Reframing and Responding to Challenging Behaviour

Hi everyone. So nice you could join us tonight. We're going to just slowly get started here because I can see people are quickly joining. I can see by the bottom of my screen the participants are are logging on. So welcome to our webinar this evening reframing and responding to children's challenging behavior. And we have guests here are facilitators from kids included. We have Sarah and Paula and we will soon be turning it over to them. And I'm also joined this evening by my colleague Suzanne. I am in Ottawa and she's out in the west coast and she'll do a little introduction for herself. Uh happy to be here with you guys tonight. I'm the innovator of projects, programs, and partnerships at the Canadian Childcare Federation. And my name is Robin McMillan. I hope you've joined us before and you'll join us again as well. So, you're probably familiar with with what we're doing and how we do our webinars. Um I'm just looking to see. Yeah, our numbers are are rising up there. Okay. So, what I'm going to do since it's the top of the hour, Suzanne, I'm going to turn it over to you and then let you do a bit of an intro and then turn it over to our great facilitators and then at the end I'll join you again. I'll turn my camera back on and say uh some closing remarks to everybody. So, enjoy the webinar and and welcome and so glad you could join us tonight. Over to you, Suzanne.

>> Thank you, Robin. I'm Suzanne Shlecti and I'm with Canadian Childc Care Federation. Really happy to see everyone here tonight at reframing and responding to children's challenging behavior. And let's just go over a few of the details. So your certificates will be provided to the people attending this full live webinar as confirmed by the Zoom platform records. You must have registered and logged in using the correct spelling of your name as you wish it to appear on your certificate. We are no longer able to accommodate requests for corrections. So, make sure you've got this right. Certificates will be sent within tw 48 hours of the webinar. And if you've unsubscribed from CCCF emails, we can't email your certificate. So, consider adding webinars at CCCF-cs.ca to your email contacts to ensure that your certificates end up in your inbox. And these will come from slecti at cccccfcsg.ca. So that's me. The certificates are going to come from my email inbox to yours and kindly wait the full 48 hours and check your junk or spam folder before you contact me about your missing certificate.

I would like to move on to a land acknowledgement. As we gather together on this virtual platform, we acknowledge that we are each joining from the ancestral and unseated lands of the First Nations, Inuit, and Matei peoples. The Canadian Childcare Federation's office is located on the traditional unseated territory of the Alangquin and Nishnabek people. We honor their enduring connection to the land, waters, and culture. And we recognize all indigenous peoples who have lived on and cared for these lands since time immemorial. Those who live here now and the seven generations to come. We invite you to take a moment of reflection and if you feel comfortable to share the name of the indigenous lands you are joining from in the chat.

And the Canadian Childc Care Federation is made up of 10 important, very important affiliates from across Canada. And we wanted to say tonight a shout out to SECA members. And exciting news for SECA members. They have officially um given the date May 13th as early childhood educator appreciation day. And the whole month of May, they're going to be recognizing the incredible work that ECEES do every single day. Hey, if you'd like to learn more about SECA, you can learn you can use the QR code and check them out. If you're from SECA today, give us a shout out in the chat. We're so happy to have you here. And now I think we will turn it over to Paula and Sarah and we will get on with the webinar.

>> Okay. Wonderful. Thank you. Um, Paula, how about you introduce yourself while I just get our PowerPoint shared and then I'll introduce myself after you.

>> Sounds great. My name is Paula Bowen. I work for Kids Included and I'm joining today from Fort McMurray in the regional municipality of Wood Buffalo. We are sitted on treaty 8 land and I would like to acknowledge that as an immigrant it is my privilege to live and work on these lands and I recognize that these opportunities are here because of the indigenous people that came before me and I commit to lifelong learning and reconciliation of their ways on their lands. And I'm excited to uh hopefully help you guys learn some things this evening.

>> Awesome. Thanks Paula. Um, so my name is Sarah Nichka. Um, my pronouns are she, her, and I'm also from kids included. Um, and I also identify as a cis white queer woman. Um, my, um, my family came as settlers to this land. Um, and I recognize that due to past and current injustices, that gives me privilege. Um, and I made a commitment to use that privilege um, to be an ally towards reconciliation and to challenge injustices. Thank you.

