I work with some amazing team members and yesterday while waiting for a meeting to begin there was a sharing of some new strategies that had been tried to reduce stress and promote attention. They demonstrated the procedures and talked about some mutual cases that they were using it with. The strategies that they used come from Conscious Discipline.
Conscious Discipline: is a social-emotional curriculum that Dr. Becky Bailey developed based on brain research, child development, and developmentally appropriate practices.
In the below video Dr. Bailey describes the neuroscience behind her curriculum and what we can do to ‘wire’ our students for success.
The below video demonstrates a breathing technique that had me wanting to run out and get pinwheels right away. So many of my students have some level of stress. Although I have always used a beginning attention set that ended with the student smiling and I have worked on breathing usually in relation to take 5 deep breaths while I show a visual while I model, I had not really had a strategy to teach the deep breathing I was looking for. I will now change up my start of treatment with the use of the ” Smile, take a deep breath, and relax” coming right after my attention set.
There were a number of other breathing activities. This one was great for relieving some pressure or stress. I love that there is a variety of techniques and these are all for students to be able to self-regulate.
There is a suggestion that you try a variety of these breathing techniques with the children to see which one works the best. Then when you have a child that is beginning to become anxious or stressed you can offer a menu of self-regulation techniques.
It may have been the committed professionals that I work with, however, after doing these breathing exercises our meeting had us thinking very creatively about the needs of our students.
I will continue to explore this social-emotional curriculum. Have you used this curriculum? What are some of the positive changes you have noticed? Which strategies have you been able to incorporate into your daily lessons?
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Read, thank you Pat!
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Read! I liked the variety of techniques that can be used in the case that a child is anxious or stressed – maybe they could also be used in the case that a child is very excited and has difficulty remaining on task?
read!
I like these breathing techniques because they enable the child to act something out (e.g., being a drain or a roller coaster). Many children enjoy pretend play and charades. They can also be tailored depending on a child’s interests (e.g., maybe instead of a roller coaster, the child can be an airplane or a bird with wings).
Great thinking, thanks for sharing.
Read, thank you!
read!