LIFE for teachers.

LIFE for teachers: A Pro-D Day?  Presentation for Teachers: Front End Teaching

This workshop encourages teachers to take a deeper look at children to see what lies underneath their behaviour.  Allison has worked extensively with teachers and EA’s examining subjects such as:

Children’s Unique Temperaments – What are the challenges, what are the gifts?  Understand who is in front of you.  When you can articulate various traits, it opens a door to understanding a child’s triggers.  Antecedent (triggers) management is key to offering true support to kids.   Allison will provide teachers with an analysis sheet to help them identify triggers  that might be interfering with a student’s learning.

Communication is likely the most powerful tool for offering support to kids or not.  Poor communication can create resistance, promote aggression and be a major source of discouragement for kids…this includes how we praise children.  Learning the skills of an effective communicator facilitates emotional safety for kids.  When this happens, children can open themselves to hearing feedback without it discouraging them or affecting their sense of self.

Coaching Kids.  In order to promote resilience in children, we have to strengthen their confidence to solve problems.  Too often kids are told they are making poor choices… this paralyzes kids.  Instead, involve kids by pulling out their ideas.   Collaborative problem solving engages them, creates cooperation and promotes a sense of importance, belonging and integrity.  One antidote for anxiety is using the part of your brain that problem solves rather than staying stuck in the primitive, survival part of the brain.

Allison will facilitate practical coaching skills that can be used as peer support for teachers as well.  This can take staff meetings to a more productive place.

Time permitting, other topics can be covered such as…how to help children deal with their peers.  Many kids act aggressive because they don’t know what else to say or do.  Becoming aware of confident body language, developing snappy comebacks, and learning to growl not bite are part of this subject.   Also, many kids react in ways that make bugging more entertaining.   Kids are mostly parented by kind, loving people and so it can be a shock to them when they have to deal with their peers who, because they are kids, are egocentric and unable to speak in a way that is always kind.  This is a Given of childhood and is for the most part, out of our control because we can’t make kids just hurry up and mature!  What we can do is help them cope and better yet, rise up to the challenge.