Staying Calm When Children Act Out

Hello everyone! Welcome to our Wednesday night live chat. We're live guys! We are live Wednesday night live chat. How are you all doing? I am so grateful for anyone who shows up here live. Thank you for being here and for those of you watching the replay, thank you for watching the replay. No matter when you watch this, when you get to catch this, it's some really really important information. This is a great topic that we are going to discuss this evening and I hope you guys get to watch it and replay it over and over and over as much as you need. So welcome to Wednesday night live chat. My name is Monica J. I am an early childhood development specialist and a behavior specialist. I've worked for over 16 years in education as a special education teacher and early childhood teacher in New York City. I am always so excited to jump on here and share things that I've learned over the years with all of you and I love getting your feedback and I'd love for you to interact, ask questions, share your stories. Now tonight's topic, it's a good one. I'm telling you it's a good one. It's a good one and it is something we discussed last night over on Instagram. If you were able to catch the live chat, the Tuesday night live chat on Instagram, great! It's the same exact topic so don't worry you're not missing anything. It was a really good conversation over there and our topic is finding your state of calm. I told you, I told you it's a good one. I absolutely told you it is a good one. Finding your state of calm. What does that mean? Well I'm going to tell you in a minute what I mean when I say that, what it means to me and then you can just decide what it means to you. What does that mean to you? But for first, before we even go any further, if you think that this is a topic that someone you know could benefit from, maybe people that follow you or family, friends, definitely share this broadcast out. You can share it live while you're watching it. You can share it even on the replay if you think it's something that is beneficial or going to be beneficial to someone you know. Please share the broadcast and a really great reason for sharing the broadcast also is that just in case you know you want to save this and sometimes it's hard to find old videos, old broadcasts. Well once you save it, it's going to be on your feed. It's going to be in your feed forever and so it'll be easy for you to find it and watch the replay later. So hey Karen, thanks for joining. Hey Kids Small Planet, thanks for joining. I truly appreciate you guys being here this evening. Like I said a little earlier, our topic tonight is called, excuse me, finding your state of calm and it's a really really important topic and I want to talk about that and what it means for parents and teachers that work with young children or that have young children in their lives and that are parenting or guiding children every day. What does that mean? Finding your state of calm when things seem to just get out of hand, when life is just you know really throwing you boulders and there's a lot of challenges and you find yourself stressed because we all get stressed. We all find ourselves getting angry and frustrated. I mean we're human so we experience these feelings. Now whether we experiencing them a lot or we're experiencing them a little bit, I mean everyone's life is different. However, we do find ourselves angry sometimes with the children in our lives. We do find ourselves frustrated. We do find ourselves stressed out and what do you do in those moments? How do they make you feel? How do you feel in those moments? So I mean think about that. When you're stressed, whether it's your child, whether it's a student, they have gotten you to a point where you feel stressed and or you just feel like they pushed your button so much they're just not listening. What does it do to you inside? Like how does that make you really really feel? You know think about that and if you want you can share your comments in the section. It doesn't even matter if you're watching the replay later on. You can still share your comments at this point. You can still share. How does that make you feel? I know for me when I'm working with students and I get to a point that I'm frustrated or I get to a point where I'm feeling angry or just miserable or just at a place where I'm not level-headed, it makes me feel off. It doesn't make me feel good and I definitely don't feel calm and I definitely don't feel level-headed. You know I definitely don't feel like I can really figure out what's going on. I can make the best decisions. So it's definitely something I know has to change. Something is wrong. Something is not right and I want to change that. So that's how I feel. If I'm ever angry or frustrated or mad at my students or you know I'm lashing out, I'm shouting or anything like that then I definitely know something is not right. Something is not right. Definitely not right and that's what we're talking about tonight. Well what do you do in those situations? How do you find your state of calm and do you allow what's happening in the moment? Do you allow that to take over your mindset? Because if you do, that's a problem actually. It's a problem because that means you're not thinking clearly. So if you you know allow the anger or the frustration or whatever the thing that your child did to make you feel this way or you're feeling like they are the ones that are making you feel this way. If you allow whatever is happening in that moment to just take over, especially take over your mind and your mindset in that moment, then that can be a problem because you are feeling out of sorts maybe. You are not going to be able to really clearly you know problem solve whatever's happening. You may not be able to guide your child in such a way that is going to benefit them and help them to problem solve whatever's happening in their lives. That challenging moment, right? So you really want to be able to step back and say how am I feeling? Why am I feeling this way and how can I find my state of calm? How can I get myself to a place where I'm calm? Where I feel like I can breathe? Where I feel like I can make a decision? Where I feel like I can problem solve? How do you get to that point? So I mean this is what we want to talk about tonight and it's extremely important that you