Becoming a Free-Range Parent

This week's article summary is A Conversation with a Free-Range Parenting Pioneer, and it's a follow-up to an earlier summary on helping students develop self-efficacy.

To me, Free Parenting suffers from poor brand naming—the term implies parents being overly lax with their kids.

Most parents conceptually understand the importance of children having unsupervised opportunities make decisions, to solve disputes with peers, and to figure out how to entertain themselves without adults or technology.

Yet parents also worry about the potential dangers of the world. Jonathan Haidt in his popular book Anxious Nation bemoans that parents give their kids too much freedom online but not enough in real life.

Throughout the country, schools have been tightening their technology policies to limit or ban student-owned devices at school. Yet for the most part, schools and parents have ignored Haidt’s other major recommendation: letting kids play with other kids without adult supervision.

Parents today are fearful of what could happen to their child in real life even though Haidt reminds us that the world today is actually very safe for kids. I fault the 24-hour a day news cycle for this: highlighting the dangers and violence of the world is good for ratings but adversely skews our world view.

While technology plays a role in the rise of loneliness, anxiety, and depression in kids, I also feel children’s lack of unsupervised play time is a critical factor as well. The positives of giving kids opportunities to do things by and for themselves include building self-confidence, self-efficacy, and independence.

I have a vivid memory of one particular night when I was eight. I was in my pajamas watching TV in the living room. My dad’s car wouldn’t start at his office, so he called my mom and asked her to come pick him up (a commute of 15 minutes each way). My mom told me to put on a coat and jump in the car to pick up my dad. I asked if I could stay home by myself as it was only going to be a half hour alone in the house. Somehow I convinced her and she let my stay by myself for the first time.

It was pitch black outside and after about 10 minutes I was scared. I had the TV to keep me company but I heard all sorts of noises inside and outside the house. Thirty minutes felt like an eternity. My parents finally got home, and I remember being nonchalant about being by myself for 30 minutes. But, as this memory is deeply etched in my brain, it clearly had an impact on me. I had accomplished something and felt more confident for it.

I know it’s difficult for parents today to be less hovering over their kids, yet as the article recommends, they can start by doing little things to give their kids opportunities to build their confidence.

Joe

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Lenore Skenazy was once reviled as the worst mom in America for letting her 9-year-old son Izzy take the subway by himself.

The newspaper columnist has since become a champion of the “free-range kids” parenting style and helped spark a national movement, Let Grow, which encourages parents to gradually give their children the kind of small freedoms they were allowed as children, such as walking to school or to the park.

Skenazy recently took a few moments to chat about what she sees as the serious developmental impacts of curtailing the natural impulse for free play and how we went from a country where it was normal for children to ride the bus to a nation where parents try to manage all aspects of their child’s schedule.

Amid the deepening youth mental health crisis, Skenazy suggests that free play is a serious matter for human development. She suggests that coddling our kids may limit their cognitive potential, holding them back from peak educational experiences, pointing to research showing a link between lower independence and higher anxiety. Independence, she says, is the key to developing happy, well-adjusted children.

Do you think that giving kids more independence can help fight anxiety? 

We’ve taken out opportunities for kids to practice becoming independent. You were allowed to play outside as kids, weren’t you? We were allowed to have free time after school. Kids today aren’t. You were allowed to be unsupervised sometimes, and our kids aren’t. This has resulted in a massive downturn in child mental health, We need to give them back some independence and free play

Why do kids need time interacting with their peers face to face?

You want kids to be off their phones, learning how to interact, learning how to make things happen, learning how to deal with frustration because you can’t all be first. And also learning empathy, the older kids helping the younger kids and learning a little bit of maturity, because the little kids don’t want to look like babies. These cool older kids, you need to have them interacting like humans. Playing. That’s how they have always interacted and that’s how they make friends. We’re worried about loneliness. How do kids make friends? They make friends because they play with them. This is the way kids used to spend their entire childhoods.

How do you convince parents to let their children do the things they took for granted?

There’s something called the Let Grow Experience. It’s a homework assignment that teachers give their students, and it says, go home and do something new on your own without your parents. They could do anything from making pancakes to walking to school to walking the dog or using a sharp knife. 

Does that help parents feel empowered as well as kids? Does it give all of us more agency?

