Elementary teacher Winnie White describes a student who couldn't separate from his mother at drop-off. Instead of forcing compliance, she let him choose how to calm down: a break, the library, a blanket, slow breathing. The whole thing took five minutes. Her class watched her accept his struggle and help him through it.
My name is Winnie White, and I teach in an elementary self-contained classroom. And I just wanted to give you one of my main ways that I show acceptance and inclusion in my classroom. For example, this morning I had a student that had a difficult time separating from his parent. So when I was able to get him away from his parent and close the door and welcome to the classroom, he was very dysregulated, and he wanted to go back out the door and see his mom and hug his mom. Some more. And I explained to him that once the door closes, we can't go back out of the door. You know, there's elopement issues there. So I bring him into the classroom and I say, I understand it's very difficult to separate from Mom, but you have to be in the classroom at this time. So what are some ways that would help you get in the classroom and calm down? Would you— and he said, I need a break. Well, we have been working on that for I don't know how long, so that was very exciting, um, them some ways to self-advocate. I said, oh, that sounds wonderful, that's a great idea. What's a— where would you like to go for your break? And he said, can I go to the library? I have a classroom library set up, so he goes into the library. He said, can I have a blanket? I said, absolutely, you can stay here and you could take some slow breaths and help calm yourself down. And when you're able to come back to the classroom, black back to the group for this morning's group session. I would love for you to join us back. Huge, huge improvement. Used to, it would take a long time to, for him to separate and to come down, but, and to self-regulate. Today it took 5 minutes. So I think it's important that we invest in their time in order to find out how to help self-soothe, because those strategies are so important for them to be able to do outside of the classroom. So finding a way to help students learn who they are and accept them when they are dysregulated and accept them for whatever reason it may have happened, I think that's important for all of us teachers to do. I know we're very busy. I understand that we have other students that need us, but those are small ways that we can show acceptance to children and include them in the classroom even when things don't go the way we planned for that morning.
