#blog: From Meltdown to Understanding: Six Ways to Support Students in the Moment
| By Kathryn Kennedy |
Originally published with Gale.
Whether you’re in the midst of the hustle and bustle of the school year or just starting, summer may feel like a distant memory and December break far away. You may also be supporting students who need additional help. They may be disengaged, consistently melting down, or exhibiting anger or some other overwhelming emotion. Just like us, our students are human beings and experience all things. Oftentimes, they don’t have the tools to work through what they’re experiencing. While not an exhaustive list, here are six ways to support students in the moment.
1. Understand the why and start with compassion and empathy.1
Taking the time to understand the why behind the behavior is vitally important when working with a student (or anyone) who is feeling overwhelmed. If possible, provide some space for your other students to engage in activity while you take time with the student who needs support. Many times, the student wants someone to listen. Other times, they just want space to decompress and let the overwhelm come out in some way. Show compassion for the student as well as yourself as you create a supportive space for your student. Practice empathy by actively listening, withholding judgment, asking open-ended questions, and exhibiting empathic body language. A great resource to support educators with supporting students is Dr. Mona Delahooke’s Beyond Behaviors: Using Brain Science and Compassion to Understand and Solve Children’s Behavioral Challenges.
2. Create a safe space.2
Sometimes students who are overwhelmed just need some space to work through and/or decompress from what they’re feeling or experiencing. To support them as they are doing that, we can create a small space within our room. If possible, this space can include comfortable chairs or pillows, paper and markers to draw on, fidget toys, calming music, and other supports that can help a student calm themselves and feel safe. You can encourage your students to go to the safe space as they need to, emboldening them to support themselves by listening to their mind and body.
3. Encourage pendulation.3
Pendulation is the act of moving toward something as you feel safe to do so, and moving away from it as you feel overwhelmed. In pendulation, there’s an intentional check-in to see how the mind, body, and the nervous system specifically, are feeling—when moving toward, we feel okay to expand; when moving away, we acknowledge the need for bolstering ourselves before choosing to move toward again. The art of pendulation is a way to expand the nervous system’s capacity as well as contract it as needed. Sharing this practice with your students gives them another tool to use as they feel a sense of overwhelm. In the moment, if your student would like some space to process, invite them to go to the safe space and come back to talk when they’re ready.
4. Practice daily mind-body check-ins.4
Throughout the day, engage your students in regular mind-body check-ins. These intentional pauses can support the nervous system in not only self-regulation but co-regulation processes. During these mind-body check-ins, encourage students to notice what’s happening in their minds and bodies without judgment. This act of slowing down and noticing can also be a welcome pause for you as well. Check-ins will then become a go-to strategy that your students can use at any time when they start to feel out of sorts, especially when they feel too much too fast too soon. In the moment of overwhelm, support self- and co-regulation with practices from these mind-body check-ins.
5. Promote resourcing.5
In the moment a student is feeling overwhelmed, you can support them by inviting them to think of things that are good, such as a new dog they just adopted or a favorite activity they enjoy doing at recess. By inviting students to think of things that are good or safe, we provide them with another opportunity to support themselves in calming the nervous system until they’re ready to work through what they are experiencing that brought them into the space of overwhelm.
6. Implement joyful moments, play, and acts of kindness.6,7
Using joyful moments, play, and acts of kindness can be another option for promoting resourcing. While it might not help in the moment, you can create reflection opportunities for your students that include joyful moments. Ask them to share a time when they felt joy in their day or over the weekend. Remind them that they can always revisit those moments of joy when things feel overwhelming. You can also implement an activity that focuses on students engaging in acts of kindness. This can be at the classroom level and/or at the school level so that it promotes a culture of kindness and offers another opportunity for co-regulation.
There are many more examples of strategies for supporting students in the moment at Greater Good in Education and Momentous Institute. Continue to meet students where they are and practice understanding the why behind their behaviors.
Neff, K. (2015). Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself. New York, NY: William Morrow Paperbacks.
Levine, P. (1997). Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma. Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books.
Levine, P. (2010). In an Unspoken Voice: How the Body Releases Trauma and Restores Goodness. Berkeley: North Atlantic Books.
Wellness Library. Wellness for Educators.
Levine, P. (2010). In an Unspoken Voice: How the Body Releases Trauma and Restores Goodness. Berkeley: North Atlantic Books.
