Dear Parents/Carers,
As the school year draws to a close, a lot of feelings can come to the fore about endings and transitions. The following two resources provide tips on how to talk to children about their worries and how to learn to feel calmer together.
Children learn to regulate their emotions through their relationships with trusted adults. The Anna Freud Centre suggests the following 7 steps as a way of helping children think about their worries:
- Create a space for conversation
- Demonstrate calm
- Empathise and validate
- Introduce alternative perspectives and ways of thinking
- Reduce environmental stresses
- Encourage problem-solving
- Monitor progress
To help us feel calm enough to think, Dr Pooky Knightsmith offers the following 6 ways to help children ‘catch your calm’. Listen to her 18-minute podcast here: 6 Steps to Effective Co-Regulation
- Lower demands and remove expectations
- Slow your breathing: in for 5, out for 7
- Use a calm voice, speaking slowly with low volume and low pitch
- Use relaxed, open body language alongside your child
- Notice the here and now by grounding your 5 senses
- Walk, colour or play alongside
I hope you find these resources useful.
Best wishes,
Louise
Louise Mullier
Educational Psychotherapist (part-time)
Oaklands Junior School