Children can be exhausting...

I recently did a training session where a conversation arose regarding working with young children.

First, we know being with young children is physically demanding. It requires standing up, sitting down, and moving from space to space all day long.

Then, we must be mentally focused for most of the day. This requires knowing what we’re going to teach and understanding the strategies and materials we’re going to use with whom, when, and where.

Last but certainly not least, we need to be emotionally grounded. The younger the child, the more they “pull” on our nervous system to self-regulate and calm down. This means we constantly have to manage our emotions as well as the emotions of each child we care for.

This is to say that we need to do a lot to really “show up” for children.

So, what does this mean for highly effective teams? In highly effective teams, each member understands the importance of self-care so they can come to the group as their “best” self.

And…

Highly effective teams also understand the role of co-regulation. They know that dysregulation is contagious, meaning that when individual members are angry, upset, frustrated, etc., these emotions can “pass” on to other team members and the children as well. Therefore, highly effective teams work to be co-regulators.

Co-regulators are those who set a calm tone. They make people feel joyful and safe and help each other lower their levels of stress. They understand that others are more likely to be calm when they are calm.

Therefore, team members support each other in maintaining calm. They develop systems, such as signals to alert each other when overwhelmed or frustrated, as well as strategies for staying calm throughout the day (see last week’s blog).

Let’s face it… teaching can be a high-stress position, and highly effective teams work on staying as proactive as possible.