Right Here, Right Now: Focus on Regulation
By Wendy Turner, M.Ed.
We are almost three-quarters of the way through the school year. By all accounts, this was the year that we were anticipating with excitement and joy because it would mark a return to a more normal education experience for teachers, families, and students after the challenges we faced because of the Covid-19 pandemic. While our situation may not have been ideal, in many ways it was to be markedly better than the previous school year.
We found students overjoyed to be back in school. I felt deep joy in my heart in soul as I unpacked my classroom and set up books and teaching materials I hadn’t touched in 18 months. Teachers and school personnel welcomed students and families back with open arms and enthusiasm. But we quickly realized that many students were lacking different types of skills they need to succeed at school; they were struggling. As a result, behaviors have been challenging to navigate and support. In her recent webinar “Behaviors on Fire”, Licensed Clinical Social Worker Heather Forbes reminds us that while students’ physical development has marched on since 2020, their social, emotional, cognitive, and academic development is all behind where it would normally be. The image below is simple yet powerful as it reminds us that some students have never had a normal school year. 9th graders look like 14 year olds but may act like they are 12. Second graders work to create positive social interactions with their peers but struggle after missing a key critical year of growth in first grade where many children simply learn how to do school. Curriculum doesn’t fit students working to meet grade-level standards after significant disruptions and lagging academic development. Everyone is experiencing higher levels of stress, worry, and anxiety as Covid continues to impact all of us in different ways. Forbes says “The loss of school in 2020 and into 2021 has created a permanent developmental scar on every child’s timeline.” So how do we best support students going forward?
So what do we do? We stop. We breathe. We focus on regulation. Regulation is simply the state of being regulated. Calm. Able to manage oneself. Experiencing positive and enjoyable emotions. It can be referred to as being in the upstairs brain or the learning brain. Right now it is very hard for students to stay regulated for many reasons. Some children are overwhelmed by the demands of school in person after lots of time at home, being around so many other people or simply too much noise. As educators, we have to help children understand their emotions, why they lose control of them and how to manage back to calm as they work to navigate stress and function while working to learn.
A key part of this process is helping students identify the emotions they are experiencing. Often, we talk about four basic emotions with children: happy, sad, mad, and worried. This is a great place to start! However, life offers countless opportunities to experience a litany of emotions beyond these four. A great step for us is to help children understand that happy can mean feeling calm, joyful, energetic, or proud. Sadness may be related to disappointment, physical pain, embarrassment, or loss. Similarly, mad can mean fury, emotional pain, or anger at a person or situation. And worry can be stress over myriad situations: school, home, past trauma or “what if” fears. When we help students understand more deeply what emotions they are experiencing, they can work through them in a positive way. This poster hangs in my classroom to help students think about what they are feeling. The current version has the word negative changed to difficult after a student reminded me that sadness is not a negative emotion. I am always learning from my students!
Every day one of our inclusive opening activities is doing a feelings check-in. Students can share with the class how they are feeling and why. It’s optional so no one has to share but I find that students really want to share in this way and it offers a window into each others’ souls about our lives, hopes and dreams, fears and anticipations. A key component of this process in my classroom is the use of rubber bracelets to indicate feelings in a non-verbal way. Students take a colored band to show if they are feeling good and ready to go, so-so, sad, or mad. This is also an optional activity but one that I find many enjoy. The bracelet also acts as a fidget to support regulation and sensory input as well. You can read more about how to get started with this system here. The pictures below are from my classroom.
Other practices such as journaling and regular joyful brain breaks help support emotional regulation. When we make these part of our classroom culture for students of all ages, wonderful results appear. This competency of self-management is part of the CASEL Social Emotional Learning competency model. Below are some ways to support emotional regulation for all ages. You can access this slide and the links here. I also incorporate elements of CASEL’s “3 Signature Practices Playbook” into my classroom routines and culture to support regulation.
Once we support emotional regulation in specific, targeted and meaningful ways, children will start to feel safe and supported and blossom! Relationships bloom and grow and our students can start on the road to resilience. As adults, we can also actively engage in these practices in real time right in front of our students. You’ll immediately benefit too! One great way to support social emotional learning in schools is to have adults actively model the habits, skills and mindsets we wish to see. Learn more about how you can do this with my Cult of Pedagogy podcast on Adult SEL here. I took part in a panel discussion at SXSW Edu last week in Austin, Texas, part of our focus was regulation, you can listen to the session “Beyond Covid: Fostering Student Healing and Growth” here. Let’s embrace emotional regulation as a non-negotiable in our education settings. The road to resilience starts with regulation.
I’d love to support you on your SEL journey. You can email me at wendymturner@gmail.com or find me on Twitter @mrswendymturner. Happy travels!
Wendy Turner teaches 2nd grade at Mt. Pleasant Elementary School in Wilmington, Delaware in the USA. She is passionate about connecting learning in the classroom to the real world. Deeply committed to social-emotional learning, she guides her students to embody respect, empathy, resilience, citizenship, and growth mindset through dynamic classroom experiences. In 2017, Wendy was named the Delaware Teacher of the Year. Additional awards and leadership include being named a Delaware Compassion Champion Awardee, an NEA Foundation Global Learning Fellow culminating with field work in South Africa, and a Presidential Awardee for Excellence in Teaching Science. Currently she is an SEL expert, advocate, and trainer on her own and for the authors of Fostering Resilient Learners and is serving on the Delaware State Board of Education. Find a collection of her work here.
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