amygdala and Hypothalamus) urge us to react quickly and impulsively.  PAUSING to attend to our emotions helps us make better choices and select thoughtful responses.  Our bodies are continually sending us signals about the emotions inside of us.  When we develop the habit of paying attention to and mindfully noticing what is happening in our bodies, we know when to PAUSE and calm down before we respond.  This means we need to already have the habit of paying attention to our bodies as a regular part of our lives.  We can acquire this new mindfulness habit by taking time each day to turn our attention inwardly to our thoughts, emotions, and sensations. Each day, NES students and staff begin by closing our eyes, taking a few breaths to slow down and then “scanning” their whole body to discover the sensations and feelings before they may overwhelm us.  Developing this Self-Awareness occurs during our Moment to PAWS.

    When we notice something is going on inside of us, we PAUSE or STOP talking, doing, or moving.  We take deep “belly” breaths to activate the part of our nervous system that helps us calm in the face of anxiety or excitement or frustration.  Students are learning to identify and select a variety of coping strategies to help with Self-Regulation of their thoughts, emotions, and behavior before deciding how they will Respond.

    Another goal of Social Emotional Learning and Mindfulness is to develop empathy for others and the courage to Respond compassionately.  When students can understand how other people are feeling, they are more likely to be kind to them.  This also makes it easier to solve problems and resolve the conflicts which are a natural part of life.  

   Humans are born with the ability to empathize with others and relate to them.  But to get the full benefit of this gift, we need to cultivate it so that even when someone makes us mad or hurt, we can remember to ask, “What might that other person be feeling?”   The more comfortable we become with what goes on inside of us, the easier it is to understand others and what they might be experiencing when they do something to upset us.  

  Remember to ask your children what they are learning each week in their BrainWise Social Emotional lesson.  Ask what they notice after taking a Moment to PAWS.  One way these skills can be reinforced at home is by coaching your child to breathe deeply before problem solving when intense emotions crop up.  Follow the order of this brain science approach to social emotional learning with yourself or your children:  (1) Reflect, (2) Regulate, (3) Relate and Reason, (4) then Respond.

** PassageWorks, Institute in Boulder shares this valuable description of Social Emotional Learning and Mindfulness as it trains educators to work with children.

Learning How to Make Peace with One Another

   

     At NES, children are learning to handle their conflicts by using a tool known as THE PEACE ROCK or a TALKING PIECE.  Any child is welcome to use the Peace Rock or Talking Stick when they have a problem to resolve with another person.  When approached with the peace rock or talking stick, the other child (or adult) is asked to stop what they were doing and listen.  When the first child has said what they needed to say, they give the rock or talking stick to the other person, signaling their chance to respond.  The talking piece is passed back and forth until the issue is resolved, at which time both children hold it together and say, "We made peace."   Montessori schools use a similar practice, as illustrated in THE PEACE ROSE by author Alicia Jewel, to help children use mindful speaking and mindful listening to work through a conflict. Peace is not seen as an end state; peace is a process.   See this process in action--

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgXU0lAAeck 

     

     It takes some adult help as the children learn this process, and adults will need to step in and help with particularly sticky situations, but the vast majority of conflicts can be handled with little to no adult intervention if the children have learned to use the helpful prompts below.

     Each day, classes at Nederland Elementary School sit in a Connection Circle and pass around a talking piece to indicate which person gets to share while the others listen mindfully to what they have to say.  Practicing these roles when there isn't any conflict helps create the routine of responding in this manner when issues arise.  Students will be bringing home a talking piece they made this week that parents may want to use when siblings have conflicts, or for family meetings when the family tries to solve an issue together.  

     Here are prompts to help children talk with one another:

     1.  Say what emotion you are experiencing.   "I feel...."
     
     2.  State the problem without blaming.  "When...."

     3.  Say what you would like (or need).    "I would like..... because I need...."

     4.  Listen for what the other person is feeling and needing.  Repeat what you heard 
          them say before sharing your side of the situation.   "You are feeling... and would
          like...."

     5.  Brainstorm how to fix the issue and get agreement from each other on which idea 
          to try.   

 Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me....