All right. So, this evening we are going to be talking about reframing challenging behavior. Um, and so our title kind of says it all that they're not being defiant. Um, and we're going to be reframing it using something called the NRF, which actually stands for the neurorational framework. Um, there are handouts that go along with this webinar tonight. Um, so those were available um in the same link that you used to join tonight and I believe it's going to be put into the not the chat, the Q&A box, I think is what we're using for chat this evening. Um, so if you do not have the handouts, don't panic. There is you can access them and um you can also just follow along and look at them later. It's uh not you you'll still be able to participate even if you don't have them right in front of you or printed out right now. Um the handouts though are reframing and responding to behavior workbook. the five paradigm shifts which is connected to our neuro relational framework the NRF the safety challenge threat triad and the big five uh handout and challenging behaviors prevention skills are the handouts um that will be available to you. So with that let's get going.

Um, so we always just like to share a few group guidelines because we want everybody to feel like they are safe and secure in this shared space and this is a virtual space tonight but it is still a space where we are coming together tonight as a community and a rather large community at that across Canada. Um so we ask that you respect yourself others in this space um by you know if you have your phone with you or if you are using your phone to make sure you have other kinds of things like alarms and things silenced um you know do your best to reduce distractions for yourself so that you can fully participate and we also invite you to please take care of your regulation needs as you need right there's um no formal breaks exactly but if you need to use the washroom get a water break please do um and Lastly, we want to acknowledge that when we talk about challenging behavior and when we talk about emotions and big emotions and the work that we do, um this can bring up some um some big emotions or some uncomfortable emotions. And so, if at any time you are feeling like you need a break, um we recognize and honor your right to do that.

Okay. So, we have two main um pieces in our agenda this evening. Um the first piece I'm going to be taking you through and that is actually describing some paradigm shifts. So we're really going to look at sort of like the old way that we've thought about behavior in the past and where we are going now with our reframes. Um and then Paula is going to take you through investigating some of the strategies that you can actually do to get there. Um so we'll start with a bit of theory and then we'll move into the practice.

Okay. So we're going to start by describing the paradigm shifts. And these paradigm shifts are um outlined in the neurational framework which is a nice framework to look at in terms of looking at how um not just how the brain builds and thinks but how behavior is a human response in relationship with other people as well as with the environment and how we interact with children, how children interact with each other in the environment. How that impacts behavior and our our reactions and responses um to the things happening around us. So we know that sometimes it can be a common assumption to make that behavior can be kind of viewed through a point of view of compliance versus non-compliance. Right? And that's sort of one of the uh uh concepts that we're going to try and shift the paradigm on this evening. Right? So yes, we know sometimes we can feel big emotions as an adult when children aren't behaving um the way we would like or are not following our directions the way we would like or don't seem to be listening or paying attention um to the things that we want them to pay attention to. Um and we can feel like it's sort of like on purpose almost um so what or that they're stubborn or that they know better, right? Um but we even know even as adults right that when we are um stressed out feeling big emotions we often will do things even though we know better. Um I know today I was distracted thinking about something and I realized I was going a little over the speed limit while I was driving. I know better, right? I know what the speed limit is. Um but in that moment due to some type of dysregulation I for a moment real didn't realize I was going a bit too fast and had to slow down. So we want to remember that challenging behavior is a stress response. Um so when we see behavior from that perspective then we can prioritize resilience so that children don't feel as if they need to communicate with challenging behavior anymore and that they can find new ways to communicate with us.

So how do we plant those new ideas? Right? We're going to change our interpretation of behavior through the lens of safety, challenge, and threat. So, we are looking at behavior as what is the uh what's the child's sense of safety? And not just physical safety, but we're actually talking about emotional safety. Um and then what is the level of challenge that those children are facing right now? Is it the right amount of challenge or is it too much challenge? Is it not enough challenge? And then we therefore can prioritize using some protective factors to build up that child's resilience through co-regulation and relationship. Um and so that's going to be our focus of our first shift tonight.

