Creating Emotional Safety

1. Creating Emotional Safety In THE CLASSROOM

2. Objectives Understand the connection between emotional safety and the brain. Understand the impact of chronic stress and complex trauma on learning. Learn strategies for addressing the effects of chronic stress and trauma in the classroom. Understand the principles of behavioral change. Understand the components needed for creating emotionally safe classrooms. Learn strategies for reducing emotional reactions with students. Understand strategies that promote student’s emotional regulation. Understand the importance of developing positive support and self-care.

3. Emotional Safety Feeling accepted; Feeling a sense that one is safe from emotional attack or harm; Feeling free from being judged; Trusting that our feelings will be responded to with sensitivity, care and respect

4. Feeling Emotionally Safe

5. The Difference in Coping

6. Emotional Climate of Schools is Complex Physical condition and design; The neighborhood community; Mental health of the adults; Mental health of the students; Functionality of the families; The calendar; The weather; Local events; Political and economic climate of the area and the world.

7. Control The power to influence or direct people's behavior or the course of events.

8. Control . THE GREAT ILLUSION

9. Emotionally Safe Schools Create environments where: Physical and emotional safety is felt through clear boundaries and expectations. Risk taking means that when we fail we believe that we are not failures. The effects of stress are reduced. Ways of coping are implemented. Pleasurable experiences are normal. - 2001 Bluestein, Jane: Creating Emotionally Safe Schools

10. Emotionally Safe Schools • A sense of belonging, of being welcomed and valued occur. • Being treated with dignity and respect are expected. • An understanding and clarity about requirements and expectations exist and are reinforced. • Encouragement and success, recognition, instruction and guidance are provided. • Freedom from bias, judgment and discrimination exist. - 2001 Bluestein, Jane: Creating Emotionally Safe Schools

11. Safety for Adults in School School staff whose energy is distracted by a need to self-protect for any reason just don’t have as much to offer students as those who feel secure, supported and valued in their positions. - 2001 Bluestein, Jane: Creating Emotionally Safe Schools

12. Emotional Regulation and School We can no longer turn away from the emotional fabric of children’s lives or assume that learning can take place isolated from their feelings. Linda Lantieri and Janet Patti - 2001 Bluestein, Jane: Creating Emotionally Safe Schools

13. Safety It’s a brain thing.

14. Basic Systems of the Brain

15. Controls basic and essential functions such as heart rate, respiration, body temperature, digestion. • Houses the perceptual register (recticular activation system) which screens incoming data picked up by our senses. • RAS filters impulses according to strength and significance, and regulates our attention and alertness allowing us to ignore that which does not seem important or meaningful. • No formal reasoning occurs at this level. - 2001 Bluestein, Jane: Creating Emotionally Safe Schools The Brain Stem(Reptilian Brain) Develops between conception and 15 months

16. The midbrain: includes the limbic system • Amygdala, thalamus, hypothalamus, hippocampus, etc.; • Equated with feelings and emotional responses to sensory stimulus; • Regulates immune system, autonomic nervous system, appetite, sleep; • Critical to memory and learning; • Involves hormones, social bonding and relationships, our values; our sense of meaning; • Can by-pass the rational centers of the brain when we perceive threat. - 2001 Bluestein, Jane: Creating Emotionally Safe Schools The Mid Brain Develops between 15 months and age 4

17. Part of the cerebrum. • Controls speech and language, creativity, problem solving, planning and muscular movement. • This is where rational thinking, intellectual and abstract thought, visualization, reflection, innovation, and creativity take place. • Creates novelty, challenges, change and new ideas. - 2001 Bluestein, Jane: Creating Emotionally Safe Schools The Cortex Begins to develop around age 4

18. Thinking and Feeling Systems are Linked Under threat the midbrain reacts faster than the more the analytical cortex. Rational thought may not catch up to the limbic responses until long after the behaviors have been exhibited. A threat does not have to be real to trigger a fight-or-flight response; all that matters is the perception of threat. - 2001 Bluestein, Jane: Creating Emotionally Safe Schools

19. The Brain Creates Sensory Associations .

20. In Other Words The limbic system is always scanning for trouble. In what is perceived as an emotional emergency, the amygdala proclaims a crisis, recruiting the rest of the brain to its urgent agenda without regard for the consequences. This occurs instantaneously, moments before the thinking brain has a chance to grasp what is happening and decide on the best course of action. - 2001 Bluestein, Jane: Creating Emotionally Safe Schools

