What is resilience? and How to develop resilience in children...

My recent teaching experiences in supporting a child transition into the class has made me think about why some children have resilience and others might not and how the resilience can be developed in children.

I have been supporting a child and his mum in the transition to the class. The child has never been to early childhood centre so this has been very challenging for the child as well as the mother who has not separated from the child for a long period of time.

First step was for the child and his mum to know that this is a safe place. It is important that the child develops a sense of belonging in the class so that the child can learn. To do this, it was significantly vital that I develop a secure relationship with him and his mum.
I have made a book about coming to school which included what he could do at school, who was there to help him, and routines of the day.

Te Whāriki (New Zealand Early Childhood curriculum) talks about the importance of the link between the home and the centre (school), so I talked to his mum about him bringing something that can comfort him, this could be mum's scarf, teddy bears, or something to snuggle with.

A part of the Well-Being strand from Te Whāriki discusses the development of confidence in independency, and positive attitude towards self-help/self care skills, and without feeling safe and comfortable, children will find it very hard to manage themselves.

I have been buddying him up with his friend to go to the toilet, and letting him know about what will happen today at morning tea/lunch break as I have found that the routine changes can upset him.


I have read the article called "Building resilience in children" by Beyond Blue Organisation, and collected some ideas about how to support the child and his family.

What is resilience?
Beyond blue defines reliance as "managing and responding to emotions in a healthy way".

Talking about feelings and children able to articulate those feelings are important.
-Ask open ended questions.

•  "What's the best thing that happened today?"
• "What was the toughest thing....?"

-Talking about feelings and acknowledging those feelings 

• "I can see you are upset/sad."
• "It is ok to cry." 

Children need to be able to identify their emotions. 

-Regulating their emotions

• Putting in words to how others are feeling 
• Develop healthy thinking habits (positive self-talk, self-compassion, sense of optimism, positive attitude). 

*Beyond Blue defines "healthy thinking habits" as "looking at the world in a balanced way". 

Healthy thinking teachers children to know how their thoughts affect problems and feeling in everyday life. 

Since reading this article, I have changed the rest time routine to a meditation session where positive talks are encouraged. We sit together in a circle and meditate. We listen to the music and clam ourselves down.
We then talk to ourselves positively. Words we use are "I can do it." "I keep trying." "I am giving it a go." I use examples of what I saw that day where a child was trying or giving something a go. I talk about how we can solve a challenging situation when we feel frustrated or feel like a negative thought was in our heads.

We have recently incorporated some yoga poses into the meditation session too. The children really enjoy this.

2 weeks has passed since the child has started the transition to school, and the progress that this child has made is astonishing, and it is all about practicing, getting used to the routines, having the strategies to cope with some challenging situations, and most importantly developing a secure relationship with the child and his mum. It is amazing to see the change in him. No more tears in the morning!!!

Mindfulness

I have been trying something different after the lunch play time. We have always done resting after lunch as children come back into the classroom after their big play.

Last week, some children saw a photo of a child meditating and they pretended to meditate. Then, I thought maybe we could do a meditating session in the classroom.

So one day last week, I put on a piece of meditation music, and sat on the floor with my hands on my knees just like the photo they saw. Before I even say what we were going to do, one boy called out and said "Meditating!"
We sat in a circle and stayed silent. We listened to the music.

I talked about feeling quiet inside us, and relaxing our body. We talked about seeing ourselves in a positive lens. We say to ourselves "I can do it." "I keep trying." "I am giving it a go." 

I talked about a situation that I saw that day in the swimming session where a boy said "I can do it!" after trying so long to achieve his trick. 

In order to develop children's resilience, they need to view themselves in a positive way. When something is challenging or difficult, it is important to keep trying and perhaps try in a different way. We can take a break and come back to it so we can see things so it might give a different perception. 

After our meditation, we moved on to a writing session, and I felt that the children showed great focus and worked very hard. I wondered if meditation had something to do with it!? 

Trying a different approach to writing

I have often wondered how I could make the writing process for the children more fun and engaging. Often, when children come to write, they struggle with coming up with experiences or ideas that they would like to draw and write.

I have come across this amazing teacher's blog called Number Agents by Leslee Allen, and read her writing sessions with children, Storytelling-A way into writing and Exploring greater depth in writing, and I have really enjoyed reading both of them and it really resonated with my teaching through play philosophy.

The next day in the writing session, I sed Leslee's ideas of storytelling and told the story of a princess. The children were very captured by the story and were really interested. As I drew one picture, I told a story, then another picture along with another story. I talked about how the story had the beginning, middle and end. I gave the children their writing books and talked about where the pictures go. After that, the children were on their own creating their own stories.

After they drew the pictures of their stories, I asked them to come and tell me their stories. It was just amazing to hear so many wonderful creative stories. I really enjoyed this process. For some children, I wrote the story for them, and for others I encouraged them to write the story on the next page. They are familiar with this idea. One of the children naturally just wrote a story before I even asked him to write!
It was great to see some children who are not used to work independently work on their own and tried to work through this. When they brought the book to me, I could very much see their logics of writing.
Leslee talks about the pressure that children feel at a writing session, and I felt that this session worked really well because children were not pressured to do something that they were not able to do. Like she says, children were allowed leave the session if they wanted to, but because there is no resistance to leave, they stayed much longer than I thought they would have.
I like the idea about how this was developmentally appropriate. I know it was and it needs to be, so that I can support the needs of the children appropriately.
Most importantly it was so much fun. In the end of the block after their play, each child shared their story with each other, and this was amazingly wonderful. I loved the focus that children had on listening to their friends' stories.

With our focus this year being writing and using digital technology to support children's writing, I was wondering how I could do this. Can I use the Ipad as a tool to tell a story? or to use it as a tool to give us ideas to write stories? (silent cartoons), Can children use Ipad to take photos and write stories? Something to think about for my inquiry.

I will keep using this storytelling idea for writing, this term and see how it will go. It is also important to think about how I can support children during this process.

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