Um, so this is in one of your handouts and this is called the safety challenge threat triad. Um, and it looks quite involved as you first look at it, but uh I'm going to talk you through it. Uh so bear with me um while I kind of take you through all of the different pieces. So at any point in the day when children are awake um the nervous system is going to go through these states. They're going to go through states of where we feel completely safe. We're going to go through states where we're going to have some challenge. Um and then we sometimes are going to go into what is called the threat. Right? So safety is a person's real when they feel or know it could be real or it could just be felt that sense of protection from harm. So when a child feels safe and secure with others and their environment that's when they're regulated that's when they're engaged and that's when they can connect socially with you. experiences of challenge or threat those could be be those can both be stress responses whereas challenge represents that tolerable amount of stress. So that's the kind of stress that the when we have the ability uh to adapt to a novelty or to a change in an environment um as a way of learning how to maintain effort. So for example um we we're all in um Canada right now with the change of seasons. So we might tell children one day that we're going to be going outside for a long walk and then due to a big weather change we need to pivot and and change to something else. Right? So that kind of change in a predictable schedule that can produce a certain level of challenge for children. However, if they feel safe in their environment and they have educators that are there to regulate them, most children can work through that challenge without going into that state of threat where they feel more frenzied or panicked. Um, another example is, you know, for children is learning to tie their shoes, for example, or that, you know, that kind of pieces like that where it's something new that they're learning. It's a new skill. And once again, if they're given opportunities to practice, uh they're given models to to show and they're given that sidebyside support, they will be able to work through that challenge and move back into safety.

So threat threat can be a real or perceived experience where there is pain, injury, or harm that can be both physical or it can be psychological. So when that stressor is too intense or it's too frequent or it's too prolonged, it is most likely going to meet that criteria that it's moving into toxic stress. Um, so we know that when a challenge level is of stress is mismatched with our capacities, that is when we're going to move into threat. when the challenge facing that child for what whatever state of regulation they're in becomes more than they are actually capable of handling at that moment in time and when that mismatch happens that's when children will move into this threat response. Um, so for example let's say that you have a child um in your program with an undetected fine motor delay for example. So they struggle with things like drawing, cutting, using zippers. And even though those tasks are a tolerable stressor for most children that age, for this child, it is becoming a threat because they cannot do it. So their nervous system starts to experience stress. And if they are being faced with these challenges too often without the appropriate support, that's when we're going to see that child go into that threat state where they might just try to run away. They might act out to avoid the situation or they might just breathe. So, it's our role as adults to really support children to get back into that sense of of safety so that we can really meet their developmental needs. Um, and remember, you know, be kindselves that we're not going to get this right every single time. Um, and that we don't need children to be in that zone all day, right? We want them to be in that safety zone most of the day. The important thing is for us to start to recognize and notice when we're getting into that challenge mismatch so that we can bring them back to that sense of connection and co-regulation before it moves into that point of toxic stress.

Um, I'm just going to pause for a moment and just check Paula, is there any comments or questions so far in the chat box that I need to address?

>> Nothing yet. Lots of people introducing themselves from all over the country, but no questions yet.

>> Beautiful. Thank you. I'm I'm only dealing with one screen tonight, my friends. I usually like [laughter] I'm spoiled. I usually like to have my dual screen so I can see the chat box at the same time as my content. So, I'm so glad I have my partner Paula to co-regulate with me so that even though I'm facing this challenge, I'm staying in a place of safety. So, that's a perfect example right there of my using co-regulation with Paula to keep myself in that green zone and not allow the challenge of this presentation to push me into threat.

>> I am I will just say Sarah since we said that there's a few questions popping up in there that are very specific questions about specific children's behavior. Um we are going to stay online at the end and we can answer some more specific questions there. Um we just have too many people in this presentation to kind of stop and um address everything as it comes up. So keep it in mind that we'll stay online at the end for 10 or 15 minutes to answer any specific questions people have. So

>> absolutely thank you for that Paula and yeah absolutely a lot of this information too you can apply to those while you're listening to the presentation you can pro you can think in your head about a specific situation you have and how this applies to that situation as we take it through because although I just gave like you know one scenario this is relevant really to any situation um where we have children that we might see slipping into that response. So um feel free to kind of take notes as we're as we're going through um and consider how that could apply.

