Helping Kids Tackle Tough Days with the Right Tools

Transcription: Helping kids tackle tough days with the right tools

Developing Tools for Your Child

If we are speaking down the road about developing tools for your child, we started by talking about environments and how children feel safe at home and might feel less safe at school, and even unsafe at school or wherever they go outside the home.

The focus, I believe, is always on the child’s skill development. So when we want to help your child move into an environment where they feel less contained, levels of anxiety rise because they are not feeling so safe.

The same conversation applies. So we go and play with them in the afternoon, in their rooms, with their Lego, outside, wherever it is. Then we find that connection.

Then we talk to them about what happens at school and how they feel, and we validate those feelings.

Understanding the Child’s Experience

Then we can talk to them about when they feel afraid.

Say the child says, “I am scared at break because I do not want to play the games my friends are playing because they are really good at those games, and I feel left out.”

You might say, “Okay, well, when you are at break, and your friends are playing those games, and you do not want to play those games because you are not very good and you feel left out, who else is there? When you look around the playground, who else is there?”

You are using a sort of meta-model of thinking where you are getting them to think about their thinking and to visualise what is on the playground.

They might say, “Well, no, there is nobody else.”

And you might say, “Well, tell me what is there. Are there trees? Could you go sit under the tree? Could you go climb the tree?”

That is an option.

Exploring Possible Solutions

Then you might say, “Is there somebody else who is not playing?”

They might not have thought of that person.

“Well, can you go meet that person?”

Those are two possible solutions.

Then you might say, “Is the teacher there? Could you go sit next to the teacher?”

They might say yes.

Okay, and then you can look at option number four.

The people who are playing. If you really do want to play, you might want to give it a try.

You could ask, “Tell me about all these people who are playing. Tell me about each of them and which one you are friends with.”

Then in class you could sit next to them and say, “I really want to play, but I am struggling. Can I play with you?”

And then see what they say.

You are basically problem-solving and teaching them how to think it out. You are giving them the space to come up with the answers, and all you are doing is probing those answers.

If you come to nothing at the end of that conversation, then you come to nothing. You let them have the same day tomorrow as the day before.

Until they are ready.

Because they might come to you the next day and say, “You know, I was thinking about it, and I was watching them play, and I had this idea.”

Then you can say, “Well, did you try it?”

“No, not yet.”

“Okay, well, can I help you out with that?”

So that is a very specific example around helping a child visualise what happens at school in this environment they feel is unsafe, and to reposition it for themselves.

Empowering Children Through Conversation

There are a number of practical techniques we can use. It is a connection-based, conversation-based approach to helping children feel more empowered.

Teaching Children to Identify Safe People

In terms of empowerment, there are other things you can look at, such as who your safe people are.

Fred Rogers said something remarkable. He said, “Always look for the helpers.”

I think that is just a remarkable thing to teach your children because the helpers are the ones who will probably help you when you are in distress.

In your school environment, you might say, “My son, my daughter, my girl, in your school environment, of all the teachers you have, who do you feel is the safest for you?”

Weirdly enough, I have had this conversation with a few children, and often it is not their teacher. It might be the PE teacher, the librarian or someone like that.

Getting them to recognise, “Wow, yes, that person. I feel safe with that person.”

Then, depending on how old they are, you might ask them what makes that person safe for them.

They might say, “She listens when I talk,” or “I asked her in the past, and she helped me.”

What you are doing is helping the child understand what it means to be a safe person to them.

Then the generalisation of the skill can occur because they now know how to look out for safe people.

Recognizing Safe Children

Then you might say, “Okay, now you know where a safe adult is. Now tell me about safe children.”

They might talk to you about unsafe children.

We do not want to villainise children just because your child feels they are unsafe. That is not necessarily true. It is a feeling.

But the child might say, “Oh, I cannot go to these three kids, but this one shared his lunch with me yesterday.”

You do not want to push your child to cling to that child, but you might say, “Okay, if you are struggling, you could go sit next to this kid when he is eating. Maybe you could share your lunch.”

You might even say, “Should I pack an extra couple of strawberries for you?”

That becomes a resource. It is another skill.

It shows the child that they may need to be prepared and plan for their day.

So those are very practical things you can talk about with your child in terms of what they can do.

Helping Children Visualise Their Day

Another big thing, which is slightly separate from this, is helping children visualise where they are going and what will happen, so they are acclimatised to it.

A lot of change management work is about picturing where we are going so that it is not a huge surprise.

You would do this if you were changing schools.

If you are going to change your child from one school to another, you would talk about it, show them pictures, take them for a visit to the school, drive them around the school, and show them the uniform. It is acclimatisation.

You can do the same thing every morning if your child is struggling.

One of your routines in the morning, when you wake them up, could be to talk about the beautiful things that happen at school and help them focus on that.

It is like listening only to bad news in the world and then believing the world is terrible.

You could do that, or you could focus on the good things.

You can sit with your child in the morning and say, “I have packed you some strawberries. Where are you going to eat your lunch? Are you going to enjoy them?”

Let us say they love strawberries.

You might say, “I know on Wednesdays it is library day, and I know you love it. I think the library is going to be wonderful, and you have this book.”

You really focus them on the positive things.

That puts them into a virtuous cycle rather than a vicious downward cycle.

It shifts the mind, the body, and the sense that they are in so that they feel more in control and more contained.