know we find this state of calm and I just like to call it a state of calm because it is a state. It's a state of mind and you want to be able to find this and tonight I want to share four ways that you can actually find your state of calm in challenging situations with young children okay so or with children in general and let me be honest with you you know the the strategy that I'm going to share with you this evening is something you can use in life in general not just when it comes to children and behavior and challenging situations at home or in the classroom no these are things you will be able to this is something you will be able to use in your life in general when you feel like a challenge has you know come up when you feel a challenge has presented itself and it makes you feel angry frustrated stress overwhelmed burnt out whatever the feelings are that you're having something that is not positive well you can use this strategy it carries over into your life your life not just your life with your children it carries over into your everyday life I promise you that and I'm going to show you how now I do want to share with you that the reason why I am actually even doing this live chat and this specific topic is because I was having a conversation the other day with a parent and it happened to be a parent of one of my students and we started to talk about my student's behavior at home and she was saying and she shared with me that she's the only one that my student listens to at home that my student is you know really uh you know challenging them at home and giving them a hard time and the student doesn't listen to daddy doesn't listen grandma grandpa no one she won't listen to anyone only the mom but the mom said she feels like I always have to yell at her I always have to shout at her I always have to just be stirring with her and angry with her in order to get her to do what I need her to do because she cries all the time she's yelling she's kicking she doesn't want to clean up cleaning up pretty much I think was the biggest thing but she will take all the toys out dump everything in her playroom and if the floor is a mess and she doesn't want to clean it up and she gives them a hard time when it's time to clean up and she'll kick and she'll scream and she'll do all of those things and mom said I'm just always shouting I feel like I'm just you know going crazy because I'm always shouting I'm always yelling and I never feel calm I never feel like everything's gonna be okay and so we talked about finding her state of calm and I introduced that to her that phrase of state of calm and I asked her well how do you calm down what do you do what steps do you take to calm down and she shared with me that honestly Monica I don't feel as if I can be calm she's like that doesn't happen that just doesn't exist in my life and I don't think it's possible and she really truly meant that like she does not believe it's possible to find any type of calm any type of peace in her life or her current situation right now and that hurt me and that made me feel like wow I really want to work with her I really want to help her find that peace find that state of calm when these challenges arise I don't want her to feel like she's all over the place and out of sorts all the time and feel like all she can do is yell and shout and that's the only way she could get her message across that's the only way she can teach her child and that's the only way her child will listen and one I know it's not the only way because I work with her child and I know that I can stay calm in situations and in her child will listen it may take time it it does require a lot of patience I have to admit it requires a lot of patience and patience is something that you too will have to practice but it's possible it is absolutely possible and I just wanted to get that through to her and um at that moment in that conversation I wasn't able to and that was just the first conversation and it was the first of many about this subject I'm sure because I want to revisit it and I want to help her get to that point and I want to help you all get to that point if you feel you're not at that point okay because it's so important to to feel that and not only is it important because you'll be able to help your children and it will benefit them because you'll help them problem solve and you'll help them figure out how to self-regulate and teach them skills and give them the tools they need for lifelong success but it's also important for you it's so important for you for your mental health for your physical health and we don't talk about mental health enough in to me we just don't talk about enough not only in schools but just in life in general in this country we don't we don't talk about it as if it's something that is up here you know it's it's high on the totem pole it's not low it's actually extremely important we talk about going to the doctor for physical things we talk about um you know when it comes to your children in school we talk about always getting good grades and always being respectful and always you know doing the best and being number one and getting an a and being on the dean's list and doing all these things being student of the month we talk about all the academic side of it right and the merit but we know we don't talk enough about the mental side of it because think about where you are in your life as an adult right you go you have experiences you feel you have emotions and how do you cope with them were you ever taught how to cope with them i don't think i was ever really taught this is something that i've learned over the years because things have happened and i realized i didn't like how it made me feel and i realized i had to figure out ways to find my own state of calm and i had to figure out ways to to cope with my own challenges and my stressors and the way i was coping in the past was not healthy not mentally not physically because when you're constantly stressed or you're constantly feeling overwhelmed or burnt out it's physically draining it's taxing on your body and then it's also mentally draining it's mentally draining right so i was never taught how to cope i don't think i was ever just like literally given those tools like you know i know you're feeling this way monica you know maybe when i was 10 or 12 or whatever not from teachers