Okay. So, we what we are wanting to do here is we want to shift the script, right? And so this is where we look at trying to to think about our own responses or our own perceptions of what's happening for the children that we are working with. Right? So the left column is really listing um common ways that we might feel under certain situations. The child is feeling stubborn or hyperactive um or whiny, right? Or maybe even naughty, right? Um whereas when we use this framework, when we use this kind of concept of okay, wait, they're going into a stress response. That's when we can take something like stubborn and we can look at it as this child's determined. They know what they want and they are just struggling with learning how to ask for it um in maybe a more appropriate way. Or a child that is really hyperactive, we can then move that towards feeling motivated or regulated by movement. Right? So this child just needs movement in order to be regulated. That's what their body needs. whiny we might perceive as um instead being this is a child who's really persistent in communicating their needs. Right? So they're actually showing that strong value of persistence. Um and a child that might seem to be naughty. We can look at as this is a child that likes to test the boundaries, right? And they're looking for ways to connect. And they might also be struggling with their anger and needing to learn new ways to to actually express their anger and their emotions in a different way.

So, we're going to do a little activity here and this is where we're going to ask you to use uh the It looks like the chat box is active now. So, we use the chat box. Um, and what I'm going to ask you to do is I want you to think about now um, a situation as you've been bringing up in the uh, in the chat box. See, some of you have some specific situations in mind, right? So, what do you think with that child in mind or that situation in mind, what could the stressors for that child be? For a child who maybe doesn't stay on their mat at rest time or whatever it is in your own scenario that you're thinking about, right? So if you don't have a scenario, you can use the doesn't stay on their mat at rest, but you can also think about um a specific situation in your mind, right? And just think about what could the stressors be? And if you would like to share in the chat box some of your ideas. Overt tired. Feeling rushed. Oh, they're coming in so quickly. Amazing. noisy, too bright, hungry, overstimulated. Beautiful, beautiful. There's so many coming in here. Yeah, absolutely. Wonderful job, everyone. And so that's exactly it, right? There could be all sorts of factors that we can't visibly necessarily see, right? We don't necessarily know what the child's sleep was um the night before or what time they woke up, what they had for breakfast, right? So there could be all sorts of biological factors and physiological factors um that could be making it difficult for that child to settle down at rest time. So absolutely uh let's throw another scenario at you.

Okay. A child who pushes other children at centers. Pushing I know can be a bit of a hot button um behavior for me. It can be very difficult sometimes to reframe that. Wanting a toy, seeking that connection, feeling angry or frustrated, right? Yeah. Um, struggling with communication skills. I'm reading here. Um, being overstimulated. I'm seeing some connection seeking. Absolutely. Um, yeah, not not having the words or the language. I saw here, you know, language delays, right? Lack of communication skills, right? So, absolutely. Does the child know how to ask for a toy, right? Um, are they sensory over stimulated? Um, yeah. So, frust Yeah, they might be feeling really frustrated, right? And you know, let's face it, when I'm frustrated, I forget to use my word all the time, you know? Um, I'm sure we all do, right? Like, we we don't always use the perfect words when we're over stimulated or frustrated. And yes, we do have lots of children that even if they might have use of some words for communication when they're in that zone of safety like I was speaking about before. What happens to some of our children when they move into that challenge? Their ability to find the right words to say the right words can be much more difficult. Right? Just like any of us, right? Like I'm sure we've all tripped over our our own words in a moment when we're feeling frustrated or maybe you know we're at a restaurant and we're about to order a meal and the server comes up and they're rather attractive and all of a sudden our heart stops doing this and all of a sudden we can't find our words, right? It can be the same thing for children when they're moving out of that place of safety even if they do have language. So imagine for those children that are already struggling with communication skills or social skills or emotional regulation and then they had that additional challenge on top that maybe they didn't get their favorite spot at the center table or maybe they really wanted the blue crayon and somebody else has the only blue crayon and how are they going to color the sky now, right? So yeah, beautiful job of reframing. Thank you. Um, and our last one here, cries and screams if they're not the first in line. Oh, we've all know a few children like that. What are some possible free frames for that? Struggles with turn taking, feeling insecure, a long day. Yep. Seeking that connection. Maybe that child's been hurt. Yeah. They're sensitive. They're tired. Yeah. They're they're testing the boundaries maybe, right? They want to know, you know, how how far can I push to see if I can be the leader, right? Um, yeah, they might need space. That's a really great reframe, right? And they feel like if they're at the front of the line, they're not going to get squished because they don't have anyone in front of them, right? Great reframe. Yeah, they could be testing the boundaries, right? Because we want to push on our boundaries to know if we're safe, right? That's one of the ways we find out if we're safe is by finding out where the boundaries and the walls are. um wanting to be closer to the adult. Yeah, absolutely. Maybe they're feeling a little insecure that day and being close to the front means that if they need to grab the teacher's hand, they can, right? So, yeah, lots of really great reframes that I'm seeing in this chat box. So I really appreciate that many of you are really thinking about um this behavior um that rather than it being about you know the child is not complying right or is just choosing to misbehave that this is actually a stress response right these children these kind of behaviors that we often see are a reaction to something not being quite right in the environment and the child is just doing their best to to seek their seek their own safety Awesome. Oh, there was one more. You know what? That's okay for time. I think I'm just going to go on. So, see, even I can make mistakes. I thought we only had three and we had four. Oops. But that's okay. [clears throat] Mistakes are all right.