Pinwheels for Peace at Nederland Elementary School

celebrating the International Day of Peace.

Clowning around with dad or mom ..... and developing our Emotional Intelligence

The Mountain Strong Families Series comes to Nederland!

    The youngest ones waddled in. The older children sauntered in like they owned the place.  Families burst through the doors of Nederland Elementary School to grab a warm dinner before the presentation began.   A few parents of teenagers ventured back to the school where their almost-grown children once played and learned.  

   

Families who had just moved to the mountains shared a free meal with families who have been here for generations.  Both moms and dads laughed and talked together over soup and salad.  Parents of toddlers- to- teenagers gathered as a community to support one another and our mountain children.

     On Sept 18^th, Nederland Elementary officially lit up the night by hosting the Mountain Strong Families Series.  TEENS, Inc is partnering with NES, NMSHS, and a dozen local counselors to create a supportive monthly gathering for families.   The first presentation, Calming the Chaos, was facilitated by Kelly Davis, a counselor working at both NES and NMSHS.  Davis coaches staff about how to build social emotional competencies in their students.   This evening, the focus was on helping parents respond to their child’s strong emotional reactions and problematic behavior.

     Davis’ Mountain Strong Family mantra was best summed up as (1) Reflect, (2) Repeat,  and then (3) Redirect.  For (1) reflection, parents were encouraged to always pause and put their hand on their hearts to check in with their own emotional state before they respond to their child’s misbehavior.  “How am I feeling right now?   Am I calm enough to handle this well?”   Our own calm composure sends invisible messages via mirror neurons in our brains which indirectly help our child calm themselves.

     We also learned about the power of “Labeling the Feelings” behind our child’s behavior – or Reflecting that emotion in words to the child instead of just talking about the misbehavior.  “You seem really frustrated right now with your brother when he took your book.”   Or, “I wonder if it makes you feel sad when you don’t have anyone to play with?”  We often start talking about behavior with children and forget to hone in on the underlying emotions and unmet needs of the child.

     Counselors keep reminding adults to see that “all behavior is communication.”  Parents were encouraged to look for the feelings and needs underneath the problematic behavior being displayed.  “What is my child trying to tell me?”   Reflecting their emotional state back to them in words teaches children awareness of what they are feeling and helps expand their emotional vocabulary.  Eventually, children will be able to use assertive statements to convey what is going on inside of themselves.  When adults verbally reflect what they sense the child is feeling, the child is able to begin regulating their emotional response.  Connecting language to an emotional state utilizes one part of the child’s brain to soothe the emotional part.  This helps the child regulate their intense emotion and be more open to changing their behavior.  This all requires a shift in parental thinking from “they are GIVING me a hard time" to “they are HAVING a hard time expressing feelings and getting their basic needs met.”   

  

     The second skill that parents practiced was (2) Repeating or summarizing what their child was saying.  “I don’t want to go to bed!!!!!” may simply get repeated and stated as-- “You don’t want to go to bed yet.”    When your teenager slams his door and walks away, it gets repeated as something like --“It looks like you are really mad and don’t want to talk about this right now?” rather than “Do not slam that door,  I’m talking to you, young man!”   It takes work for parent to become adept at paraphrasing, summarizing, repeating word for word to convey empathy instead of taking their child’s reactions personally.  All of these techniques help a child feel understood and enables them to begin to lower the intensity of their emotions.  This type of response helps a child move into the problem- solving portion of their brain to respond to the situation.  Even if you don’t agree with what they are saying, you are showing that you get what their perspective is.  You are taking the time to walk in their shoes before finding a solution.   Again, this helps younger and older children know that you have taken the time to empathize with them. 

     After children have begun to regulate their big emotional reactions and have felt understood, it is then easier for parents and children to find solutions through (3) Redirection or problem solving.  But a child is far less likely to follow directives if they don’t feel you have first connected with how they are feeling, perceiving, and experiencing the world.  Parents are serving as the child’s not- fully- developed prefrontal cortex-- soothing their emotions & building neural pathways to rational problem- solving approaches.  When parents don’t respond in this way, children fail to learn how to rationally and creatively solve social problems.   

