Campbell Hill Classified Staff use Data and SEL Strategies to Help with Transitions and Recess

Campbell Hill Classified Staff use Data and SEL Strategies to Help with Transitions and Recess

Inspiring Stories, Problem Solving, Routines, School Partners, Self regulation, Teachers
The Campbell Hill Classified Staff Team uses discipline data to identify ways to improve systems and outcomes for students at their school.

The classified staff of Campbell Hill Elementary, in Renton, WA, works hard every day to be sure that students know they are safe, belong, and matter in the unstructured spaces like the school playground and cafeteria.

This team of educators meet monthly to align their practice, continue their learning about social emotional learning and trauma-responsive strategies, and to support building equitable classrooms and communities. One of their best tools is using patterns in discipline data – which …

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School Discipline Data Points to the Need for Self-Regulation Skills

School Discipline Data Points to the Need for Self-Regulation Skills

Inspiring Stories, School Partners, Self regulation, Teachers

Terminal Park Elementary School in Auburn, WA is one of our Whole School partners. They have an active Data Team made up of staff who are leading the implementation of Sound Discipline work at their school. Data Teams in our partner schools gather and analyze discipline data – which is documentation of when a student is removed from the classroom or community. They look for patterns in that data and define potential problems that indicate either a systemic issue or lagging skills that need to be developed in adults or young people. The Data Team proposes a solution and works …

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Self-regulation and Co-regulation are the Keys to More Peace and Fewer Power Struggles

Imagine you are on your way out the door and your 5-year-old is crying on the floor, your 8-year-old is yelling at them to stop crying, and you’re trying to talk over both of them to get them into the car. If this sounds familiar, keep reading! Almost every parent has experienced some rendition of this scene, power struggles and heightened stress levels included.

Brain science like that explained in this paper from the Duke University Center for Child and Family Policy tells us that co-regulation between adults and children is an extremely supportive practice, and it can help reduce

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Self-Regulation for Educators, Co-Regulation for Students

The negative impact that COVID-19 had on our nervous systems, both as educators and students, is palpable. National data such as this report from the National Center for Education Statistics and lived experiences of educators show the pandemic has negatively impacted student behavior and social-emotional development, and teacher burnout and turnover is at an all-time high.

Now more than ever, we must prioritize self-regulation as educators – not only as a modeling tool for students, but also for our own wellbeing. Educators are often selfless individuals who put others’ needs before their own. However, when it comes to staying emotionally …

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How Parents & Caregivers can move on from “What’s Wrong with Me?”

How Parents & Caregivers can move on from “What’s Wrong with Me?”

Our early experiences shape us in profound ways. If those experiences were persistently stressful or traumatic in your early life, you may suffer from the results of adversity, just like millions of other parents and caregivers.

Dr. Bruce Perry and Oprah Winfrey teamed up on a new book titled What Happened To You? that illuminates how early adversity affects human beings. Many of us are caught up in blame and shame, and the authors point out that rather than asking, “What is wrong with me?” or “What is wrong with you?” we should shift the question to ask instead, “What …

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How to Help Kids Rebuild Their Stamina for the New School Year

Masked up, many children have headed back to in-person learning. Though the academic load has not yet become heavy, the time in isolation has taken its toll in many ways.

Just like an athlete returning to training after post-injury recuperation, our kids need to slowly build back the stamina they once had.  We can help our kids steadily build it back over time and adjust stamina for social interaction, focus and study, and all that it takes to be an engaged student of today.  Here are some ideas to support your kids in this time:

Acknowledge the internal work of

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Harnessing Hope (For Parents)

Harnessing Hope (For Parents)

Hope is the belief in a positive future. It is an optimistic, exciting sense of what is possible. In this time of global health crisis, economic uncertainty, racial reckoning, and physical disconnection from other human beings, the day to day challenges of doing everything differently make it difficult to hold onto hope. Yet hope is an antidote to despair. It can give us the energy to persevere and can offer a sense of purpose, calm and connection. Parents are children’s first hope builders. Your presence, connection, and attitude can help your child be more hopeful. They look to you to …

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Teaching and Modeling Self-Regulation Skills in the Classroom

Self regulation, Tips & Tools

Children are entering school with less developed self-regulation skills than in decades past.  More children have experienced trauma, are emotionally fragile, and may be unable to control their emotional responses and act out in physical ways when they are upset. The good news is that through recent brain science research, we understand the physiology of strong emotion and have discovered that self-regulation skills can be learned at any age.

Self-regulation is the ability to recognize, manage and modulate one’s own emotions and emotional responses and behaviors. This set of skills may be the most important tools your students learn. Recent …

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The best gifts we can give our kids…self-regulation skills

Self regulation, Tips & Tools

Self-regulation is the ability to recognize, manage and modulate one’s own emotions, emotional reactions and behaviors. These skills may be the most important tools that your child learns, with many recent studies determining that a child’s emotional intelligence, or “EQ”, is more important than their “IQ” for future success and happiness. Brain science has revealed that self-regulation skills can be learned at any age. As parents, we are our children’s most important self-regulation teachers. 

Brain science explains what happens to us when we feel as though we have “lost it” and are overtaken by a big emotion.  The amygdala, the …

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Patience is Not Permissiveness

Self regulation, Tips & Tools

Whether a student burps loudly in the middle of our lesson, someone calls out an answer instead of waiting their turn, one student is mean to another, or someone writes with a permanent marker on the dry erase board, there are going to be moments – and sometimes whole days – that try our patience as teachers. Teaching is really difficult work. The ability to be calm, patient and still lead with connected firmness takes practice and lots of tools and strategies. Here are some ideas to try:

  • Always be gentle with yourself. This takes practice and you’ll make mistakes.
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