So, a common assumption that we might make is um that are that these behaviors are therefore then aligned with reward and punishment, right? And so once again, if we're thinking in terms of the old way, right, which is that compliance versus non-compliance, right? Then we can find ourselves wanting to swap into the sort of old way of doing things of, okay, well, I'm going to reward the good behavior, right? And I'm going to punish the bad behavior, right? And so I mean I'm I'm in my late 40s and so I remember the days right of like oh you know they just you know they you know didn't go in the front of the line. Here's a sticker. Oh you went in the front of the line when it wasn't your turn. So now you have to go all the way to the back. Right. So sort of some of those um those sort of reactions um thinking of behavior as well if they comply we want to you know you know give them a ding. Um and instead when we start to shift our thinking to what is the challenge right is there a challenge mismatch um with what the children's actual capabilities are and this is a stress response then how are we going to respond instead to the that behavior right so we can change our responses to the child by prioritizing relational safety right so asking questions, observing to see what is happening with that child. Are they nervous? Are they maybe, you know, oh, are you really needing to stay close to me today? You know what? You can hold teacher, you know, Paula's hand in the middle of the line or are you feeling a little bit squished? You can tell your friends, I need space, please. Right? That way, we are connecting with what the child needs to get back to that sense of safety through our relationship with that child. And then that way we are prioritizing that child's protective factors such as having those social connections. That child starts to learn how to navigate those social situations. Whether it's wanting the same toy as another child or needing more space or whether it's needing to be a leader all the time because maybe you know being the leader for that child means control over a situation and therefore safety right and knowing what's going to happen.

