Strategies to Support Dysregulated Students

 This week’s article summary is a recent post on Edutopia entitled Strategies to Help Dysregulated Students.

We spent considerable time during preplanning talking about classroom management, particularly how to respond to the child in your classroom who seems to act out more frequently or struggles to manage his/her emotions and behavior.

We emphasized the importance of “connection before correction.” Before we can effectively redirect a child’s behavior, we need to establish a trusting relationship with that child. That trust grows in time from the care and concern we show each student, as well as from the routines, expectations, and consistency we establish in our classrooms.

As I mentioned during preplanning, the good news is that most of our students — with some guidance and scaffolding — develop age-appropriate executive-function skills such as self-regulation, impulse control, and the ability to manage their emotions.

What I found particularly interesting about this article, published just a month ago, is how many of its recommendations are practices and strategies we have been using at Trinity for years: student-created classroom norms, Wheels of Emotions, designated time-out or calming areas, brain/body breaks.

There aren’t any magic spells or quick fixes for helping a child who is struggling with self-regulation. Instead, it comes down to our commitment to knowing our students well, building relationships with them over time, and providing the consistency, patience, and support they need—especially those students who require more of our attention and support than most.

Joe

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Today, nearly 8 in 10 public schools report developmental delays among K-12 students: many students, educators say, are struggling with basic social and emotional skills such as listening, following directions, sharing, and taking turns than a mere five years ago. 

While many experts cite the pandemic's role in creating skill deficiencies, it's only a part of the story. Educators also point to major changes in the culture around child rearing, pointing to issues like rising screen time, less play, and fewer opportunities for face-to-face interaction. 

Serious behavioral issues and developmental concerns require broad support from administrators, specialists, and families. But for everyday moments that derail lessons—a child melting down, refusing directions, or struggling to rejoin the group—many teachers find that simple practices, consistently applied, can help turn big feelings into moments of growth instead of lost instructional time.

Expand Kids’ Emotional Vocabulary: Before kids can regulate their emotions, they need the words to describe them. Kids need to be explicitly taught that emotions aren’t good or bad but actually convey important information. A limited emotional vocabulary can make it harder for children to understand the signals their body is sending. Help kids learn the subtle differences between emotions by:

• Feeling Brainstorms: Challenge students to think of 3–5 words for simple emotions such as “happy” or “sad” to help them move beyond broad categories and build a more nuanced understanding of what they’re feeling.
• Emotion Anchor Charts: Create anchor charts illuminating various emotional states, adding new words and definitions as they come up in class discussions or read-alouds. For pre-readers, try to pair each word with an image, emoji, or student-friendly example to make sure they understand.
• Map Feelings Over Time: Once students have developed a healthy emotional vocabulary, use tools like emotion wheels and mood scales to help them become more aware of how their emotions fluctuate over time.

Create Agreements Students Own: To establish behavioral norms, co-create child-friendly community agreements at the start of the year. During discussion, students can generate simple norms like “we keep our hands to ourselves” or “we are nice to each other”; teachers can make the agreed-upon norms clearer through illustrations, drawings, or photos of children modeling each behavior. Role-playing with student actors or puppets can help explicitly show kids what these norms look like in real time, while praising the behavior when students practice it correctly can help make the expectation stick.

Create a Space for Calm: When young students become dysregulated, they often need time to calm their bodies before addressing what happened. When a child is overwhelmed, reasoning doesn’t work. First they need help settling their bodies. 

Calm-Down Corners: These provide a dedicated, comfortable space for students to reset. Encourage students to take five minutes and go to the space on their own when they need to engage in self-regulation. 

Let Books Do the Talking: Picture books can help kids explore emotions and abstract concepts like kindness, fairness, and respect—opening the door to meaningful conversations in ways that feel natural and familiar.

Use Brain Breaks: Well-timed brain breaks can stave off the fatigue, boredom, and distraction that often leads to dysregulation. Try a 3-5 minute break for students for every 15 minutes of concentrated academic work in elementary school. Some strategies: 

• Circles of Sameness: Students get up and take positions around the room as the teacher reads a statement. Those who agree move to the center; others stay put
• Laugh Like a…: Brainstorm animals, creatures, or characters, then cue students: “Drop everything and laugh like a ___.” Try a few in quick succession—monkey, whale, giraffe—to help students release tension and reset.
• Statue Freeze: Ask students to move around the room—walking, hopping, skipping, or tiptoeing—then call out a pose: “Be a statue of a lion!” Students freeze, then “un-freeze” and repeat.
• One-Minute Dance Party: Sometimes kids just need to move. For a quick, unstructured reset that works out pent-up energy, play a lively song and let students dance for one minute before returning to the lesson.

Teach Repair Rituals: When rules are inevitably broken, create a routine that helps students repair harm they may have caused. That might mean teaching young children how to offer a verbal apology, asking them to draw a picture of something the other child might like, or write a short note of contrition. The point is not to force an apology but to scaffold the process of reflection and responsibility. After a pushing incident, for example, a teacher might focus less on “Why did you do that?” and more on what happened, how the other child may have felt, and what the student can do to help—turning a difficult moment into a moment of learning and connection.