The Science of Kindness. Random Acts of Kindness Foundation. https://www.randomactsofkindness.org/the-science-of-kindness
Meet the Author
Kathryn Kennedy has cultivated her two primary passions for 20+ years. She serves as founder and executive director of Wellness for Educators and is the founder and principal consultant of Consult4Ed Group. Her recent publication, The Mind-Body Connection for Educators: Intentional Movement for Wellness, is the first in a four-part book series.
#blog: Seven Small Changes to Support Your Mental Health This School Year
| By Kathryn Kennedy |
Originally published with Gale.
It’s almost time to head back to school. How did that happen?! Where did the time go?! I know we ask that question every year, but seriously, summer sometimes feels like an epic time warp! Am I right?! Nevertheless, I hope you thoroughly enjoyed the summer not only with your family and friends but also with yourself.
As we start the school year, you may feel a bit of excitement and perhaps some trepidation stirring inside of you about what the year is going to bring. You’re not alone. That’s totally natural, especially given the unpredictability we’ve all experienced over the past few years. We’ve endured a lot and continue to do so, and healing and supporting ourselves takes time and continuous intentional effort. Healing prolonged stress and trauma does not happen overnight; it’s an ongoing journey, not a final destination.
Before we start back to school, what if we laid some foundational supports for ourselves? I know, I know … oftentimes, once the school year starts, our best-laid plans derail quickly! But what if we start small, using seven strategies that can be foundational for sustaining your mental health and well-being throughout this school year and beyond? And—BONUS—you might already be doing some of these! Here they are in no particular order.
1. Clear your plate.
We as educators, as you know, have a lot on our plates all of the time. What if we take some time before heading back to school to intentionally look at what we have on our plates? Is there anything you can let go of, either personal or professional? Is there anything that you can ask your school leader to take off your plate? Is there anything that’s not absolutely necessary? If so, take it off your plate to make room for things that will help you sustain your mental health and well-being. And make this intentional plate-clearing process a practice every month (if not more often) throughout the year. Look at it as a time to reflect and reevaluate your plate to see if there’s anything that can be cleared.2. Play every day.
Back in 2019, collaborative research from The Genius of Play and Fundamentally Children found that 75% of children were not getting enough play.1 If that’s the case, can you imagine the percentage of adults? According to Dr. Stuart Brown, founder of the National Institute for Play,2 “Play that is based on our inner needs and desires is the only path to finding lasting satisfaction in our relationships and professional work.” There are many benefits of play: it boosts creativity and problem-solving abilities; reduces stress; builds resilience, improves relationships; nurtures community; and much more. Given all of the benefits, it’s important for us to bring play back into our lives. So how do you get started doing just that? The activities that we find fun are unique to each of us. The National Institute for Play encourages adults to:Identify what is playful for you.
Everyone is different, so find what works for you!Develop lifelong play habits.
Habits typically take 40 days to become routine in our lives, so try to incorporate play at least once a day for 40 days to see what sticks!Recognize how you feel when there’s not enough play.
Practicing intentional check-ins to see how we’re feeling is important, and doing specific check-ins on how we feel when we play and not can help us see the benefits of play in our everyday lives.Model healthy play habits in your communities.
Establishing a sense of play and modeling it for others, including the other adults and little ones in your professional and personal lives, can help make play an integral part of our day-to-day lives.
3. Define and establish your safe spaces.
According to trauma and somatic psychology research, to heal ourselves and support our well-being, we need to have a felt sense of safety.3 This means safety in mind, body, and all other critical aspects of our being and lives. As you begin the school year, think about these various elements of your safety and identify ways you can support yourself to feel safe. Just as our students need to Maslow before Bloom, so do we as adults. And safety, inside and outside of ourselves, is priority number one!4. Build and bolster trusting relationships.
Once we have established a felt sense of safety, we can build and bolster relationships with others we trust. Trusting relationships provide us opportunities for co-regulation. Co-regulation is a way for your nervous system to work with another being’s (human, animal, plant, or otherwise) system to calm and ground. The more relationships we have that support co-regulation, the better.5. Create and cultivate your supportive communities.
Taking relationships one step further to create and cultivate a supportive community allows for more opportunities to support overall well-being. Each community or network you are part of provides specific support for each component of your well-being. Take some time to reflect on the communities you’re a part of and how they support you, as well as how you support them (giving back is just as important as getting support from others). Are there any communities that you think you’d like to add or even create to provide yourself better support?6. Learn something new.