Okay. So, we want to also look at redefining consequences, right? Because when I talk about this prioritization of relational safety, um I'm not saying just let the children get away with inappropriate behavior, right? And that can sometimes be a a misconception that when we talk about um supporting children through co-regulation, yeah, that that doesn't mean that, you know, that we just let them do whatever they want and and that there aren't any consequences. There still can be consequences for inappropriate actions or for dangerous behavior as a stress response. Um there are problems that do need solutions, right? um we are just supporting the children to recognize a what the actual problem might be and then help them be a part of the solution to those problems or a part of that consequence rather than looking at it from a you did something bad so I'm punishing you point of view right so we want to respond first of all by making sure that we are regulated and the child is getting regulated right because us as adults if we're not regulated and we're reacting um in our with our own stress response, it's very very very hard to co-regulate with a child, right? So, we want to regulate with a child by using calming strategies, um modeling them for the child. That can sometimes be just a matter of pausing, taking that deep breath. Right. Having a sip of water, taking that moment to recognize that pushed my buttons. I need to remember this is a stress response. Then we can build up a relation with that child by validating their feelings and showing empathy. Um so you might have heard the term connect before you direct? And that is the idea here that we want to connect with the child's emotions and show that their emotions are valid. Whether that is anger, frustration, jealousy, all of those emotions are valid. And we're going to show empathy for those emotions first. Then once we've regulated and validated feelings, then we can move in to reasoning with the child that we can restate what the expectation is or that limit is and what the next steps are using simple, clear and todo language. Right? So a few examples here that we can think about is that you know for a child rather than you know sending them to the quiet corner till they calm down which can very much sound sort of punitive. Instead we can recognize wow you're really frustrated right now. Do you need some space? And maybe that child does go to that quiet corner, right? But that quiet corner is now um stating that is where you can go to calm down. It's now set it's now providing co-regulation with the child rather than like sending them to to the corner, right? And expecting them to regulate all by themselves, right? Uh so it's really important to remember that we're looking for strategies that connect and build relationship rather than strategies that create disconnection between ourselves and the child and that can be very isolating and can lead the child feeling a lot of shame because I don't know about all of you but I know for me that when I feel like I'm feel shame when I feel embarrassed and I feel shame about something I'm already feeling you know kind of sad and disregulated. If somebody just kind of puts more shame on me and is like, "Why did you do that? That escalates me. It doesn't bring me down. It doesn't help me feel supported. And it certainly doesn't improve my mood." Right? So, same thing with children. We're wanting to get them back to a place where we can where we can actually reason with them and and remind them of what the expectations and limits are. Um, but we can't do that with a disregulated child.

Okay. So, how do we co-regulate? Through green communication, right? So, once again, when we think about getting the child back to green, we're talking about getting a child back to that relationship of safety, right? So, we're going to be warm. We're going to have responsive relationships. That's why we have to check um our own emotions because we we're human beings and we are going to get frustrated, right? So, we want to make sure that the way we are responding to a child, our own tone of voice, right? If we're just getting louder and louder and louder, that doesn't help. We want to get quieter and softer because we're building that warmth and finding that that sense of connection. Positive simple language, right? So, we often hear about why we don't say no or stop or don't. And once again, you know, I feel like the sort of concept of positive language sometimes gets a bit of a bad rap. Like people are like, "Oh, yeah, we have to be all like flowers and roses all the time." I am not saying that, you know, we have to be all positive and it's all just about, you know, being rosy. And yes, the reason why we want to avoid telling a child what not to do is because it doesn't tell them what to do. Right? If I tell you all right now, everybody put your hands on your head, you're clearly going to know that I want you to do this, right? But if I tell you all, don't put your hands on your heads, don't put them in your lap, don't put them in the air, you're going to get pretty flustered because you're like, I don't know, Sarah, what you want me to do with my hands. So clear is kind, right? So we always want to keep our language simple and tell the child what is expected rather than kind of getting into that shamy language of why did you do that or no that's not right or that's not nice right does a child what what does that mean what does not nice mean instead we can tell them what they can do right so you know if a child is pushing and running around the room maybe pushing or shoving right rather than saying stop pushing ing. Don't run. You know, instead say, "Wow, you're really excited right now. We can walk and you can clap your hands to show me how excited you are." Or, "You're feeling really mad. You can stomp like a dinosaur and tell me I'm mad." So, once again, we want to go away from punishing and move towards teaching, more towards connecting.

Okay. So, what are logical consequences? Because like I said, we're not saying that there aren't consequences, right? In life, there are consequences. So, what we do want to ensure is that the consequences are logical, right? And so, first of all, what is it? Well, we want to use something related to the behavior, right? And so we really need to think about, you know, if a child has knocked down another child's tower, perhaps the um the consequence is that they help that child rebuild their to right or if you know they they hit a child, right? They can maybe sit with that child until they feel better or be the or go over with the teacher to get the icy, right? To bring to their front, right? So rather than sort of just sort of being like you know what you hurt him you know you say sorry kind of thing which doesn't necessarily relate to the behavior and I mean not that there's not a place for manners um you know I know manners are good manners are good but we want to make sure that the child can actually make a connection between their their action and how is it performing a reconciliation to what went wrong. They want we want the child to be a part of the solution not just feel blamed for the problem.