The reason we love this project so much is that once your kid goes and does something on their own, parents are generally so excited and so thrilled that that rewires you. You are excited to send them out again. And then the kid gets rewired because, instead of my mom loves me, but she doesn’t think I can go to the store, she knows I’ll screw it up, or I’m too shy or whatever. Then the kid says, wait, no, my mom believes in me. I can do this. And knowing that somebody believes in you turns out to be the greatest gift to a kid’s psyche because, sometimes, somebody has to believe in you for you to believe in yourself.

How do you feel about the proliferation of ed-tech in the classroom? A lot of schools are deeply invested in ed-tech as a way to make kids smarter. This is the opposite of that. Is it hard to make an argument for the relationship between free play and intellectual development?

It’s really easy to make the argument. It doesn’t necessarily land, but the argument is this: The brain comes ready to be wired, right? How do you learn to deal with somebody who’s annoying? How do you learn to come up with an idea? How do you learn to innovate? How do you learn to solve a problem? You have to do all these things to learn how. People love solving problems and love coming up with ideas and love playing. Ed-tech did not get us to this place in human history.

The rub is that taking the screens away is a really hard thing to do. 

You can’t just take the screens away and leave them staring at blank walls. But if you have become the entertainment center, you’ve goofed. The world is actually more entertaining than the phones because you can smell it, taste it, feel it. So you just have to give them back the real world. Take away the phone and open the door.

How to Be More Optimistic

This week's article summary is  How Learned Optimism Can Improve Your Life.

I used to have a fixed mindset that people from birth fell into two categories: those who by nature were optimistic and those who were inevitably prone to pessimism. Your outlook on life was based on the luck of your gene pool.

I considered myself lucky that I inherited the positivity gene from my parents. In nearly all situations I see the proverbial glass as half full, not half empty.

But as you’ll see in the article below, even if you inherited the negativity gene from your parents and view the glass as half empty, you can train yourself to be more positive and optimistic.

Just as Carol Dweck pioneered the importance of  developing a Growth Mindset, Learned Optimism was developed by psychologist Martin Seligman. People like me naturally see the positive, but others can also see the best through the practice of Learned Optimism. It’s all about one’s attitude and the way we handle misfortune.

We all know life is far from perfect and filled with disappointments (which I’m constantly reminded of as a New York Jets fan).

But like the ancient Greek/Roman philosophy of stoicism and the precepts of Buddhism, Learned Optimism advises us to accept and manage both the highs and lows that befall all of us.

Optimists don’t have better luck than pessimists; they just cope better with setbacks.

As you’ll see in the article, there are many benefits having an optimistic outlook, in particular stronger physical and mental well-being.

So, as we leave the back-to-school honeymoon period of a school year and your students begin to struggle and you get tired and frustrated, this article is an apt reminder to maintain your natural or learned positivity and find the good in all and everything!

 Joe

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When it comes to how you view the world and your everyday experiences, you probably fall into one of two categories: optimist or pessimist.

For people with pessimistic tendencies, or a “glass half-empty” mindset, it can feel like second nature to talk down to yourself and expect the worst in each situation. There’s a way to break out of that negative self-talk and teach yourself how to become more optimistic—this concept is known as “learned optimism,” and it was developed by psychologist Martin Seligman. Learned optimism involves recognizing and challenging negative thoughts to develop a more positive outlook.

The concept is rooted in the belief that anyone can switch their mindset, no matter how pessimistic they are to begin with. Optimism is one way to achieve resilience so that you're not stuck in a rut and you're able to flexibly navigate a situation. Just a glimmer, a micro-experience of optimism, can have profound and transformative outcomes.

“Learned optimism is a core mindset of resilience and well-being that helps people to approach challenges and navigate adversity,” says Karen Reivich, from the University of Pennsylvania’s Positive Psychology Center.

The term “learned optimism" was coined by Seligman, who’s widely considered the father of positive psychology. This branch of psychology that explores the many tools, techniques, and skills that allow people to thrive. During his earlier clinical studies on learned helplessness—which is the belief that you have no control over negative situations or life events—Seligman found that people who are more resilient and optimistic are better able to resist feeling helpless and apathetic in the face of adversity.

“Seligman wrote: “One of the most significant findings in psychology in the last twenty years is that individuals can choose the way they think.” He argued that, through resilience-building strategies, anyone can learn to break out of a pessimistic, powerless mindset and become more optimistic. The word ‘learned’ emphasizes that we can all develop, practice, and strengthen this perspective.