um i mean my mom we talked about oh you're sad you know don't be sad things are going to be okay or whatever the case was in that particular moment but mental health wasn't something that we constantly talked about in our house and mental health was definitely not something we talked about in school but it's so important in adulthood it's so important in life in general because it all stems back to how we are going to cope with these feelings we have in these experiences how are we going to regulate our own emotions and feelings in that moment how are we going to keep ourselves calm so that we can think level-headed and we can make clear decisions that are beneficial to not only our children or the people in our lives but also to us right so your physical health your mental health all of these things are important and it all goes back to how do you find your state of calm how do you cope with these things you know so that's what we are talking about tonight it is so so important i'm telling you it is extremely important and you know i just know from experience i know from experience but one thing i do know is that these steps that i'm going to share with you this evening these are steps that i use every day at school with my students because it helps me get through the day and these are things that you can use with your children at home at school and you can use these uh steps in this strategy in life in general all right so number one let's go over it number one is pause anytime there's a challenging situation whether your child has done something where you're just like really are you kidding me right now or something has happened or you got a bad report from your child's teacher and you're just like are you kidding me is this really happening right now i need you to pause i need you to pause to freeze to stop in your tracks honestly just like that i really need you to stop to pause and you know if you watch my if you watch my broadcast and if you um watch any of my broadcasts before when i talk about behavior one thing i always talk about when it comes to you assisting your child and guiding your child in these moments i always remind you to pause it's so important so it's probably at the top of the list of all of my strategies and that's okay because it's an important one and i'm gonna keep it there but pause i need you to pause because i need you to stop before you react and reacting is usually not the most positive thing because when you react you're reacting off of that emotion you're reacting off of the stress you're reacting off of the frustration you're reacting from the the anger you're reacting from a place that you just really did that are you kidding me why you know you're reacting from an explosive state of mind and i don't want you to react from there i don't want you to react from there because if you come in explosive and your child is already over here and maybe they're explosive maybe they've done something that they know wrong so maybe they're feeling bad or scared or maybe they're not feeling that maybe they're feeling tough and they're just like i don't care or maybe you know they're shouting and yelling or having a tantrum but if you guys are coming at each other with all this explosive energy with all of this like all of these big emotions that's how i kind of like to describe it sometimes these big emotions then you guys are going to just come like this and boom meet in the middle and it's going to get bigger it's going to really explode and become something much bigger than it needs to be the situation is going to get it's going to get and it doesn't really need to escalate it really doesn't need to escalate from where it already is we don't need it to get worse it's or it is already where it's at whatever happened happened we're in the moment so why not just pause if it's not life-threatening why not just pause for a minute that's number one pause and the second thing is breathe breathe so you've paused now i need you to breathe take a deep breath let it out get your thoughts together get your mind in a place of calm in a state of calm where you feel at peace as close to peace as close to calm as you possibly possibly can get in that moment and this is not something i expect you to do for um for 10 minutes or oh sorry guys hold on this is not something i expect you to do for 10 minutes i don't expect you to do this for um 15 minutes not even five minutes this is something you can do in a few seconds so if you pause and then you start breathing and you really try to get yourself in a place of calm then you can just do that in actually a few seconds 10 seconds maybe one minute if you want and then after you feel calm i need you to assess what's happening assess what is going on in that moment and this is why guys this is why i tell you you can use this in your everyday life you can use this at work with co-workers you can use this with family members you can use this when you're at the store and maybe the the cashier or the customer service person or whatever is just annoying you or you feel like they're just not helping you or giving you the service you deserve and want and you're at a place where you're feeling like i'm getting frustrated i'm getting angry well i need you to pause number one i need you to breathe number two deep breath in deep breath out close your eyes if you need to close your eyes i like to close my eyes and then number three i need you to assess what is going on yep assess what's going on we already know how it's making you feel now assess what's going on what has happened in the moment that got me to that point and what has happened in the moment that's making me say hey something is wrong something's not right right what's happening is my child doing something they're not supposed to be doing did they say something they weren't supposed to say did they do something to someone they weren't supposed to do did i get a report from the teacher that i'm really angry about getting what is happening in that moment you know assess that assess that and when you're calm it's actually easier to assess what's going on when you're in a state of calm it's easier to assess what's going on and um i want to before i share the last step that fourth step i want to share something my mentor said today i was watching one of her insta insta stories or if you're not sure what that