Welcome To The Early Childhood Blog
You've found the early childhood blog. On this page you'll hear directly from Deby - our Early Childhood Director - about resources, tips, and her feelings that might be helpful to you. Visit often for the latest information and reach out with any comments or questions. Thank you for being a part of our early childhood network!
The last few years have brought on an onslaught of mental health issues in the children we care for. We have been bombarded with behavior issues, meltdowns, and even worse children who reenact the violence and trauma they see around them. We wonder how to help them. We wonder how to help ourselves as we try to bounce back from our own trauma experiences the past few years have brought on. We cannot give the children what we don’t possess ourselves.
It is easy for us to get lost in troubling thoughts and overwhelmed by the physical sensations that accompany stress. Think of resilience as a piece of spaghetti. Before it is cooked it’s hard, if you bend it , it snaps and breaks. But if you cook it, it bends, it’s flexible and can move in a different way. We want to be able to bend like spaghetti so that even when we are experiencing a tough time we can think – “This won’t break me.”
There are many things we can do, I think of a mindfulness practice, yoga and breathing techniques, being outdoors in nature etc. These are all important and can help but here are some more things we can all do to build our own resilience and continue to help the children and families we support.
Above all – be patient with yourself. No one is given a handbook on how to deal with life. No one told us it was going to be this hard. Continue to check in with yourself on a daily basis, take care of your mental, emotional and physical health so that you can be the caregiver you want to be.
As a digital society we have learned how to do a hard reset with our computers or our phones by simply turning them off and then back on again. But what happens when your child is acting up and pushing that last nerve? How do a reset? How do we help our children do a reset? Often children, especially young children need help and support with the big feelings that come with stress. Here are some tips to help children, and parents calm down and reset.
It is important to trust the process. These tips may not change things immediately and prevent or stop every meltdown however, if used consistently, over time the child will begin to learn and use them on their own. As caregivers you see the resilience begin to build.
We are reminded, every year at this time, how difficult the holidays can be for people who are lonely or alone. But let’s be honest for families with children, the holidays can be stressful for both parents and kids. We are just starting to rise out of two plus years where gatherings of people were not happening due to the pandemic. For many of our children this may be the first year they will be in a larger group setting over the holidays. Here are some tips to help make this as painless and stress-free as possible and hopefully help manage everyone’s feelings in this anxious time.
Above all, be sure to laugh! Kids pick up their caregivers stress and tension, so they’re more likely to be irritable if you are. Have a sense of humor, enjoy your kids for who they are, and keep in mind that what you’ll all remember when it’s over is likely to be the unexpected moment when everybody was relaxed, not the brilliantly put together party, dinner or outing. Did you know that studies suggest that healthy children may laugh as much as 400 times per day, but adults tend to laugh only 15 times per day? AND, the health benefits of laughter are far-ranging. Studies so far have shown that laughter can help relieve pain, bring greater happiness, and even increase immunity. So laugh your way through the holidays!
What the holidays look like in my head versus in reality