When a person starts to believe that they have no power over what happens to them, they begin to feel helpless and unmotivated to take action. In turn, this may contribute to the onset of several psychological disorders—such as depression and anxiety--and can lead to a vicious cycle of continually giving up, avoiding certain situations, and having little to no motivation to take care of yourself and make positive changes.

“Learned optimism is the opposite of that,” says Reivich. “It's developing a belief system of agency—the belief that you can affect change in your life and you can bring about better outcomes.” For example, a person experiencing learned helplessness will likely give up after failing or repeatedly struggling to succeed at a particular task, whereas a person practicing learned optimism won’t blame themselves for the failure and would likely keep trying until they succeed.

There are a number of benefits associated with having an optimistic mindset. Among the many advantages of practicing optimism is better mental health. “People who have a more optimistic mindset tend to be happier and have greater life satisfaction,” says Reivich.

People who are more optimistic also experience better physical health outcomes, such as having less pain, fewer complications after surgery, and shorter hospital stays. Optimists have a lower chance of developing infections, cancer, and diseases as well. This is likely because optimistic people tend to have better coping skills when dealing with major stressors and setbacks. As a result, they usually engage in activities that promote good health.

Developing Inner Efficacy in Students

This week's article summary is about inner efficacy.

The author defines inner efficacy as an individual’s belief in his/her capacity to do what it takes to meet his/her goals.

It’s about having a Growth Mindset, a strong work ethic, and the confidence in one’s ability to rise above obstacles and challenges.

As I read the article, what stood out to me was the difference inner efficacy and self-esteem, which is often the misguided belief how great someone is without any evidence of achievement.

Too much self-esteem can lead to a Fixed Mindset (if it doesn’t come easy, just give up) and to entitlement (I deserve this because of who I am).

As an educator and parent, I have been influenced by the adage (articulated by many educational pundits) that adults shouldn’t do anything for kids that kids can do themselves--in other words, give kids every opportunity to develop inner efficacy and self-assurance through their actions.

So, as we settle into the routines of school, check yourself to ensure you’re creating a classroom that fosters inner efficacy in your students.

Joe

 

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As a psychologist, I’ve spent nearly 20 years studying how to care for and raise good humans. The overlooked skill I always tell new parents to teach is inner efficacy. Inner efficacy is an individual’s belief in their own capacity to do what it takes to meet their goals. Self-esteem might say, “I’m amazing!” but inner efficacy says, “I have what it takes to figure this out and achieve what I set out to.”

Kids with a strong sense of inner efficacy are more likely to challenge themselves and put in the effort. Rather than blaming external circumstances or some immutable lack of talent for their failures, they’ll focus on factors that are within their control.

Research shows that kids gain inner efficacy from four sources:

The Experience of Getting Things Right: For this to happen, kids have to be challenged at the right level. Pushing them into educational experiences they’re not ready for can be counterproductive. Whenever they worry about not being able to do something, you can promote a growth mindset by telling them: “You’re not there, yet.”

Watching Others Get It Right: It’s important that kids see others they consider similar to themselves in at least some specifics (like age, race or ethnicity, gender identity, interests) achieving similar goals.

Reminders That They Have a History of Getting Things Right: The stories we tell ourselves about the past create our sense of competence about the future. Studies show that people who lean into optimism, have a growth mindset, and believe in themselves often don’t have such different past experiences than their pessimistic peers. They just remember successes more vividly than failures.

A Sense of Calm in Their Bodies: If children feel stressed, queasy, or anxious when faced with challenges, it can be difficult to perform without taking care of that physiological response first. Teaching our kids self-soothing practices like mindful breathing will go a long way to help them become competent at whatever they focus on.

How to help kids build inner efficacy:

Encourage Them to Try at Something They’re Not Immediately Good At: Instead of saying “Practice makes perfect,” because we know that’s not always true — and we’re not actually looking for perfection — remind your child that “Effort makes evolution.”

Clarify to Correct: Don’t just mark mistakes with a red pen and say, “Wrong again, pal.” Instead, try restating, rephrasing, changing the question, clarifying directions, and going over previously learned skills.

Praise with Specificity When It’s Earned: When we say “Good job!” it’s got be sincere and specific. Tell kids when you recognize their real effort, persistence, creativity, independence, and competence. You don’t have to completely erase “good job” from your vocabulary. Just add a bit more detail, like, “Good job applying that chess opening you just learned.”

