4th November 2024

In a fast-paced world, today’s generation of young learners face many emotional obstacles that trigger anxiety and stress. Teaching and guiding them to manage their emotion is essential. Self-calming skill is an important type of emotional regulation, that allows children to manage their emotional responses more effectively. Such skills not only lead to emotional stability in the moment but help build mental health in the long run. Those teachers who have pursued courses like TEFL young learners course, knows it really well.

When children learn self-calming methods, they can manage social situations and handle the stress of academic pressure well. Schools and teachers play an essential part in building these skills into the foundation of education, so that young learners are ready to take on the world, both personally and academically.

Keep reading further, to know some of the most effective self-calming skills that you can teach your young learners, so that they can they can thrive in every aspect of their life.

Importance of Teaching Self-Calming Skills

In today’s world, young learners, often encounter difficulties arising from the fast-paced environment which results in anxiety, stress, and emotional turmoil. The ability to self-calm is essential for them to be able to develop emotional intelligence and resilience. These skills are not solely about managing short-term emotional responses but also managing long-term mental health and well-being. Learning self-calming skills helps children better interact with peers and manage the demands of school.

If children have a reliable self-calming tool, they are better able to process their emotions and respond to challenges with greater flexibility. As you may appreciate the foundation of this skill set contributes significantly to their growth and diffusing a more peaceful and more harmonious learning environment.

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Effective Self-Calming Skills To Teach Your Young Learners

Let’s get to learn some of the effective self-calming skills that you can teach your young learners:

Mindful Breathing

Mindful breathing is a simple practice that helps children focus and reset. Ask your young learners to focus on their breath, feeling their chest rise and fall as they breathe in and out. Simply doing so, can help them to regain their composure during challenging periods and presents a safe method to deal with even the most uncomfortable feelings.

The more children practice mindful breathing, the more aware they become and develop the ability to move attention skills from stressors to the calming experience of breath which ultimately gives them a greater power of self-regulation.

Mindful Listening

Mindful listening encourages children to immerse themselves in the surroundings and noises around them, embodying a greater awareness and presence. Ask your children to sit calmly and pay attention to the various sounds they can hear that is happening around them, like- blowing wind, birds chirping, leaves rustling distant conversations, etc.

This practice can help them ground their focus in the here and now, reducing anxiety and assisting in creating a mental state for finding focus. Consciously listening makes the children more aware of their surroundings, thus appreciating the calmness that comes with mindfulness and being fully present.

Set up a Calming Corner

Developing calm and quiet corners is one way that young children can refine the skill of self-regulation. It is a safe and supported space where they can express and regulate emotions. To set up a perfect calming corner you can add soft pillows, or cushions. You can also use other sensory items like stress balls or fidget toys.

Using visual calm-down prompts and emotion charts to guide children can also prove this to be helpful through calming exercises. It aims to provide children with a designated location to self-regulate and practice calming strategies when their emotions get too intense.

Usage of Visual Aids

Visual Aids such as- emotion charts can be beneficial and help you teach your kids about emotions. These tools show different types of expressions and help the child identify and label emotions. Frequently referring to a new set of emotions from emotion charts cultivates an understanding for the young learner of the fuller range of emotions they feel and where those emotions present themselves in the body.
 

Encourage Them To Share Their Feelings

Another important step in teaching kids emotional recognition is getting them to talk about their feelings. When teachers, parents, and caregivers have conversations about emotions on a regular basis, it makes the experience of feelings become more normal and demonstrates that all feelings are valid.

You can also have characters share feelings during Storytime or playtime so children can talk about how a character might feel or how they might react to a similar situation. By encouraging discussions about emotions, teachers allow students to practice empathy and self-awareness.

Dancing & Yoga Activities

Dance as well as yoga act as an integrative practice and as a whole, they promote emotional balance. Dance encourages expression and releases pent-up energy through movement. It can be introduced through simple routines that allow children to express creativity and joy.

On the other hand, yoga is a more meditative approach. Simple yoga poses along with mindful breathing promote relaxation and mindfulness. These activities can be easily integrated into regular timetables and can help creating a peaceful classroom atmosphere.

Stretching Exercises

Another simple way to fit in some relaxing movement is with stretching exercises. These activities help to relieve muscle tightness and anxiety enabling children to feel much more grounded. Starting or ending the day with some stretches can help to signify a change of pace and to help primary-aged children move from one activity to another calmly. Stretching is good for movement and circulation, contributing to overall well-being and attentiveness.

Practicing Progressive Muscle Relaxation (PMR)

Progressive Muscle Relaxation (PMR) is a technique that helps children to let them understand the physical signs of stress and control them. Children become more aware of the tension in their bodies and learn to release it, by tensing a muscle group, and then relaxing it, in a systematic order.

This can be included in the classroom where this is the time for students to relax. When you teach PMR, you teach children to have better control over their responses to stress helping them with a skill that they can utilize for the rest of their lives in dealing with emotional challenges. Those exercises, especially when combined with mindful breathing, enhance the ability to remain calm in stressful situations.

Role of Storytelling and Role-Playing

Teaching young learners self-calming skills can be done through storytelling and simple role-playing. Through Storytelling, children are introduced to characters who navigate emotional challenges, mirroring their own experiences. Children recognize their own emotions in these characters and it allows them to better understand their feelings. Additionally, being able to listen to strategy within the narrative itself can provide children with examples of emotional regulation.

On the other hand, role-playing provides an interactive approach. This therapeutic play allows them to act out their story for practice to learn and practice self-calming skills in a safe space. This engagement gives them space to fiddle with response options, which leads to greater understanding and the incorporation of these calming strategies in the real world.

Engage Parents & Caregivers

Self-calming skills work best when both home and school environments are matched. Having parents and caregivers involved in the learning process means that these valuable techniques will be reinforced outside of the classroom. This can be done by giving resources and suggestions to parents for how they can practice self-calming at home too.

Suggested ways to engage include:
 

• Hosting workshops or informational sessions that detail self-calming techniques.
   
• Sending home newsletters or digital updates with tips and activities that families can try together.
   
• Encouraging open communication between educators and parents to share observations and strategies that may benefit the child's emotional development.

Final Thoughts

When you teach your young learners self-calming skills, you are investing in their overall development and their future. They do not only serve the immediate need to learn to deal with stressors but also build the ability to become emotionally intelligent and resilient in the years to come. When you use mindfulness practices to create mindful spaces and also include educators and parents you equip children with valuable skills.

If you want to learn more effective teaching strategies to help your learners thrive in every aspect of their life. Then, consider pursuing course like teaching English to young learners, where you will get assistance from top expert trainers.
 

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Written By: Sonal Agrawal