     Finally, Davis helped parents think about what (4) Routines and Family Rituals they consciously do with their children/teens.  Predictable routines like family dinners 4X per week or family walks on the weekend, and rituals that add meaning to our lives, i.e. taking time to be grateful, using a talking piece to share an ooh, an ahh, and a blah from our day, are essential for building strong connections between parents and children.  Without purposely and continually trying to build a strong relationship between parent and child, our children will be less inclined to follow our requests or adhere to the boundaries we attempt to draw.   Regular routines and family rituals are foundational to calming the child’s amygdala, or emotional center of their brain.  They help children feel secure, loved, and believe that life has meaning.   

     One parent of an NMSHS student acknowledged that parenting challenges change when kids are older.  The issues may change to use of substances, depression and lack of motivation, anxiety or peer pressure.  She wished “other parents of middle and high school students would join the Mountain Strong Families group” and talk about how everyone is trying to stay connected with and guide their sons and daughters as they face the middle and high school years.  

     Neuroscientists have determined that the rational and creative problem- solving part of our brains does not fully develop until age 25 or later.    If you are experiencing big emotional outbursts or immature, impulsive or risky behavior by your child, this is perfectly normal – based on our current understanding of how children and teenagers develop.  The key is to develop a parenting approach that helps the neural pathways develop between your child’s emotional, limbic system and the part of their brain that needs to soothe their feelings and works to solve their problems.  

   “This was wonderful,” said one young mother, “It was just what I needed.”  Monthly Mountain Strong Family gatherings will occur throughout the year. Various local counselors will present on topics including stress management, improving communication in families, and restoring relationships when there is family conflict.   

 If you are wondering how and when to help your child who is struggling with anxiety, depression, substance use, ADHD, or eating disorders, register for Mental Health First Aid --- offered on Oct 12^th from 8 -5 at TEENS, Inc.  Contact jen@teensinc.org to learn more.  

      On November 13, local therapist Carrie Evans and Kristen Kron, NES school counselor, will share key strategies for reducing your child’s stress and anxiety. 

     **  Door prizes, a free home cooked meal, and free childcare are offered at each and every event.   Attendance at three or more Mountain Strong Families presentations allows parents to use their  punch card to schedule a free 30 minute consultation with various counselors in our community.  

Together, we will raise 

emotionally grounded children and young adults!

How to Raise Children with Strong Social Emotional Skills

     Neuroscientists are learning more and more about how children’s brains develop.  We now know that the neural pathways between our “emotional brain” and our “creative problem-solving brain” doesn’t fully develop until a person’s mid to late 20’s.  This means children continue to react intensely and make poor responses to life’s challenges without the ability to think it through… for a long time.  The “thinking” part of their brains aren’t always talking to the “feeling” part of their brains and working together to make great choices.  Our role is be their prefrontal cortex, or Wizard brain, as we coach them to practice the skills that will help them become competent in social situations. 

     Jennifer Miller, from Confident Kids-Confident Parents, helps parents hone in on some ways to coach our children toward social emotional competency at various ages and stages of development.  At every stage we need to be helping children learn these five key social emotional competencies:  Self Awareness, Self-Regulation, Social Awareness, Relationship Skills, and Responsible Decision-Making.  But here are some particularly relevant areas to work on—based on your child’s age:

3 -5 year olds:  Work on Helping your Child Develop a Feelings Vocabulary. 

“Name it to tame it” is a key parenting strategy to use with children.  Instead of just talking about the behavior, help your child use feeling words to describe what is going on inside of them.  You might start with mad, sad, glad, scared and then add in more descriptive vocabulary – annoyed, tender, excited, worried.  Practice naming the feelings when they occur.  “Abby, it looks like you are frustrated that Simon took your toy.  Is that right?”   Always check to see if your feelings label is correct.  This will help your child self-regulate when they feel understood emotionally.  Talk about what body sensations your child might have when they are feeling a strong emotion.  Help build their self-awareness of how emotions are felt in their body.  Model how you connect body sensations to emotions --“I noticed my shoulders are really tight.   I must be feeling a lot of stress tonight.”   Parents of toddlers will need to do a lot of soothing and reassuring (the job of the Wizard Brain) until the child learns how to calm themself.