Point Out Strategy: Help kids draw the line between the action and the achievement. If your child does a good job writing an essay they’ve outlined, for example, you can say, “I noticed you made an outline. I bet that’s one reason you did so well.” Or, alternatively, you might need to say, “I noticed you didn’t do an outline. It can be really tough to write an essay when you don’t have an outline. Let’s try writing one together.”

When kids understand that their failures aren’t due to permanent limitations, there’s an opening for future achievement.

Helping Students to Disagree Respectfully

This week's article summary is How Teachers Can Build Civility as a Classroom Norm.

Learning how to respectfully disagree is becoming an obsolete skill.

Our reliance on technology has made us more polarized and less open to opposing viewpoints. Think of how brazen people are online versus in person.

And when we use technology for news, entertainment, or social media, we get constant validation of our views because the apps we use, wanting us to stay on their site, provide us with options that match our previous choices. Pandora, Netflix, and Flipboard know me better than my wife!

Yesterday’s TTW included a letter to parents about how Trinity will handle the upcoming presidential election. Not that long ago schools looked forward to presidential elections, typically having all-school student voting and presidential debates in class. It was a fun way to have kids learn about the elements of democracy, including the right to vote. It didn’t matter which candidate won the school vote (or the actual election for that matter); it was more about learning about how our government operated.

Now, however, classroom discussions about politics run the risk of enflaming either side.

The article below refers to our current age as a time of outrage culture where two sides of an issue (like those in the upcoming presidential election) can’t stomach the other side and abhor ideas different from theirs.

For us as an elementary school, we’re lucky that our students are usually respectful and caring toward one another. We stress sharing and caring as a school value.

But as I read this article, I recognized that we need to be even more overt with our students in explaining and practicing how to disagree respectfully. Part of our character foundation building is getting kids to see that not everyone thinks alike. While our kids are at a developmental age in which they assume everyone lives the same kind of life they do, we help them see difference through collaborative learning as well as through windows and doors.

As our kids move into middle/upper school and college, they will need the skills to navigate a complex, varied, and ambiguous world. Let’s hope that in the not too distant future we can begin to be more civil and inquisitive towards others and difference.

 Joe

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At their best, classroom conversations can engage students, build communication and critical-thinking skills, and help students connect learning to their lives.

But so-called “outrage culture"—in which students react collectively in disproportionate and intensely negative ways during disagreements—can derail attempts to have substantive conversations about divisive or challenging topics.

Michael McQueen, a psychologist and the author of Mindstuck: Mastering the Art of Changing Minds, spoke with Education Week about ways educators can help defuse overreactions and outrage culture among students.

Why do we react so negatively when someone disagrees or we are told we are wrong?

The challenge is that our instinctive minds respond to psychological threats the same way they do physical threats. This response to physical threats has kept us alive for millennia: A tiger jumps out, you run, you stay alive. That’s been great for us as a species. The challenge is that when our instinctive minds are confronted with ideas, information, perspectives, data that are confronting, uncomfortable, or unfamiliar, we respond in the same way.

But we don’t go into fight and flight. We go into denial or defensiveness.

These dynamics so often play out for all of us as humans, but particularly with young people who still don’t have complete development of that frontal part of their brain, which is where the more reasoned, measured, linear part of our thinking apparatus lives.

How can teachers establish structures for more difficult conversations with their students?

Life is complex and nuanced. For teachers, one of the most important things they can do is build the skill of intellectual curiosity and humility in young people.

One of the precursors is that sense of psychological safety—that if I acknowledge that I don’t know the answer, that I hadn’t thought this through, that there are things I doubt—that I’m safe enough to do that. I think teachers modeling this stuff is incredibly helpful. So a teacher may say, “You know what, this text we’re going to study—personally, I find this a really confronting text, but we’ll stick with that, and that will be OK.”

A lot of schools are trying to add specific instruction in social-emotional skills to their curriculum. Do you think that’s the best approach?

The tricky thing is often those lessons become principles in a vacuum. And so there’s not that connection between what I’m learning in math class and English and geography and the politics embedded in geography and history and how that plays into ideology. 