Okay. And why do we use it? Right? Well, because problem solving is a lifelong skill. Uh you know and conflict resolution and emotional literacy, being able to express ourselves in a safe, kind way. Um being members of democratic society, right? We are building the building blocks of this. Um, and so when we make the consequences logical and related, we're helping children understand and connect those things together, right? Where we want them to be able to take, oh, I'm a part of this community. I'm a part of this relationship and I belong here and I also have the power to build connection, not just disconnection. Right? So, we want to always connect it to those outcomes.

Okay. So, we're going to remember the four Rs. Okay. So, the four Rs. First one, is it related? Right? We want whatever the consequence is to be related to the behavior. Number two, is it respectful? Right? We don't want to give a child a consequence that's going to make them feel embarrassed, that's put going to put them on the spot, that's going to make them feel ashamed. We do not want them to be made an example of, right? Sometimes we we think in our minds, you know, that, you know, all the children are going to learn why why you don't do that. But that actually drives disconnection and in the long run actually increases uh challenging behavior. it does not decrease it. So, we always want to do something with a child's dignity um intact. We want to be reasonable, right? Sometimes, once again, it's easy to kind of have those big reactions, right? You know, a child has, you know, gone over and taken the Lego bin and dumped it all over the floor, right? A reasonable consequence would be that they're going to need to come and help pick that all up. An unreasonable consequence might be, well, that's it. You're not allowed to play with Lego for the rest of the week, right? Is the child even going to remember tomorrow why they're not allowed to play with the Lego? Is that going to actually be really connected anymore um to the incident that occurred? Probably not, right? So, we want to think about what is actually reasonable. Um and we do want to remind children in advance, right? So, whenever possible, we know sometimes we can't predict everything. Last time I checked, daycare centers and preschool rooms don't come with crystal balls. Boy, I wish they did. Wouldn't that be fabulous? Um, but whenever we do know there's a possibility, reminding children of the expectations, right? So, before we go in the hallway, we're going to, you know, swallow, you know, put in your bubble gum or we're going to use quiet fa quiet voices and walking feet, right? or I'm going to put out the paint now and we're going to use the paint on the paper, right? Using those con using those reminders in advance so that children know, right? And they're like, and remember, you know, if we end up, you know, if we put paint all over our faces, we're going to have to all go to the bathroom and wash it all off, right? So, we can remind them of what the consequences might be. or you know what we uh we're going to walk in the hallway and if we are riding a really really loud friends might trip and fall down so we're going to use our walking feet so related respectful reasonable and remind all right okay and so we're going to just talk a little bit about expectation mismatch because once again this can be sort of a paradigm shift that we're trying to really move towards, right, is that sometimes our expectations don't actually match the child's capabilities. We think it does, right? Um and you know, one of you know, my favorite examples, you know, is sometimes we think very very young children should be capable of the um the concept of empathy, right? And maybe we see them show empathy in one way like they when they see a child um you know fall down and get a boo boo um they know oh yeah that hurts I'm going to go give my friend a hug. So now we think, oh that kid, that kid knows empathy, right? Well, that child might know that level of emotional literacy for an owie or a boo boo because they've had one before, but that doesn't mean when, you know, maybe their friend or their peer, you know, pees their pants, uh, that they understand that for that child that that's actually really embarrassing and maybe they point and laugh. Why would they do something like that? I know they know empathy. Well, does that child understand what empathy is? Have they actually developed the skill of recognizing what embarrassment looks like in other people? Because until we can recognize a variety of emotions in ourselves and others, we can't put ourselves in somebody else's shoes and imagine how they might be feeling, which is what empathy is. So, we really want to think about how um are we really matching ourselves to that child's capability. And I'll add that child's capability in that moment just because they did something yesterday when maybe they were in the green and they were they'd had a good night's sleep and they got their favorite cereal for breakfast and they came in and you put their favorite color of Play-Doh on the table. So, that day that child was able to do all sorts of amazing But in this moment, they were all out of Fruity Pebbles at home and they had to have stupid cornflakes. And when they got to the daycare, there wasn't Play-Doh at all. Right now, their capabilities are a little bit different because they're not just they're not regulated. So, keeping in mind that uh sometimes we assume children are capable of things and that doesn't mean that they're not mighty learners, right? We always want to remember that we do want to presume competence, but a child's competence and abil and their ability to learn something doesn't mean in that moment they can always do things perfectly. Right? We're not looking for perfection here. So, we can plan some new ideas. All right? We're going to change our expectations to match that child's neuro development. And that means we're looking at where their their state of regulation is in the moment and that we're meeting them where they're at at that moment. And we can prioritize protective factors by having knowledge, right? So we have relationships with families. So we know how children react to different situations. We build our knowledge of parenting. We build our knowledge of child development. And look at all of you. There are so many people here tonight that are doing exactly that. you're here tonight building your knowledge of child development. Um, and that is such a beautiful, beautiful thing, right? Because this is how we continue to strengthen our skills and strengthen our relationships. So, you should all pause right now and give yourselves a pat on the back because this is what you're doing right now is you're actually building your knowledge so that you can build stronger relationships and that's amazing.