21. Why the Amygdala Is So Important It is the storehouse of emotional memory. This storehouse facilitates the recognition of the personal significance of the signals we get from the environment. Depending on previous experience and other signals in the environment, different sensory input will elicit different appraisals in different people. Different appraisals elicit different actions and feelings. - 2001 Bluestein, Jane: Creating Emotionally Safe Schools

22. How The Brain Double Codes The emotional component of our memories is critical for nearly all forms of complex learning. We use a dual code; physical and emotional to interpret what our senses pick up in the environment. As we grow and learn, this double coding allows us to cross reference our memories using images and feelings. - 2001 Bluestein, Jane: Creating Emotionally Safe Schools

23. Why Is Emotional Safety Important The brain’s main job is sifting through and prioritizing incoming stimuli in the interest of survival. When anything suggests the possibility of danger, whether it is real or imagined, it becomes a higher priority. “Downshifting” can occur that blocks short and long term memories as well as our ability to focus, down to as low as 10% High and emotional reaction behaviors occur when the brain senses any threat that induces feelings of helplessness. - 2001 Bluestein, Jane: Creating Emotionally Safe Schools

24. Stress Shuts down the system. Releases cortisol, a hormone released by the adrenal glands to protect us from danger. “Stress starts to take its toll when cortisol levels shoot up constantly and remain high.” - Michael Gazzinga

25. Stress and Anxiety Abuse and neglect are correlated with a harmful imbalance of cortisol in the brain. Excess cortisol can lead to hippocampal damage causing memory lapses, anxiety, and an inability to control emotional outbursts as well as difficulty regulating attention in a classroom setting. -Teresa J. Farney

26. Stress and Anxiety Once strong emotions occur, they become powerful motivators of future behaviors and feelings from an unpleasant event can reverberate long after the event itself, causing reactivation, rehearsal or rumination in working memory that cements the event.

27. Making Matters Worse When the mind dwells on feelings of anger, embarrassment and fear, it cannot focus on instruction. The inability to focus on and process instructional content is likely to trigger or intensify any cognitive, developmental or learning problems. - 2001 Bluestein, Jane: Creating Emotionally Safe Schools

28. Stress and Anxiety Also have behavioral ramifications. Students under stress are less able to “hear” what is being said to them so they can attend to important environmental cues and act on their feelings to those cues. The resulting downshifting results in survival behaviors that may be expressed in anger and a cycle of reactions that compound the problems.

29. Reflection 1 Find a partner. 2. Write down stressful or painful events a student might experience in school that could compromise their emotional safety. What are some things that can be done to help them with their stress and pain?

30. Examples Being assigned to complete educational materials above ability level. Inability to speak the language. Not having resources, guidelines or information to complete an assignment. Unclear directions; directions not repeated or available if student does not get them the first time. Not enough time to complete work. Not having enough time to think about a question or process new information. Teacher’s impatience, annoyance or disgust. Rarely being given any choices or input in decisions.

31. Examples Being punished for moving, squirming or touching things. Witnessing a classmate being shamed, ridiculed. Rough physical contact – hitting, pushing, kicking. Overhearing adults talk about you negatively. Being punished long after an incident occurs. Unrealistic rules and expectations. Not being recognized or acknowledged for positive behavior, achievement, etc. Not being allowed to express problems, thoughts or feelings openly and verbally to a teacher.

32. Examples Being shamed or criticized for not understanding something. Anticipating an activity in class that you are not good at. Difficulty communicating thoughts and feelings. Adults who do not know how to help you Teacher’s reliance on someone else to handle discipline. Unpredictable or inconsistent teacher behavior. Being bullied or harassed. Not being allowed to express feelings without fear of negative reaction and consequences.

33. Reflection 2 Find a partner. Write down stressful or painful events a teacher might experience in school that could compromise their emotional safety. Be prepared to share examples with the large group.

34. The Paths of Children • The first order of childhood is developing the ability: • To regulate attention and self soothe; • To relate to others with warmth and trust; • To communicate through gestures, symbols and sounds; • To eventually understand increasingly complex ideas and the connections among them.