Ideally, you want to arm students with not just a set of skills but a lens through which they see the world. And I think the best way to do that is to give them that lens to hold up every time they’re looking at any number of different topics or subject areas, rather than just describing a set of principles or ideas. Each time you teach subject-matter content, there are micro-moments where you get the chance to model some of these principles and ideas of civil disagreements and intellectual curiosity and ask the questions that allow young people to think differently, to see those nuanced perspectives. If you separate it out as a class in its own right, it can all very quickly become ideas that make sense but don’t apply to something the students are living and seeing every day.

How can a teacher de-escalate a challenging conversation that has spiraled out of control?

We often assume that when someone doesn’t agree with us that there’s a knowledge gap; if we can just educate them better or give them more information or better data, they’ll see the light and they’ll change their perspective. That’s so often not the reality. And in fact the challenging thing is, coming to agreement is often about how do we address the things that are causing the other person to be stubborn, rather than trying to pile on more information or logic in a way that leaves them no option but to change their perspective.

There’re practical things you can do in that moment. First is not respond in kind from an emotional standpoint. Sometimes, we assume that we need to match someone’s emotional intensity if we’re going to have a robust conversation. But actually the best thing that a teacher can do is stay incredibly calm and listen through, not listen to, what they’re saying, to find what’s going on that’s triggered this incredibly strong response, this defensiveness, or this defiance. People who are listened to are more likely to listen. 

 

Classroom Changes Regarding Student Cellphones

This week's article summary is Why I Changed My Mind About Cellphones in the Classroom.

As we talked about in preplanning, elementary schools really haven’t had to deal much with student personal devices, except perhaps the increase of younger kids having smartwatches.

The article was written by a high school teacher who for the previous fifteen years had been bullish on how technology would transform education and student learning.

Fifteen years ago many schools went all-in regarding technology in the classroom, including becoming one-to-one schools. My wife’s school (a stand-alone high school) opted to be a BYOT (Bring Your Own Technology) school,  because it didn’t want the expense of or its technology department’s personnel bandwidth to support student technology. You can imagine how disastrous this decision was. Classrooms became a technology free-for-all, and teachers struggled with cheating and fair use issues.

Like the advent of any new technology, most of us were hypnotized by the boundless potential of technology in schools but neglected to consider what the adverse consequences could be—a 21st Century Pandora’s Box.

This past summer the pendulum dramatically swung with many schools, especially middle and high schools, banning the use of student personal devices during the school day.

A number of us a few weeks before preplanning  watched the documentaries Childhood 2.0 and Anxious Nation. Many of us (and a lot of our parents) also read the hugely popular book The Anxious Generation.

The gist of all three is that over-use of technology for elementary and middle school children is damaging to their social-emotional development.

As I discussed in preplanning, Trinity has always emphasized the importance of face-to-face collaborative, cooperative classroom activities, as the process of learning is a social endeavor.  While technology is used in the classroom, we used it in age-appropriate ways as one of many instructional tools.

All of us recognize the use of and access to technology will continue to escalate.

It’s up to us as educators to help kids use technology as one tool for learning while making sure they don’t become overly dependent on it.

Joe

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More than a decade ago, I attended a workshop about technology tools in schools. Speakers discussed how new technology would transform classrooms. One memorable speaker extolled cellphones as a “powerful computer in the students’ pockets” that could revolutionize classroom learning.

“These kids could have incredibly powerful computers in their pockets,” I thought. “Why shouldn’t they use this amazing tool to take photos, videos, create, research—more than I can imagine!” We just needed to address teachers’ reticence to tech and students’ inequitable access.

So my writing partner, Shara Peters, and I wrote an essay for Education Week where we quoted the speaker in: “The Powerful Computer in Your Pocket,” and talked about bringing smartphones to the classroom.

To give our past selves the benefit of the doubt, our optimistic vision may have been possible at that moment. Phones and the internet are so different now from what they were then. Social media was younger, comprised of posts of people you knew. AI-generated images were toddlers. Siri was a newborn.

In recent years, I have thought a lot about this article. I hear the phrase “powerful computer in your pocket,” and it doesn’t feel good. I now believe smartphones should just not be in classrooms.

At the schools where Shara and I are administrators, students are no longer allowed to use their phones. We are not alone. As I write this reassessment of my past ideas, Los Angeles public schools have recently banned cellphones in classrooms starting in the 2025 school year, and New York City schools are considering similar action. At least seven states have now enacted restrictions on student cellphone use in school, with other statewide action in the works.

