Information for Educators

Take a moment and think about the stress that, as a teacher, you are under everyday. You are responsible for educating our future. What stress does that bring to the table? Take a moment to write it down…do you worry about achievement scores? Do you feel pressure to get through the curriculum each day? Do you feel stress at keeping each child safe…Physically? Emotionally? Mentally? Do you feel responsible for teaching children social skills? Teachers are under some of the most tremendous pressures in society. We each bring that stress into the classroom.

I want to teach you a new model that has been developed to help us understand behavior. Often, when I am asked to “staff” a child, what we talk about are his behaviors…this child lies, or steals. This child may bully others or not have any friends. This child crawls under a desk or refuses to complete homework. This child skips school or gets in fights.

Look at The Stress Model diagram: (this information was taken from www.postinstitute.com).

The Stress Model says, "All behavior arises from a state of stress. In between the state of stress (albeit good stress or bad stress) and the behavior, is the presence of an emotion. It is through the expression, processing, and understanding of the emotion that we can calm the stress (reducing the bodymind's overwhelming stress reaction) and diminish the behavior.

Critical Points:

• We only have two primary emotions: Love and Fear. That which does not look, feel, and can be perceived as loving, stems from a primary root of fear. Fear is the only viable opposite to Love. Yet, as it stands alone, love truly has no opposite. That which is not love is only fear. Examples of fear are the feelings of anger, jealousy, defiance, attachment disorder, anxiety, and depression, just to name a few. These various feelings and behaviors stem from a primary root of fear.

• The expression of emotion triggers fear reactions in others. When this occurs we are only able to see a threat. For instance, a child saying "no" to a parent creates an immediate stress reaction for the parent. This reaction will lead to a cascade of fear emotions on behalf of the parent. When this occurs the parent is unable to see clearly the essence of their child's behavior. Remember, when you feel threatened or afraid, you cannot see another person's fear because you are in a self-protect mode.

• According to Dr. Bruce Perry, M.D. we all respond to stress in one of two different ways, by becoming either hyper-aroused or hypo-aroused. These two states are referred to as states of affect dysregulation. Our ultimate drive is to live in a state of regulation (love) this state is referred to as the optimal state of functioning and development. Remember, some degree of stress is pertinent to our healthy growth and development, but too much stress leaves us trapped in a state of fear. If your child is chronically acting out or misbehaving, he or she is attempting to communicate to you that he or she is in a state of fear and overwhelming stress that cannot be interrupted without parental assistance.

Trauma…kids walk into our lives everyday carrying with them loads of trauma. When we think of the word trauma, we think of big traumas like physical abuse, emotional abuse, sexual abuse, neglect, domestic violence, murder, etc. We forget that there are other traumas such as-having a sibling born, parents fighting or arguing, having a death in the family, being hospitalized or having several moves. Any number of things could potentially be traumatic. What is traumatic for one may not be traumatic for another.

So, how does knowing this help you…
Fear!!

What do we fear and what do the kids that we work with fear? When those two fears collide, what we have created is a very stressful, tense situation. It can be difficult to de-escalate this situation.

We first must be aware of our own fears. If a child triggers us and we are “irritated” by them, we must first ask ourselves what we fear. Once we have our own awareness, then we can proceed in responding to the situation.

The most important action we can do is RESPOND with awareness versus REACT with stress.

The next step is to attempt to gain understanding as to where that child is emotionally when they come to us. If a child is angry, ask yourself, what is this child scared of versus what is this child angry at. This simple question helps us reframe the situation.

Remember that our behaviors can trigger fears in some kids. For example, it’s common for kids to react to smells, sounds, tones of voices, gender, actions. These can trigger kids and thus, cause behaviors that are unhealthy, possibly aggressive, hyperactive, etc.

Meet that kid where they are at…in the moment. We can often get paralyzed in our fear by obsessing about the future or thinking about the past.