Stepping out of our comfort zone and learning something new can spark creative energy, which in turn provides us a chance to reclaim our power and voice, and heal. Each day, see if there’s something small you can learn that is novel to you to help light up your curiosity!7. Explore and engage in short restoration activities.
We as educators are busy a majority of the time. When possible, take short bits of time to downshift, to rest, to reset, and to restore your mind and body. Perhaps you can check out yoga nidra, restorative yoga, yin yoga, and guided meditations that take anywhere from five to 60 minutes. These restorative activities help to refresh yourself and cultivate renewed energy.This is definitely not an exhaustive list, but I hope these and other small changes can help support you as you jump into this school year and many more years to come!
1. The Genius of Play. (22 Jul 2019). “75 Percent of Children Are Not Getting Enough Playtime, According to New Research.” PR Newswire.
2. National Institute for Play.
3. Levine, P. (1997). Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma. Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books.
Meet the Author
Kathryn Kennedy has cultivated her two primary passions for 20+ years. She serves as founder and executive director of Wellness for Educators and is the founder and principal consultant of Consult4Ed Group. Her recent publication, The Mind-Body Connection for Educators: Intentional Movement for Wellness, is the first in a four-part book series.
#blog: How to Nurture Diverse and Inclusive Classrooms through Play
by Rebecca Horrace, Playful Insights Consulting, and Laura Dattile, PlanToys USA
Special thanks to Next Generation Learning Challenges for allowing us to cross-post this blog post :-)
By infusing play into teaching, educators can create an interactive environment where students of all ages can approach complex topics with enthusiasm, adventure, and a sense of curiosity while achieving educational goals.
By using play to explore and celebrate diversity, educators can foster a more inclusive and accepting community among students, allowing for a safe space for student-led discussions about their understanding and experiences with these complex topics. The more we embrace and celebrate our differences, the more we learn how much we truly have in common.
This article explores various play methods for educators to teach children about diversity and inclusion, providing meaningful suggestions as well as steps for educators, children, and families to make a lasting impact in their community. Additionally, real-world examples and the power of using play as a tool for navigating complex topics are discussed, promoting interactive and engaging learning experiences for students of all ages.
What is the appropriate age for kids to start learning about race? How do you recommend educators approach the subject?
Children are incredibly perceptive and notice differences in people as early as preschool, making it a wonderful time for children to start learning about race. Educators can approach this subject with playfulness by using diverse toys, books, and activities that celebrate various cultures, especially relating to children’s unique backgrounds. Natural resources and tools spur connections for children as they listen to stories, engage in lessons, and participate in activities, creating confidence and purpose in their work. It’s important to create a welcoming environment where all questions are encouraged, which will grow the conversation as educators instill the value of diversity, kindness, and empathy to foster a sense of inclusion and understanding from an early age.
Beyond conversation, what are some steps educators can take to have a real impact in their local communities, further teaching children about diversity and inclusion?
To have a real impact in local communities and further teach children about diversity and inclusion, educators can take proactive steps by ensuring children engage with peers from different racial, religious, and ability backgrounds. Attending local trips to various play spaces, such as parks, museums, and community centers where diversity is evident and normalized helps children understand and appreciate the differences within their communities. Additionally, educators can support children’s participation in activities like sports, art, and music that celebrate multiculturalism and diversity.
Educators can also inspire community engagement by motivating families to enhance their local communities through volunteering at local cultural and inclusive events. Using online resources or visiting local libraries allows educators and families to learn about upcoming events that promote diversity and inclusion throughout local neighborhoods. Educators can also send home flyers and monthly calendars with highlighted events. After various activities and events occur, educators can facilitate discussions with children, encouraging them to share their discoveries along with their most enjoyable experiences. Real-world, active engagement with community members helps children learn about and embrace the richness of diversity in a more tangible and lasting way.
What are some effective methods that educators can implement in the classroom to teach children about diversity and inclusion?
Continued incorporation of lessons and activities surrounding diversity and inclusion into a child's curriculum is key to success. Approaches should be integrated consistently and through natural means, such as storytelling and discussions. Educators can introduce children to diverse perspectives and experiences through age-appropriate books, videos, and personal stories that highlight different cultures, backgrounds, and life experiences. Following the stories, open discussions can be facilitated where children are encouraged to share their thoughts, ask questions, and express their feelings, which inspires open-ended dialogue and helps children understand the richness and value of diversity.