At my middle school, we came to the decision to keep phones out of classrooms two years ago, based on emerging research, as well as personal experience watching students’ attention pulled away from their peers, from their work, and from their teachers.

When I championed smartphones in the classrooms in 2013, the education world was at the height of pro-tech in classrooms.

Everything was shiny and tech-focused. But in the years since, a renewed focus on hands-on learning has offered a different model.

I wouldn’t say that you can’t get joy from a computer or from one of those “computers in your pocket.” I mean, we’ve all watched one of those videos that makes you laugh till you cry or seen an impressive one made by a student. And for all our concerns about the mental health toll of social media use, many students have found a support system in online communities on their devices—communities that are important outlets for them.

But pound for pound, there is something joyful, personal, and, dare I say, truly soulful, about touching things in the world as they play, build, and create rather than only doing so through a screen. There is time enough for them to learn to transform the world again through technology in ways we can only imagine.

I don’t regret that Shara and I wrote the essay. What works in education changes with time and research, and we need to be flexible in response. What would be a problem is if I were still saying the kids had powerful computers in their pockets and I thought it would be great if middle schoolers were Snapchatting each other in the bathroom during passing periods. Back in 2013, Shara and I didn’t know then what we know now about the incessant demands of a cellphone and how just having a phone near you can be a learning distraction.

We understand better now how technology affects people, and how we interact with it in an education setting needs to reflect our knowledge of its effects on the brain. Kids making music and movies on their devices is great. We need to find a way to harness that creative potential and continue to access the depths of information available online. We also need to be thoughtful about our students’ use of AI (and our own).

But we also need to balance those features with the human need to interact with others, reflect, touch (real) grass, use cardboard and paper, cut with scissors, interact directly with the world, employ physicality, and activate the self and soul. We can’t monitor how screens are used at home, but leaving the phones outside the classroom allows for some balance for kids.

We need to find a way to make this balance happen. Technology is here to stay, but that doesn’t mean it has to take over in every circumstance, including and especially in schools. Our kids’ brains just aren’t always ready for the fire hose of information that comes through their phones. When determining that correct balance, we could do with a bit more joy, resilience, a whole-child thinking. We don’t throw out the tech, the tools—we teach the skills and help them to create that balance for themselves.

But does that mean students should have a powerful computer in their pockets while they are in classrooms? Apologies to my 2013 self, it does not.

Developing Self-Regulation

This week's article summary is 19 Ways to Help Students Self-Regulate.

A number of years ago I listened to an education report on NPR that stated that the three most critical indicators of children’s future success are their IQ, their parents’ socio-economic level, and their self-control. The report further stated that for the most part self-control is the only factor that’s changeable.

Think about that!

As we’re growing up, our IQ and parents’ income are pretty much set. Depending on the luck of the draw, we might have a higher or lower IQ and grow up in wealthier or poorer families.

So, for many of us, our greatest chance for future success is to develop strong self-control.

As elementary school teachers, we are charged with developing in our students foundational habits, attitudes, and skills, including executive function skills like self-control and self-regulation.

Self-regulation helps us in many ways.

It helps us form and sustain interpersonal relationships. It helps us be fair, take turns, listen to others.

It helps us focus and attend to our jobs and responsibilities. It helps us defer gratification.

It’s a crucial skill, and, most importantly, it can be developed in all of us.

But its development take time and effort: we all needed to be taught to control our selfish, impetuous instincts. We needed role models (adults and peers). We needed time to practice and develop our self-control. And we needed constant reminders and reinforcement.

The examples below are some ways to help kids learn about the importance of self-control and scaffolding for those who need extra support.

Ultimately, self-control is about learning to be aware and in control of our emotions, including anger and frustration, not being ruled by them.

We teach kids who have varying levels of IQ and different family backgrounds, yet our goal for all our students is to develop strong self-control and self-regulation.

Joe

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School is all about giving students the skills they need to succeed. That certainly applies to reading, writing, and math, but equally important is self-regulation. 

Thinking about behavior objectively—as a skill to be taught rather than simply as good or bad—is immensely helpful in a teacher’s ability to guide children in learning to control their behavior.

There are a variety of proactive steps that can help keep students composed. Regularly checking in with kids—and building relationships with them—can increase their sense of safety in the classroom and give them an opportunity to share how they’re feeling. Plus, sticking to routines and simplifying your classroom expectations can decrease the risk of outbursts born from frustration or confusion.