is like on instagram you can um do these short video clips like 15 second clips and you can put it up and people can watch it so anyway i was watching one of her insta stories and she mentioned you know being in like um not having such a good day not having such a good day but she realizes that you know even though i'm not having a good day that i need to step away for a minute and take some time to myself even if that's a day or if that's you know maybe it's just a few hours i realize in this moment when i'm not having such a good day and things are really getting bad i need to take a moment to myself and she said something and i wrote it down because i want to read it and um so these are her words not mine but she said take a moment to strengthen you then you may actually pull through faster and thank you for saying that thank you for saying that i'm gonna read it again because it's exactly what i'm talking about right now it's exactly what i'm talking about i'm telling you to pause i'm telling you to breathe i'm telling you to assess what's going on in that moment and so this this just really ties into that and it's so appropriate she said take a moment to strengthen you then you may actually pull through faster and in situation situations with your children if it's a problem if it's a challenge or that they're having and that you just think it's inappropriate the behavior that they're choosing well take a moment take a moment because the problem has already happened it's not life threatening so why not just take a moment before you react and say or do something that you regret later or you react and say something or do something that is not beneficial to them that is not giving them any tools that they need to to really um self-regulate take a moment and what's wrong with stopping you know it's not going to get worse right it already happened so why react why not pause why not breathe why not assess and then the last thing you can do number four then you respond and so when you respond at this point because you found your state of calm when you respond you're going to be responding from a place of being level-headed being able to think clearly and being able to not only guide your child in that moment but to also model uh behavior that you want them to use or choose in the future so if they see that they're so stressed hey vicky what's up hey nelly thanks guys for joining um but yeah so if if they see that you maybe got frustrated but you were able to calm yourself down and you were able to come come from a place of calm and really address them from a place of calm then they will see how they can do that in the future it's like you're modeling to them exactly what you want them to do you want them to problem solve you want them to solve their own problems you want them to be able to calm down when they're angry or or calm down when something happens to them whether it's with their friends or in school or whatever may have you you want them to be able to um approach those situations in positive ways and you want them to be able to choose the right behaviors and the right choices right because the whole reason that you're already frustrated is because they did something or said something or didn't listen or or you know whatever made you feel like it was inappropriate or undesirable and you want them to choose the right actions right so we have to choose the right actions too we have to hold ourselves accountable to choose the right action but but but but let me just remind you of this let me remind you of this is that we're human and so i don't expect you to be perfect because there's no perfect parent there's no perfect teacher there's no perfect aunt uncle there's just no perfect anyone right so i don't expect you to be perfect and there are going to be times when you're angry and there are going to be times when you're frustrated and stressed if you are able to understand all of this now and be able to be conscious of this and conscious of your mindset then you will be able to approach these situations differently and that my friends is definitely important your state of calm is necessary it's important and i just can't stress it enough i just can't stress it enough i'll be honest with you a few years ago you know i got to a place of and it really wasn't that long ago i can't tell exactly how long ago let's say two or three years ago maybe three years ago yeah maybe okay maybe three or four years ago i'm sorry i can't remember but i found myself in a place of um just being erratic all over the place and i was not in a state of calm and i was i got burnt out i got burnt out from work and but i put myself in these situations i put myself in these situations i was working at several schools and because i i work in special education here in new york city with early childhood you can work in different schools just like a therapist does like a speech therapist or occupational therapist and you go from school to school to see your students and that's what i do now currently i've been doing that for many years but um i was for so many years i was doing it at a crazy crazy high level and i was going to three and four schools in one day now that is kind of crazy okay i just want to tell you that all over new york city i was going to two different boroughs at one point for a few years and that was actually insane and people would always be like what are you doing you go from brooklyn to manhattan and then can you even believe at one point i was going to three different boroughs now let me see if i don't know how to break this down from you if you're not from new york but it's just crazy let's just just believe me it's crazy okay so i was going from brooklyn to manhattan and then to the bronx like i was doing this it was just it was not so and i found myself so burnt out that by the time okay my the student i would see in the morning those students i had energy i always have a lot of energy in the morning really like morning's my best time but by the time i would get to my afternoon students and then my last student all the way in the bronx at like four o'clock i was completely burnt out and so anything my student would do they would say something the wrong way if they would kick the wrong way if they someone did something to them and they would have a huge tantrum i would just react i would frustrated i would just