Collaborative learning allows children to interact with peers who may have different perspectives, experiences, and abilities. Children should have the opportunity to work with their peers as each student brings their own cultural knowledge and experience to every lesson, fostering an environment where diversity is celebrated, and inclusion is actively practiced. Educators can structure group activities to encourage empathy, communication, and cooperation among students, assisting in everyone’s unique contributions so every student feels valued and respected.
Celebrating differences is a fundamental aspect of promoting inclusion. As role models, educators play a pivotal part in modeling inclusive behavior and language for their students. Demonstrating respect for diversity in interactions and encouraging students to follow suit can be a powerful teaching tool. Educators should acknowledge and value the unique qualities and strengths of each child, emphasizing that their differences are assets to the classroom community which fosters acceptance, empathy, awareness, and the benefits of community building.
Can you share examples of play activities educators can do with their students to foster an appreciation and respect for people of different genders, races, cultures, abilities, etc.?
By using play to explore and celebrate diversity, educators can cultivate a more inclusive, accepting, and empathetic community, creating a comfortable space for student-led discussions. Play activities can be powerful tools for educators to align lessons while promoting acceptance and community throughout classrooms and schools, as students engage in fun, meaningful ways.
Here are some examples of play activities to promote appreciation and respect for diversity and inclusion:
Cultural Show-and-Tell: Encourage students to bring in an item, recipe, or story from their own culture or heritage. They can share these with their peers, helping everyone learn about and appreciate the richness of different cultures.
Multicultural Storytelling: Share stories from various cultures and backgrounds. Afterward, have students create their own stories that reflect diverse characters and settings, while also sharing thoughts about prejudices or moments of cultural celebration. This can promote understanding, empathy, and respect for individual experiences.
Diversity Games: Incorporate games with different aspects of diversity, such as various cultural symbols, gender pronouns, or famous people from different backgrounds. Games can be simple modifications to current games such as Bingo or scavenger hunts, or entirely new games that the students help invent.
Art and Craft Projects: Engage students in art and craft projects celebrating diversity and inclusion. For example, they can create a collaborative mural or collage featuring elements from different cultures or make friendship bracelets that symbolize unity and camaraderie.
Cultural Days: Designate specific days to celebrate different cultures in your classroom. Each day can focus on learning about a particular culture's history, traditions, and contributions including local foods for tasting and native music for dance exploration.
How can we use play as a springboard for navigating complex topics, especially with older students?
Utilizing play as an educational tool effectively engages students in exploring complex subjects through meaningful ways. Incorporating gamification lessons makes learning interactive and fun, promoting problem-solving, critical thinking, and strategic decision-making, while also creating a safe and comfortable environment for learning and discussions to flourish. Educators can facilitate creative projects enriched with multimodal elements like collage, sculpture, painting, and writing, which allows students to express their understanding of complex issues such as race, activism, disability laws, and so forth in an expressive manner.
Collaborating with other educators within the school who focus on drama, technology, or physical education provides multiple ways to captivate students and facilitate an array of different perspectives about diversity and inclusion, while also allowing all educators to feel comfortable teaching about these complex topics. By infusing play into teaching, educators can create an interactive environment where students of all ages can approach complex topics with enthusiasm, adventure, and a sense of curiosity while achieving educational goals.
Rebecca Horrace, Playful Insights Consulting, and Laura Dattile, PlanToys USA
Rebecca Horrace, Ed.D., has been consistently involved in children's education, from brick-and-mortar classrooms to running a homeschool cooperative program, and even founding and leading a 4-H club for military youth. She is an educational expert in the areas of child development, child-centered learning, children's play, and developmentally appropriate best practices. Rebecca founded Playful Insights Consulting to bridge the gap between play and education across toys, content, media, and curricula using UX research, child-development knowledge, and childhood play expertise.
Laura Dattile, a painter and textile artist, is deeply passionate about classical toys that have a rich historical background, considering them the ultimate play tools for people of all ages. In the toy industry for a decade, presently Laura is the community manager at PlanToys USA where she supports the company's mission of fostering environmentally-conscious children and play-oriented learning. Laura's contributions extend through various outlets including blogging, social media platforms, and collaborating with children's professionals, educators, play advocates, toy enthusiasts, and fellow creators.
#blog: How Schools Can Respond to the Student Mental Health Crisis
by Stephanie McGary
Special thanks to Next Generation Learning Challenges for allowing us to cross-post this blog post :-)
Schools can take these proactive steps now to serve as psychological safe places for both students and educators throughout the year.
