How to Teach Emotional Regulation, Sharing & Cooperation with Toddlers
Learn how to guide your toddler through the early stages of emotional regulation & teach them how to share & cooperate.
So as you may know, I recently did a huge purge on my kids' playspace at home. I ended up filling a huge garbage of broken toys & toys with missing pieces, and then another huge bag of toys to donate because my kids had grown out of them or we had duplicates.
There's something so satisfying about filling those garbage bags and getting them out of the house.
Buh Bye!
See you later alligator!
Every time I purge that toy room it always comes back to haunt me how much "stuff" the kids have and how little of it actually gets used. It's this constant cycle of....
they get something new,
play with it religiously for a few days (or even a few hours),
and then it gets chucked into corner and on to the next best thing....
If we're lucky that item will surface again down the road.
and repeat!
sound familiar?
so.... as I was going through this purge, I was hit with a dose of inspiration from my friends over at the Smart Cookie Club, who legit up-cycle old household items and create very basic, low tech educational toys.
Last week I chatted with them live in Behave it or NOT! and they shared some ways that they teach their students emotional regulation, sharing, & cooperation with these brilliant toys & activities they make.
[🚨 spoiler alert]- these girls take garbage and turn it into gold!
While I was chatting with them I had a serious💡moment. Sooooo you're telling me I can....
1. save money by not having to constantly buy my kiddies new toys
2. recycle house hold item to get more value for the money I originally spent on those items
3. reduce our household footprint
4. do all this while teaching my kids some of THE MOST IMPORTANT life skills they need!?
WHAAAAAT!?!?!?!? This is a serious #parentwin!
Get comfy and ready to be inspired. I don't want you to miss this. All I have to say is you.are.welcome!
Let me know what you are going to do with the info you gather from this video. I've already started picking through my recycling bin for some items to up cycle for my kids. I might even save it all for March Break and have them create these new toys and activities with me.
Anything to get them involved and make them feel empowered!
You've got this!
-Cori
p.s. If you have a toddler that LOVES a good power struggle and knows how to push your buttons. Then I want you to download my FREE cheat sheet with 7 simple strategies to get your child to listen to you. You can start using my strategies right away! Let this be the game changer for you!
Double-click to edit...
No punishment here.
Punishment is flawed. It has harmful short-term and long-term effects. It can back fire in the long run and create a lot of problems down the road. Don't do it! It's not worth it.
Is punishment effective? Is it necessary? Does it actually teach right from wrong? I'm not entirely sure about that but what I do know is that punishment creates a very uncomfortable physiological response in the child's body. With punishment comes blame, pain, and (or) shame, all which trigger the fight or flight response in children. This fight or flight response puts children in defence mode. Punishment also creates a spike in cortisol (a.k.a. the stress hormone) in the body. So are children actually learning what they did wrong or are they learning to avoid the physiological response they experienced from punishment? I would say the latter. Who the heck wants to feel shame? Who wants to experience physical or emotional pain? Not I, not you, not your child. There's a big difference between punishment and effective consequences. Punishment is a type of consequence but is very harsh, mean, condescending, and harmful. If used effectively, consequences can be more respectful, should be directly related to the behaviour, and have to be reasonable based on your child's age and stage of development. Punishment is flawed. Here's 5 reasons why...
- Punishment encourages children to lie. Once children experience the blame, shame, and pain from punishment they will what they can to avoid it from happening again.
- Punishment fosters resentment and anger. This is especially true for children who do not get enough 1:1 time with their parents. As well for children who don't get enough opportunities throughout their day to feel empowered.
- Punishment doesn't allow for teaching to happen. Children go into self-defence mode when punished. This closes off any opportunity to teach them right from wrong in the moment.
- Punishment weakens trust in the parent-child relationship. Trust is built on the foundations of love, support, encouragement, and safety. Punishment works against all of these.
- Punishment can encourage revenge behaviours. This is especially true for children who do not get enough opportunity to feel empowered throughout the day.
Parents often "punish" their child because in the moment they have a hard time regulating their own emotions. If you feel like you are getting heightened, take a deep breath or just walk away. Remember, every waking moment is a teachable moment. Take hold of each teaching opportunity to teach your children to be the best they can be. You got this!
- Cori
Motivating the Unmotivated
How do YOU motivate a learner who is completely unmotivated? Here is a great strategy that can reduce your frustration when you just can't get a student to respond.
One of the best parts about being an educator is that you also get to be a student. Student learns from Teacher and Teacher learns from Student. It's a wonderful symbiotic relationship. I find myself learning from my students and clients all the time. This is not limited to all the typical learners out there. The same holds true for all my students and clients with learning disabilities, attention deficit disorders, executive functioning challenges, poor self regulation skills, motor planning issues, and the list goes on....
One of the biggest challenges as an educator who works with students with different exceptionalities, is trying to find ways to motivate the student to learn. There is no doubt that motivation is the key to successful teaching and learning. So... how do you do this with with a student who is labelled as "gifted" but has Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), an anxiety disorder, extremely poor fine motor skills and very weak coping skills- all at the same time??? Sounds like a recipe for disaster (especially when his History assignment is due in 2 days). My approach to this is to identify the student's strengths and use them to boost the weaknesses. In this case- this particular student is very intelligent, has strong verbal skills, and loves technology. It just so happens his teacher has the class using Google Docs to produce and organize assignments. BINGO! Smart smart Teacher! He followed the classroom structure of doing his work on the computer in Google Docs- however had the brilliant idea to open his Google Drive app on his iPhone and use the microphone to dictate his thoughts, which we watched get automatically typed on the computer screen in front of us. By the end of our one hour session- his assignment was just about complete and he felt accomplished! I found ways to motivate him by tapping into his interests (technology), reduced the fine motor demand (no handwriting or typing), maximized his verbal skills (dictating), and kept him on task (because he was motivated). What a success! Here's the strategy we used- I hope it's useful to help you #educate #motivate and #accelerate your students!
-Cori
Once signed into your student's Google account on the computer- open up the Google Drive and create a new Google Doc (give it a good title). Once this is done open up your Google Drive app on your mobile device and find the new doc. you just created-open it up!
On your mobile device, pull up your keyboard and press the microphone button- start dictating those awesome thoughts and ideas. Make sure your student talks sloooow and clear. You should see those brilliant words appear on your mobile screen. After each sentence or 2- hit 'done' and they will appear on your computer screen.
The beauty of this is you don't have to remember to 'save' your document because Google does this for you automatically every few seconds. Tada! You did it!
If you want any further information on the strategies mentioned above, please don't hesitate to be in touch. I love sharing the goods! Looking forward to hearing from you.