Build in Open-Ended Play: Even the days of our youngest students are highly structured, leaving less time for open-ended play and self-exploration. Integrating 10-minute outdoor breaks into instruction helps her students reset. The key is to give little directions beyond staying safe and taking a break. 

Breathing Techniques to Control Behavior

 This week's article summary is Quick Mindfulness Cures for When Kids Are on the Brink. It builds on last week's summary by providing additional strategies to help students regulate their emotions before challenging behaviors escalate.

As we move beyond the first couple of weeks of school, we'll begin to see greater need to teach these skills intentionally. During preplanning, we talked about how misbehavior is more often a lack of skill rather than a lack of will. If we want students to respond differently, we have to equip them with strategies they can use in the moment.

Most of us have learned to manage our emotions through internal self-regulation techniques developed over time. Our students are still learning those skills.

Practicing simple mindfulness and breathing exercises gives students another tool they can use to pause, refocus, and shift their brains from reacting on instinct to responding with calm and reason. Like any skill, these strategies become more effective with consistent practice, making them a great addition to Morning Meeting or other daily classroom routines.

Joe

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Clenched fists, flushed cheeks and shaky, shallow breaths — most parents and teachers can spot these signs of an impending kid-meltdown.

When we notice kid are about to lose it, we have a few options: We can intervene in hopes of mitigating the damage; we can whisk our child home (or at least out of the public gaze) before the tantrum strikes; or we can simply hunker down and wait out the storm.

But what if we could avoid a meltdown in the first place?

Turns out, we can, at least some of the time. 

Researchers say mindfulness — that wellness keyword of the moment — can help keep kids calm and centered. 

By building a child’s awareness of their own emotional and physical state and strengthening the mind-body connection, mindfulness exercises are proven to reduce stress and anxiety and reduce self-harm in kids of all ages.

In the book “The Yes Brain: How to Cultivate Courage, Curiosity, and Resilience in Your Child,” best-selling author Daniel J. Seigel describes kids’ emotional zones: 

• The calm, connected Green Zone
• The enraged, about-to-melt down Red Zone
• The withdrawn, overstimulated Blue Zone

Using simple mindfulness activities, teachers and parents can help kids stay in the calm Green Zone, where they’re more likely to make better choices and maintain emotional and behavioral regulation.

Of course, a solid mindfulness practice involves consistent repetition and routine, not quick fixes. But for particularly heated moments, it doesn’t hurt to have a few mindfulness exercises on deck to help kids de-escalate when they can’t do it themselves. After all, kids don’t want to lose control any more than we do.

Breathing techniques: When a meltdown looms, sometimes you’ve got to pull something out of thin air. That’s where creative breathing techniques win the day. Deep breaths dial down anxiety in mere moments, and breathing exercises are simple and easy to whip out during heated moments. Try:

• Birthday Candle Breaths: Pretend each outstretched finger is a birthday candle and then take a deep breath to blow each “candle” out
• Starfish Breaths: Tracing a finger along the outline of the opposite hand in the form of a starfish, taking a deep breath up and down each finger
• Rocket Breaths: Pressing hands together over their heart, then using a deep breath to “blast” the rocket overhead

Or try this one from “The Yes Brain”: When kids are upset, help them move back into their Green Zone by placing one hand on their chest and one hand on their stomach and simply breathing.

Kids can practice this calming technique in the morning during Morning Meeting. Each time the exercise is repeated, its calming effect is reinforced.

Peace out, meltdowns.

Two Words to Say to a Rude Child

 This week’s article summary is Two Words to Say to a Rude Child.

As we are just two days into the new school year, we're still in the honeymoon period when our students are polite, attentive, and cooperative.

While we may enjoy a few more weeks of this bliss, as students become more comfortable and familiar, some will inevitably begin to test boundaries.

During preplanning, we discussed a variety of strategies to promote positive behavior across the classroom as well as interventions for individual students.

Although the article below is written for parents, there’s value in applying the "Try Again" technique in the classroom.

We also talked during preplanning about the importance of allowing students to learn from their mistakes—not only academically but also in their social-emotional development. ‘Try Again’ grants a student a re-do opportunity.

You might consider introducing the "Try Again" strategy to your class so students understand when and why you may use it with an individual student, a small group, or even the entire class.

Using "Try Again" signifies:

• An overstep of our school-wide TIGERS norms
• An opportunity for students to make a better choice through a respectful do-over
• A chance for students to take responsibility for correcting their own behavior.

Thanks to everyone for such a smooth start to the new school year!

Joe

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A parenting coach has shared the two-word response parents can use if their kids are being disrespectful – and it’s surprisingly simple.

Mike Wallace, who runs Apparently Parenting, says: “Stop letting your kids walk all over you with this one trick. It’s super simple – and when done correctly, they rarely push back against it.

The parenting coach and behavior analyst said if a child is disrespectful or rude towards you, all you need to say in response is: “Try again.”

This can be used in a variety of scenarios, added the parenting coach, such as “when they slam the door, when they yell back ‘no’, when they’re playing too rough, or when they snatch a toy out of someone’s hand”.