In this back-to-school season, our doors are reopening to welcome students who are carrying invisible backpacks full of trauma and stress responses. With all of the traumatic events happening in our world today, the most vulnerable of us—our young people—are experiencing the effects of this reality each and every day.
In President Biden’s last State of The Union Address, he made it clear that youth mental health is a priority for the Biden-Harris Administration stating “we owe them greater access to mental health care at their schools,” but what does that look, sound, and feel like?
Schools are seen as the primary source of providing wrap-around services to students whether they are equipped to do so or not. Attempts have been made to support the mental health of students—including incorporating social-emotional learning, revamping discipline practices, and hiring more clinical staff—but it still feels like it isn’t enough.
While there is no one-size-fits-all approach to helping students who are struggling with their mental health, there are proactive steps schools can take to serve as psychological safe places for both students and educators.
Moving from Self-Regulation to Co-Regulation
For example, many schools and districts believed that social and emotional learning (SEL) would be the answer to behavioral problems by teaching students how to self-regulate, how to become more self-aware, socially-conscious, and make better decisions. But social emotional learning can give false hope, specifically around behavior. Brain development can not be rushed. You can spend all day teaching students how to self-regulate, but—because of where they are developmentally or due to the effects of trauma and stress on the brain—they may have limited access to the part of the brain (the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, or DLPFC) responsible for self-regulation. Instead, we should teach young people skills of self-regulation while simultaneously teaching adults the art of co-regulation.
Providing quality professional development and support to educators when a student is unable to access their taught skill of self-regulation can be a game changer.
Addressing Emotional Health and Academics Together
School districts must also think strategically about behavioral support. The student who struggled last year may still be struggling this school year, and we should not wait for their behavior to reveal this need to us again. Now is the time for schools to develop methods to intersect emotional health with academic health.
There are times when academic and behavioral conversations are held separately but research shows us that students who have three or more traumatic experiences have six times the rate of behavioral problems, five times the rate of attendance problems, and three times the rate of academic failure. This means the conversations need to happen together, especially for students who are having challenges in all or one of these three areas. Small shifts can be made to traditional Admission, Review, and Dismissal (ARD) meetings and Behavioral Intervention Plan (BIP) meetings.
Momentous Institute, a community mental health nonprofit where I used to work, collaborated with educational and mental health professionals to create the Strategic Intervention Model (SIM) which can be downloaded for free. The SIM manual can be used on its own to amplify already existing protocols in your school environment.
Partnering with Community Mental Health Services
Schools can not support the mental health of all students alone, nor should they have to do so. Schools can identify community mental health agencies, mentoring programs, and after-school programs that they can partner with throughout the school year to be proactive in addressing school-wide mental health concerns. There is no need to wait until a crisis happens to create a community plan of support.
Schools are a part of communities, and in order for us to tackle the youth mental health crisis, we have to plan ahead and work together. Both our students and educators need us and deserve better.
About the Author
Stephanie McGary
Licensed Professional Counselor-Supervisor and Registered Play Therapist
Stephanie McGary is a licensed professional counselor-supervisor and registered play therapist who finds joy in advocating and training around the mental, social, and emotional wellness of children, youth, and educators. A Public Voices Fellow with The OpEd Project, Stephanie is currently the director of clinical programming at Communities in Schools of Dallas Region and the owner of Tots N' Teachers Counseling and Consultation where she focuses on the mental health and wellness of children and educators.
#blog: 7 Small Changes to Support Your Mental Health This School Year
by Dr. Kathryn Kennedy
Special thanks to Next Generation Learning Challenges for allowing us to cross-post this blog post :-)
Teachers can sustain their mental health and well-being throughout the school year with these seven small but foundational research-based strategies.
It’s almost time to head back to school. How did that happen?! Where did the time go?! I know we ask that question every year, but seriously, summer sometimes feels like an epic time warp! Am I right?! Nevertheless, I hope you thoroughly enjoyed the summer not only with your family and friends but also with yourself.
As we start the school year, you may feel a bit of excitement and perhaps some trepidation stirring inside of you about what the year is going to bring. You’re not alone. That’s totally natural, especially given the unpredictability we’ve all experienced over the past few years. We’ve endured a lot and continue to do so, and healing and supporting ourselves takes time and continuous intentional effort. Healing prolonged stress and trauma does not happen overnight; it’s an ongoing journey, not a final destination.
