Challenges with focus and attention can become a huge roadblock to learning for kids and young adults. Simply put, attention is critical to learning. If students can’t focus on the lesson, they are going to struggle with understanding the new content. If students can’t focus on the directions, they are not going to know what […]
Helping Kids with Feelings of Anxiety & Worry
All educators, at one time or another, are likely to work with kids and young adults who struggle with anxiety. Sometimes we know about those challenges, and other times, we don’t. As a special educator, I have spent countless hours helping students work through their worries about homework, family situations, fights with friends, high-stakes testing, […]
15+ Strategies to Help Build Self-Regulation Skills
Self-regulation is a critical skill for people of all ages. It is the ability that helps us to control our behaviors to make good decisions for the long-term, rather than just doing what we want in the moment. It’s also the skill that allows us to manage our emotions when we’re feeling angry, disappointed, or […]
What To Do When a Student Refuses to Work
Throughout my years teaching middle school, I have had the experience of seeing many “work refusals”. These are the situations when kids, for a variety of reasons, just refuse to start the work you give them. They might shut down and rest their head on their desk or lash out in anger, shouting about how […]
10 Ways to Build Relationships with Kids
Relationship building is the single most important way you can impact a child’s life. So often, kids actually can’t learn from someone they can’t connect with. I’m also convinced that building a strong relationship with a kid or young adult diminishes a huge number of behavior challenges. Many times I worked with students who were […]
13 Ways to Avoid Power Struggles
As an educator or parent, getting into a power struggle can be an awful thing. We waste so much of our energy trying to get we we want that we sometimes forget what our goal was in the first place. Power struggles can be especially difficult with kids with ADHD, autism, oppositional-defiant disorder, and other […]
How to Make a Coping Strategies Wheel
One of my favorite ways to sneak social emotional learning into the classroom is by doing crafts. These activities can be hands-on, engaging, fun, and creative. Meanwhile, kids are still learning the critical skills they need. In particular, a coping strategies wheel is a great tool to help teach coping strategies to help manage stress. […]
Helping Kids with Social Emotional Needs
As a special education teacher, you would think the bulk of my job would be to pre-teach and re-teach academic content, provide educational supports, assess student growth, monitor academic goals, and provide direction instruction in a number of areas. While it’s true that special educators do all of those things (and way more), we need […]
50+ De-escalation Strategies
Being able to de-escalate and defuse situations with kids and young adults is an extremely helpful skill. Kids and young adults who become emotionally overwhelmed or irritated in a situation may begin to express their emotions in challenging ways. Some examples of these behaviors might include aggressive posturing, yelling, throwing items, swearing, and refusing to […]
How to Create a Coping Strategies Notebook
A coping strategies binder is a resource to help calm kids and young adults who are feeling angry, anxious, sad, or stressed. Within the binder, kids add coping strategies that work best for them, such as listening to music, drawing, practicing yoga, or using positive self-talk. Those really are just a few out of many […]