“They immediately know what needs to be done to change their behavior,” he explained.

Of course, some younger children might need a bit more direction than simply “try again”. If they say something rude to you, or shout at you, you could respond: “That’s not how we talk to each other. Can you try again?”

If they shout a demand at you, like “I want a snack!” you could respond: “Let’s try that again. How do we ask nicely?”

When kids are rude it might be tempting to raise your voice, but parenting pros suggest remaining calm and speaking in a steady voice, otherwise the situation will likely escalate.

According to My Parenting Solutions, asking for a replay is “so simple and effective”. But if your child is having a tantrum, it’s probably best to wait until they’ve calmed down to encourage them to try again.

The method can work well, because you’re giving children the opportunity to practice acting respectfully.

The Benefits of Body Breaks

 As we begin a new school year, most of us are preoccupied with setting up our classrooms and dealing with the countless small details that precede the first day of school next Thursday. 

While all of these things are important, my first article summary of the year (How Free Play Supports Attention in Elementary School) is a reminder that our primary responsibility as elementary teachers is to honor and respect childhood.

Today, kids are often rushed to grow up. Their days are over structured, scheduled, and supervised. Opportunities for exploration, imagination, wonder, and simple play are less common. Yet these experiences are not distractions from learning—they are essential components of healthy child development.

At Trinity, we have the responsibility of creating a school environment where children can still be children. This means providing opportunities for movement, curiosity, conversation, creativity, unstructured play, and yes, even a little running in the halls. It means recognizing that academic success and child development are not competing priorities but are interwoven.

The article below highlights the powerful impact that free play and outdoor breaks have on student attention, engagement, and overall well-being. Its message is both simple and profound: when we give children opportunities to move, explore, imagine, and recharge, they return to learning more focused, more engaged, and more ready to succeed.

As we welcome our students back, let’s remember that some of the most important learning happens when children are given the time and space to experience the joys of childhood. By protecting those moments, we not only support academic achievement—we help nurture healthier, happier, and more well-rounded young people.

Joe

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As an elementary school teacher, I’m always looking for things to engage my students. A couple of years ago, I came across a research article referring to Finnish schools allowing students to go outside for 15 minutes every day after every 45-minute period of instruction. I was intrigued. I decided to include this as one of my goals for my yearly teacher evaluation. Although I didn’t do this every day after every 45-minute period of time, I was able to integrate more outside breaks throughout the week.

The breaks were only five to 10 minutes long, and my intention was to ensure that the time outside was never structured, apart from a few guiding principles. Rule one: No teacher instruction. I didn’t want to give my students any direction other than how to be safe outside. Rule two: I encouraged them not to organize anything. Rule three: Just simply take a break. The results of this seemingly simple target surprised me.

First, my students’ attention span increased significantly. While this wasn’t a formal research project, trust me when I say that after 23 years of experience, I was shocked to realize how taking kids outside for a short period of time frequently can help support their focus in the classroom.

WHY OUTSIDE TIME WORKS

Because classrooms today have such structured plans, students get less time for self-exploration and choice. When we go outside for about 10 minutes, on average, my students can choose how they want to spend that time. Some of them simply walk back and forth on a sidewalk path in our school. I always have a handful of students who are very curious about the dirt patch underneath the pear tree. Some students hang on a low-lying branch.

Other students run back and forth in the field. At one point in the fall, I even witnessed one student sitting down and meditating with their fingers facing the sky.

When we come back inside, their attention span is longer, they participate more, they ask more questions, and there’s less need for them to ask to leave the room to use the restroom or go and get a drink. It’s almost like this break helps them to focus on the learning that we’re doing in school.

FREE PLAY PROMOTES GENERAL WELLNESS

Other than the clear impact this method has on focus and academic achievement, there’s an element of student well-being with this. Leaving the four walls of the classroom to breathe in some fresh air and take a break contributes to students’ whole child development.

Decades ago, Fred Rogers described the seven fundamentals of learning and growing, and they are still relevant today. On his show, he often said that students need time just to play. For example, simply giving students an empty cardboard box without any directions can be more educationally than giving them a prepackaged project where they follow the directions. During free play, students have time to use their imagination. As a result, they are able to build their creativity, confidence, cooperation, and problem-solving skills.

WHAT ABOUT ACADEMIC RIGOR?

I believe that every teacher should be granted 10 to 20 minutes a day of simple outside time breaks, especially if it means that students are more effective with the time that they have. It doesn’t make any sense to grind out these minutes if it means that kids aren’t really producing work in an effective way. If they’re tired, their head is down on their desk, or they can’t sit still anymore, they aren’t learning. 

Let’s talk about teacher wellness. Outside time is also good for the teacher. After a refreshing break, the teacher comes back into the classroom, feels reenergized, and can get to work with their students. 

All schools can recognize this as a basic need. Just going outside and getting fresh air allows people to reconnect with the world and reconnect with their own ability. I find it energizing as well. Short breaks help me, as a teacher, to recharge and get back to the expectation of rigor in the classroom.