Before we start back to school, what if we laid some foundational supports for ourselves? I know, I know … oftentimes, once the school year starts, our best-laid plans derail quickly! But what if we start small, using seven strategies that can be foundational for sustaining your mental health and well-being throughout this school year and beyond? And—BONUS—you might already be doing some of these! Here they are in no particular order.
1. Clear Your Plate
We as educators, as you know, have a lot on our plates all of the time. What if we take some time before heading back to school to intentionally look at what we have on our plates? Is there anything you can let go of, either personal or professional? Is there anything that you can ask your school leader to take off your plate? Is there anything that’s not absolutely necessary? If so, take it off your plate to make room for things that will help you sustain your mental health and well-being. And make this intentional plate-clearing process a practice every month (if not more often) throughout the year. Look at it as a time to reflect and reevaluate your plate to see if there’s anything that can be cleared.
2. Play Every Day
Back in 2019, collaborative research from The Genius of Play and Fundamentally Children found that 75 percent of children were not getting enough play. If that’s the case, can you imagine the percentage of adults? According to Dr. Stuart Brown, founder of the National Institute for Play, “Play that is based on our inner needs and desires is the only path to finding lasting satisfaction in our relationships and professional work.”
There are many benefits of play: it boosts creativity and problem-solving abilities; reduces stress; builds resilience, improves relationships; nurtures community; and much more. Given all of the benefits, it’s important for us to bring play back into our lives. So how do you get started doing just that? The activities that we find fun are unique to each of us. The National Institute for Play encourages adults to:
Identify what is playful for you. Everyone is different, so find what works for you!
Develop lifelong play habits. Habits typically take 40 days to become routine in our lives, so try to incorporate play at least once a day for 40 days to see what sticks!
Recognize how you feel when there’s not enough play. Practicing intentional check-ins to see how you’re feeling is important, and doing specific check-ins on how you feel when you play and not can help you see the benefits of play in your everyday lives.
Model healthy play habits in your communities. Establishing a sense of play and modeling it for others, including the other adults and little ones in your professional and personal lives, can help make play an integral part of your day-to-day life.
3. Define and Establish Your Safe Spaces
According to trauma and somatic psychology research, to heal ourselves and support our well-being, we need to have a felt sense of safety. This means safety in mind, body, and all other critical aspects of our being and lives. As you begin the school year, think about these various elements of your safety and identify ways you can support yourself to feel safe. Just as our students need to Maslow before Bloom, so do we as adults. And safety, inside and outside of ourselves, is priority number one!
4. Build and Bolster Trusting Relationships
Once we have established a felt sense of safety, we can build and bolster relationships with others we trust. Trusting relationships provide us opportunities for co-regulation. Co-regulation is a way for your nervous system to work with another being’s (human, animal, plant, or otherwise) system to calm and ground. The more relationships we have that support co-regulation, the better.
5. Create and Cultivate Your Supportive Communities
Taking relationships one step further to create and cultivate a supportive community allows for more opportunities to support overall well-being. Each community or network you are part of provides specific support for each component of your well-being. Take some time to reflect on the communities you’re a part of and how they support you, as well as how you support them (giving back is just as important as getting support from others). Are there any communities that you think you’d like to add or even create to provide yourself better support?
6. Learn Something New
Stepping out of our comfort zone and learning something new can spark creative energy, which in turn provides us a chance to reclaim our power and voice, and heal. Each day, see if there’s something small you can learn that is novel to you to help light up your curiosity!
7. Explore and Engage in Short Restoration Activities
We as educators are busy a majority of the time. When possible, take short bits of time to downshift, to rest, to reset, and to restore your mind and body. Perhaps you can check out yoga nidra, restorative yoga, yin yoga, and guided meditations that take anywhere from five to 60 minutes. These restorative activities help to refresh yourself and cultivate renewed energy.
This is definitely not an exhaustive list, but I hope these and other small changes can help support you as you jump into this school year and many more years to come!
Dr. Kathryn Kennedy (she/her/hers): With one foot in digital and online learning and the other in mental health and wellness, Kathryn has been cultivating two primary passions for over 20 years. She serves as founder and principal consultant of Consult4ED Group and founder and executive director of Wellness for Educators. She is author of the forthcoming book The Mind-Body Connection for Educators: Intentional Movement for Wellness (expected publication date: March 28, 2023), which serves as the first in a four-part book series.She lives in Ithaca, New York. You can follow her on Twitter at @Kathryn__EDU and @well4edu.