35. How Is This Learned? Interactions with a loving caregiver who provides needed safety and nurturing, especially through the first few years. Children’s early relationships and interactions contribute to their developing belief system and sense of self. Verbal and non-verbal responses from their caregivers shape ideas about wants, needs, feelings and their understanding of the connections between them. - 2001 Bluestein, Jane: Creating Emotionally Safe Schools

36. So What is Critical To Healthy Development? Early dependence on nurturing and emotionally available caregivers who have provided healthy boundaries, a positive sense of consistency and predictability so a healthy sense of self can develop. -Stanley Greenspan - 2001 Bluestein, Jane: Creating Emotionally Safe Schools

37. How Does It Work? Children are born with brains wired for learning and current findings indicated that infants are capable of thinking reasoning and drawing conclusions even at birth. The development of these skills depends on the babies’ interaction with their environment. Children growing up in enriched, nurturing environments will have a developmental edge over those reared in impoverished, neglected or abusive settings. The failure to develop cognitive and social skills is closely tied to the degree to which caregivers fail to meet the child’s emotional needs at each stage of development. - 2001 Bluestein, Jane: Creating Emotionally Safe Schools

38. Stress in Children’s Lives • Poverty; • Inadequate housing; • Poor nutrition; • High mobility; • Excessive rules or leniency; • Verbal, physical, sexual or emotional violence; • Highly enmeshed or emotionally dependent adult; • Emotionally unavailable adult; • Substance abuse; • Criminal behavior / incarceration; • Intense marital problems / domestic violence; • Expressions of conditional love or care based on child’s appearance or behavior; • Disregard of personal boundaries; • A lack of recognition or acknowledgment; • Efforts to control with ridicule, shame, humiliation; • Over demanding or perfectionistic demands.

39. Maslow’s Hierarchy

40. Consequences If inadequate stimulation to the frontal cortex combined with overstimulation of a child’s alarm system occurs often enough - • A child develops a state of hyperarousal, hypervigilance or numbing. • These set the stage for learning and behavioral problems including fits of anger, victim behavior, a lack of tolerance for frustration, acting out from disappointment with tantrums or destructive behaviors.

41. Hypervigilance Constantly on the lookout for danger; Distractibility; Attention problems; Social avoidance; Sleeping; Aggressive play; Lying; Emotional numbing; Regression; Chronic anxiety; Confusion; General state of unhappiness; Lack of problem solving skills.

42. . What Do We Do? . • Realize the impact that exposure to violence or trauma have on a student’s physical, psychological or psychosocial development and well-being; • Recognize when student’s have been exposed to violence and trauma they are in need of support to overcome the adverse impacts and engage in learning; • Respond in ways that reflect awareness of the trauma’s adverse impacts and consistently support the student in a manner that promotes emotional regulation and skills-building.

43. Something to Think About Genetics load the gun; Environment pulls the trigger; “Genes are merely chemicals. Without experience – with no context or environmental signals to guide their activation and deactivation, they create nothing.” - Bruce Perry

44. Psychological Trauma Overwhelming demands placed on the physiological system that result in a profound felt sense of Loss of control; Vulnerability; Immobilization; Betrayal – done by somebody that is important to them.

45. Psychological Trauma Is very complicated The perception of the event is different for each person; Kids are missing the parent / caregiver walking them through the process of recovery / healing. They are not shown or given an explanation for what happened to them. Sometimes they are chastised or criticized for what happened to them.

46. This Means Many children come to us complexly traumatized.

47. Severe Trauma, Abuse, Threat • Occurs when both internal and external resources are inadequate to cope; • Adversely effects the developing brain; • Conditions children at the neurological level that results in; • Maladaptive behaviors; • Underdeveloped or counterproductive skills; • Developmental delays in multiple domains.

48. Typical Experience of Trauma Fear; Threat; Unpredictability; Frustration; Chaos; Pain.

49. The brain organization of a traumatized child is weighted towards the stress response. .

50. The Hemispheres of the Brain . • Right Hemisphere • Develops first • Responsible for social connection, emotion, affect management • Needs a steady life rhythm to develop with positive socialization and eye contact for the child to learn calm • Left Hemisphere • Responsible for language; we learn to create sentences but only if the brain is integrated • Ask a question when the brain is overwhelmed and can’t answer or process