But even with these proactive practices in place, young students with still-developing brains can struggle to control their own reactions. Here are some teacher-tested strategies that can help endow elementary students with the essential, lifelong skill of self-regulation.

Develop emotional vocabulary: To understand and discuss their emotions, kids need a wider emotional vocabulary.  Ask students to perform “feeling brainstorms,” in which they’re tasked to “think of 20 types of happy or sad.” As they generate more words and share them among each other, it’s more likely that they’ll begin to use more precise words to describe their own emotions in the future—like “anxious,” “excited,” or “satisfied.” Once students have a healthy emotional vocabulary, tools like mood meters, emotion wheels, and mood scales can help them track how their emotions change day-to-day.

Chat it out with a stuffed animal: If students are feeling stressed, they may need to talk through their feelings—but it’s not always necessary that a human be the one listening. When students are given stuffed animals to care for and chat with teachers often notice a calm in many students that they had not seen before.

Create a peace corner: A number of classrooms have a designated “peace corner”—a space for kids who need to self-regulate, filled with a bean bag chair, sensory toys, stuffed animals, and charts describing calming breathing and counting exercises. Students choose when to go to the corner, and their teacher sets a five-minute timer, but the student can request more time if needed.

Use choice time: Free choice time, when structured well, can help students learn self-regulatory skills. Kids can go to various areas of the classroom during free time (like “blocks” or “dramatic play”), and if that area is at capacity, they can put their name on a waiting list. Students can ask their teacher to set a timer for when they’ll be allowed to switch into the area— and having that visual of the time getting less and less allows them to develop their patience.

Measure the size of a problem: To many young kids, every problem can feel huge, and therefore deserving of a huge reaction. Teachers can help students put things into perspective. For example, teachers can have students rate problems—like “Someone took your pencil” and “A family member is in the hospital”—on a scale of 1 to 5 and reflect on what the appropriate response to each might be. Calibrating responses throughout the year can help students in the moment think, ‘I can take a second, then I can react appropriately.’”

Use picture books: Picture books can help kids learn about emotions and how to deal with them. Books like Big Feelings, which “identifies and addresses the intense emotions that children sometimes experience when attempting to work collaboratively.”

Morning check-ins: Quick check-ins at the beginning of the day can help students reflect on what they’re feeling. Ask students to share one “rose” (something they’re excited about) and one “thorn” (something they’re worried or upset about). Ask students to describe how they’re feeling in a single word. They might start with words like “good” or “bad,” but with more development of their emotional vocabulary, they might progress to “anxious” or “serene.”

Picture your peaceful place: A moment of mindful meditation can help kids regulate themselves. When kids are overcome by their feelings, asking them to close their eyes and “visualize a moment or place that makes them feel the most peaceful,” like a specific room in their house or playing with a particular toy. Picturing every detail—every sound, every smell—can help calm students who are “feeling high levels of emotionality.”

Relaxing body movements: Stretching, bending, and balancing exercises provide sensory input that can help regulate strong emotions. During a transition period in class, for example, ask students to stand straight, then “use your right arm to help you bend your left knee toward your shoulder, and hold this position for five seconds,” before repeating it with the left arm and right knee. Asking students to clench and release the muscles in their hands and faces can have a similar effect.

Write down your values: Taking time to reflect on and write down your core values, improves self-esteem, executive function, and inhibitory control. Write down “10 things that define who you are and make you special.” Ask students to reflect on the “anchors” in their life that stabilize them—people they care about and trust, calming places, or pets. Students can return to this list of anchors—to add to it, or just read over it—whenever they’re feeling overwhelmed.

Leverage the power of nature: Connecting kids with the natural world has wide-ranging mental benefits, including less overall stress.

Positive self-talk: Students’ stress often derives from feeling like they’re not good enough—or simply unable to accomplish a given task. Teaching them to develop the habit of positive self-talk in the face of challenges can help. Tell your students that when they have a negative thought about themselves, they can replace it with an affirmation, like “I can totally do this!” or “I can feel proud that I’m trying my best!”

Simple breathing exercises: Breathing exercises have a calming effect, making them a great tool for self-regulation. Ask students to breathe in through your nose slowly for 4 seconds, hold, then breathe out through your mouth slowly for 6 seconds. Put one hand on their stomach and one hand in front of their nose: As they breathe in, they feel their stomach expand, and as they breathe out, they feel warm air hit their hand. Prompt students to “exhale away” any negative thoughts they might be feeling.