 5 -8 year olds:  Practice Coping Strategies.

Assuming children are continuing to learn how to accurately name what they are feeling, parents of 5 -8 year olds can serve as their children’s thinking brain by coaching children about how to cope with their strong emotions.  Children feel all the pressures that go along with expectations for performance in elementary school.  Help them cope with those stressors by thinking through options for calming down.  “What can we do when we’re feeling anxious and tired at the end of the school day?”  Make a list with some of your suggestions:  hugging a teddy bear, cuddling with a blanket, reading a story, listening to music, along with their suggestions.  Use the list to practice after school, along with a high protein snack.  “What should we practice today to help us relax after school?”   This teaches foundational tools your child can use in numerous situations.  Each classroom at NES has an area (Refocus Center) where children can take 5 minutes to soothe themselves throughout the day.  Consider specifying a special spot at home for this same kind of nurturing activity.  Practice relaxation techniques together.

7 – 9 year olds:  Collaborate on Household Chores.

This age group is undergoing a whole new level of social awareness as they become sensitive to fairness, can examine larger social issues, and enjoy collaborating in groups.  Build on these emerging themes by talking about household responsibilities as a family.  List out the many possible ways of contributing and engage the child in identifying what she can do with competence.  Be sure and model or work closely together on new tasks the first time so the child understands how to do it.   Then allow the child to take responsibility for a task and complete it herself.  Don’t go behind and fix it if you feel it’s not up to your standards.  Allow her the satisfaction of completing a task.  Designate a family work time so everyone can work as a team to care for the home.  Put on some kid-friendly, high energy music and get the jobs accomplished.  You are helping your child develop a stronger sense of empathy for the family by cooperating in a group project to care for your home.

9 -11 year olds:   Exercise Relationship Skills through Problem-Solving Dialogues.

This age is heavily influenced by their peers and may come to you for help with friendship issues.  The tween years are a perfect time to use coaching skills.  With coaching, trust that the child can find a good solution by utilizing some thoughtful consideration for others.  Instead of responding to a child’s friendship complaints by intervening, prompt the child’s thinking.  Begin by reflecting back the child’s feelings.  Challenge the child’s thinking and ask how they might change their approach to prompt creative solutions.  When your child is successful with his own solutions, he learns he can competently handle social situations. 

12 – 14 year olds:  Practice Responsible Decision-making Skills.

Teens are undergoing a major brain reconstruction during these years.  They are moving from learning from play toward logical, rational thinking.  This is a process that requires a great deal of practice, learning, and mistakes.  When infants make mistakes, we keep encouraging them.  When teens make mistakes, we may want to immediately punish them.  Instead, think of how you and your teenager can reflect on a social situation that had negative outcomes?   Help teens make the connection between their chosen action and the consequences of it.  Utilize conversations that help teens compare what positive and negative, short term and long term consequences might occur from a variety of selected choices.  Try to make your response one of a “teachable moment” instead of a frustrated reaction to the mistake.  Each of these conversations about choices and consequences helps build the neural pathways that strengthen the teen’s ability to think through social situations in the future. 

     The more we understand the stages of social emotional development, the better we are at gauging our parenting to fit our child’s learning. 

  

RSVP this week for the Mountain Strong Families Series

Explore what is happening in your child's brain when they are upset.

Learn two parenting skills that address a child's strong emotional reactions.

Consider a couple of rituals that help manage difficult behaviors.

Enjoy plenty of chances to engage and share with other parents.

Will Our Children Learn to Be Kind?

     Some times I wonder if our children will learn the importance of kindness and consideration in this era of increased incivility between adults?  Does it seem like adults are conveying the idea that it is really only important to treat a narrow circle of our own friends well while anything goes with everyone else?   At NES, we'd like to help children expand their circle of caring.  This week during Social Emotional Lessons at NES, primary students read about the importance of daily filling the buckets of others with kindness and generated ideas about how they could specifically do that.  Secondary students completed a trust exercise that tested their ability to exhibit kindness to their classmates, and to see if it felt like their classmates "had their backs."