be like oh this kid oh my gosh you know and mind you i'm trained to know how to help children with behaviors right i'm trained to know how to to problem solve and give students and guide them give them the tools they need right teaching them how to self-regulate but i was so burnt out and miserable that no matter what they did i always was looking at it as their fault i was always just coming from a place of reaction so i was being reactive which usually comes from an emotional place with all these big emotions so you're coming in explosive i was coming in explosive and so they were giving me that back i was giving them all of this and so they're giving it right back to me like if you're gonna give them all of this emotion and frustration because you're miserable they're gonna just give it right back to you so you can't be pissed at them if if that's what you're giving them right so if you think about it and last night i talked about this i asked people to tell me the ages of their children like and if you don't even want to share it here in the comments it's fine but think about how old are your children are they three are they four are they five six seven just think about how old they are right so let's just say a four-year-old i'm gonna say four-year-old so four-year-old and i'm not gonna say my age because i might scare you but then i think about how old i am right if i compare a four-year-old to how old i am i've been on this earth a long time um i just think about how many years it has taken me to get to a place of calm how many years it has taken me to understand what frustrates what frustrates me what gets me stressed and how i can calm myself down in those moments and then i look at their age and think about wow they've only been on this earth four years so they haven't had much practice with self-regulation basically being able to calm themselves down or being able to choose the right or make the right decisions or make the right choices in challenging situations they've only had four years to practice this or they only have five years or six years to practice this you've had how many years to practice this are you getting it 100 right i know i'm not all the time right so we can't always expect our children to always get it right but what we can do is we can approach them and approach the situations that are most challenging in ways that are going to benefit them and benefit ourselves okay we can take care of ourselves mentally physically so that we can be in a place where we can help them and where we can guide them and come from a place of calm come from a positive place come from a place of teaching learning practicing giving second chances right so if you think about those things then it will all kind of make sense it will all kind of make sense and just don't ever give up not on yourself please have patience with yourself don't give up on your children please have patience with your children and just remember that they are constantly constantly learning we are constantly learning and we're also as the adults in the lives of young children we are constantly constantly teaching so don't give up on them and don't give up on yourself and give yourself time patience patience with yourself so remember those four steps when a challenge occurs when a stressful situation occurs with your child or in your life in general just think of those four things pause breathe assess and then respond and then respond and i'm telling you do this even at work do this in your life it's not just with your kids use these four steps to to just self-regulate your own life and the things that bring you stress change your approach because if you're finding yourself burnt out and miserable i want you to just take the time to change yourself and remember what my mentor said take a moment to strengthen you then you may actually pull through faster so beautiful so appropriate so right so i thank you all for listening i thank you for joining me whether live whether on the replay thank you so much i hope this helps you in your life and helps you in finding your state of calm and um it definitely benefits your children in the long run of course of course um i want to share something special with you guys some of you may already know and some of you may not i created a gift of a short mini video series it's a three part mini video series that i created and it's all about behavior the 10 things that i've learned over the years over my 16 years of teaching the 10 things i wish i knew when i first started teaching but it's okay that i didn't because it's so important to experience and learn as you go but it's called the 10 things like the 10 things i wish i knew about bad behavior and young children and it's just sharing some important things that no matter who you are if you have young children in your lives you need to know these 10 things when it comes to behavior that you may consider i'm telling you it's good it's some good stuff and how you can get this free mini series right away i mean like right away like right now is all you have to do is you can go to my website monicajsutton.com and you just click on freebies up in the tabs you'll see it says freebies you click on that follow the directions and boom it will be delivered to you in your email in your inbox right away you can start watching it right away it's a three-part series you get the first video immediately and if you want to get a little sneak peek to get an idea of what this is all about because you're like hmm i don't know never seen you before i don't really know you well you can go to my instagram page and my instagram page is monica j sutton again monica j sutton go to my instagram page my last video post which was just two posts ago you'll see a sneak peek of this mini video series that is absolutely free for you guys for you all and it's 10 things i wish i knew about bad behavior and young children enjoy it's free go get it actually after this is over i will put it in the comment section um i don't think i have it now i don't have it now but i will put it in the comment section but for those of you who are eager to watch it now just go to my website click on freebies thanks so much for watching have an amazing rest of your night and um have a great rest of the week wishing you the very very best have patience with yourself thanks guys bye see you soon bye guys