Sensory brain breaks: Quick brain breaks focused on sensory activities allow students to process what they’ve learned and reduce stress. Here are some examples:

• Name Scribbles: Have students write their name four times with their dominant hand and four times with the other hand. Afterward, discuss how it felt; which was more difficult? Why?
• The Junk Bag: Create a bag full of junk drawer items—shoelaces, markers, a can opener, etc. Pick an item from the bag and ask students to come up with two ways the object could be used outside of its intended purpose. They can write or draw their answers.

Calming sounds: Teachers can use a variety of effective sounds in their classroom—rain sticks, bells, chimes, peaceful music.

Express emotions with art: Artistic activities can help kids process and express emotions, as well as create a sense of safety and comfort, reducing stress.

Self-regulating games: Many games require players to exhibit restraint, which can help kids develop discipline over their bodies and brains. For example, games like Red Light, Green Light and Freeze “require participants to exert self-control.

Create time to discuss: Even if you feel like you’ve given your students all the tools they need to self-regulate, some kids are bound to have difficulties. In those cases, it’s helpful to make time to chat with students one-on-one. Kids need objective, nonjudgmental feedback in order to improve their behavior. When a problem arises, find a calm time to discuss what went wrong, why, and how it can be handled differently next time.

Incoming College Freshmen

Is This the End of Reading is this week’s article summary and it focuses on how academically ill prepared many incoming college freshmen are.

It may seem odd to start our school year – we’re an elementary school after all --  with an article on college students, yet when I read this article over the summer, I thought about how good teaching is good teaching regardless of the grade.

As I discussed in preplanning, students will rise to the occasion when their teachers provide:

• Kindness: fair, understanding, compassionate, perspective-taking
• Optimism: high expectations, encouraging, believe in them
• Inclusion: individuality and diversity celebrated
• Calmness: maintain equanimity (regulate emotions) even in stressful times
• Clearness: consistent classroom structure/routine, clear instructions/explanations

Or our mission in a nutshell: we cherish the childhood of our students as we simultaneously prepare them for the future by developing in them a strong academic and character foundation.

The article states that all students from early childhood through graduate school learn more when they are challenged with meaningful school work, are held to high expectations, and have strong, trusting relationships with teachers and peers.

I so enjoy working in an elementary school because we get to shape our students, so they can eventually enter college poised to learn and thrive.

Thank you all for such a smooth first full week of school!

Joe

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Students are coming to college less able and less willing to read. If you design a freshman class based on the assumption that students will do the readings, you’ll get nowhere. If you make it easier, and go over what they should have read in class, students will participate. But the are you really helping them, develop the skills and habits needed for college.

What has caused this? The symptoms are students’ weak vocabularies and background knowledge; limited reading stamina and ability to synthesize, summarize, and write; fragmented and distracted thinking; freezing when given challenging assignments (a 750-word essay feels long); and not seeing the point of doing much work outside of class.

Why do so many students have these deficiencies? Was it having smartphones in their pockets since middle school, endless drivel on social media, reduced academic expectations during the pandemic, and facing a deeply troubling future?

We shouldn’t put all the blame on Covid-19. Before that, observers noticed an increasingly transactional approach to schoolwork, with students assigned short passages rather than books, social studies and science downgraded as students prepared for high-stakes math and ELA standardized tests.

“There was no room for my creative side at all in high school,” said a student who studied hard and got good grades at a top-tier school. “Reading has to be work. It has to have a grade assigned to it. I was largely deterred from reading for entertainment. I almost never read any books for fun.”

And there was a watering down of academic demands and loosening of deadlines, with many students getting good grades for mediocre work and heading to college unprepared for its demands – especially writing research papers.

Running parallel to this has been an increase in social isolation, loneliness, and anxiety, with many young people almost constantly on their cellphones, worrying about how their online profiles look to others, skimping on in-person interactions. When kids encounter stress and difficulty, they lack skills and a support system.

Students say that was does make a difference in lifting their motivation point to the same thing: having someone who is invested in their success.

That means rigorous and meaningful work, high expectations, and relationships – in K-12 schools and college.

“Students will read,” said Chris Hakala, a psychology professor at Springfield College, “if they know why they are doing it and time is taken to help them begin to develop an approach that is effective.”