Learning happens best when it is done both at school and at home.  Here are many ways that you can help your child continue to learn about the theme of kindness through Reading About It, Talking About It, and Practicing It.  (ideas adapted from Counselor Chelsey)

READ ABOUT IT!
How Kind!   by Mary Murphy   (primary circle story board book)
The Golden Rule by Ilene Cooper (explores the multi-religious, universal message of kindness)
The Lion and the Mouse by Jerry Pinkney  (illustrates that no act of kindness is ever wasted)
The Invisible Boy by Trudy Ludwig
Have you Filled a Bucket Today?   by Carol McCloud
The Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park (inspires older children to change the world)

PRACTICE IT! 
Spend time writing encouraging notes to people in your community.  This could be neighbors, police officers, teachers, nursing home residents, fire fighters, next door neighbors.  Have your child go with you to deliver your notes of kindness.  Check out the Random Acts of Kindness organization for more ideas about practicing kindness:  www.randomactsofkindness.org/kindness-ideas

TALK ABOUT IT!
Here are some discussion points to help you talk about kindness and consideration with your child:
** Tell me about a time when someone was kind to you.  How did it make you feel?
** Who is someone in your class you can be kind to?  What could you say or do?
** Do you think you are kind and considerate?  Why or why not?
** What is one way that you were kind toady?
** Tell me about a time when someone was considerate of what you needed or felt?  How did that feel?
** Tell me about a time when someone was not considerate of what you needed or felt?  How did that make you feel?
** What are ways you can be kind to people at home, at school, and in the community?

Accepting Differences

   

    Here at Nederland Elementary School, we have been busy learning about what is unique about ourselves and each of our classmates.  We are finding things in common with others.  And we are finding things that make us different from one another.  We are working on projects as a team where we must use the gifts that everyone brings to get the job done.  We are working to create a strong sense of community in each classroom.  It is not always easy.  In all this, we are stressing the importance of ACCEPTING others and respecting them even when they aren't just the same as us.

Below are many ways that you can help your child continue to learn about the theme of Acceptance through READING about it, TALKING about it, and PRACTICING it.

READ ABOUT ACCEPTANCE!   Here are some books to help you focus on acceptance:
     Different Just Like Me  by Lori Mitchell
     Whoever You Are by Mem Fox
     Beegu by Alexis Deacon
     Spoon by Amy Krouse Rosenthal
     It Ain't so Awful, Falafel by Firoozeh Dumas  (4 -7th grade reader)

PRACTICE ACCEPTANCE!  Together with your child, pick a few different foods, and try to eat them each with a spoon, knife and fork.  Talk about what would happen if we only had forks? Or  knives?  Or spoons?  Use this activity to talk about how our differences can make a stronger community.

TALK ABOUT ACCEPTANCE!  Here are some discussion points to help you talk about acceptance with your child: 
     *What do you think acceptance means and why is it important?
     *Tell me about someone in your class who is different than you.  How can your differences be a good thing?
     *What is one way you can show acceptance at school?
     *Has anyone ever made you feel accepted?   Tell me about it.
     *What would the world look like if everyone was the same?

      By talking directly with our children about Accepting Others for who they are as human beings, even when we disagree with them, we are planting the seeds for greater understanding between various groups in our society.   During September, students and staff will gather to celebrate this year's International Day of Peace with colorful pinwheels they have created.  Today's children are bombarded with television and movie images and video games that depict serious human conflict and war.  Through the Pinwheels for Peace Project, we give this generation the chance to make a public visual statement about their feelings about war/peace/conflict/acceptance/cooperation/harmony/and unity.  Students will create pinwheels of all shapes and sizes.  They will write their thoughts about conflict and peace, division and harmony on one side.  The entire school will hold their pinwheels outside in the wind as an art exhibit.  This project was started in 2005 by two art teachers as a way for students to express their feelings about what is going on in the world and in their lives.   Ask your child their thoughts about accepting others and working for a more peaceful world.  Music teacher, Susan Jones, and art teacher, Susan Blurton, will lead Nederland Elementary School through this exercise.