Okay. So, gonna just pause here before I turn things over to Paula. Um, and just once again ask, you know, I'm going to look at the chat box for a moment. How is this information landing so far? Um, and you know, if there Let's just open the chat. Take a look here. Yeah. Uh, fun comment here around you. Sometimes they relationship with the family, right? Really good point, right? It's adult to adult relationships aren't easy either, right? Especially when we're talking about the most precious thing, children, right? Um so, you know, sometimes, you know, having to co-regulate with families, right? And having to sort of once again reframe even parents um and families um behavior from a point of view of a stress response. And how do we build that relational safety with our families? Right? I always say for um every time that we have to talk to a parent or a family member about uh something that happened at school or a daycare that was difficult, we want to remember that we're also sharing all the celebrations and the positive moments too, right? So that once again we can build that relationship with families as well. Um, and so that we can once again connect before we direct. All right, I'm going to stop talking and turn things over to Paula.

>> Thank you, Sarah. That was lots of really good information to start us off this evening. So, in the next few slides, I'm going to try and not be distracted by the chat box because it's really busy this evening with so many good comments. Um, but now I'm going to kind of go into talking a little bit about some response strategies. So, we learned a little bit about what some of those reasons might be behind the behaviors that we see in our room. So, now we're going to look at investigating some strategies to respond to some of those behaviors. So, in your workbook handout that you had, you have a copy of this. This is called our big five. So these are some universal strategies that we could be using in our programs with all children to create a more regulated room overall. So not just children that display those challenging behaviors, but these can be some strategies that we can start implementing with everyone in every space. So these strategies include consistent positive connection. We just talked a lot about connection and we want to make sure we're acknowledging every child with a 5:1 ratio of positive connection um to those neutral negative comments that we might make. Um I kind of challenge you all to go into work tomorrow and try this. It's actually harder than you think. [laughter] So for every negative or neutral comment, so if we tell a child something that starts with no, stop, or don't, try and balance that with five positive things to outweigh that one negative thing that you might have said. Um it's it's harder than you think, but that's definitely a really big tip towards connection. Um the next practice that um we highly recommend is predictable schedules and routines. So when children know what's coming next in their life, it naturally helps them regulate and be calmer. So a predictable routine in the day, um you can use visuals, timers, breaks at regular times. You can have choices for quiet play and active play throughout the day. Um having that predictability throughout the day definitely helps children to regulate naturally. and routines within routines. That's breaking down our bigger routines into smaller routines. So into smaller steps. So using visuals for those or first then for example um first you put your shoes on then we can play outside or first you wash your hands then we can eat your snack. So just breaking things down into smaller chunks for children really can kind of help with that clearness and consistency too. Um having clear behavior expectations. So, when we think about behavior expectations, we're thinking about our overarching expectations for our program and for our rooms. Um, we want those to be clear and consistent.

We don't want to, for example, if one day we allow children to climb on the chairs and jump off onto the mat, um, and the next day we tell them, "No, it's not allowed." We're not providing that safe, consistent space for them to learn. So, making sure that we're consistent with our behavior expectations. Um, and that probably means having a conversation with your co-educators, too, to make sure that you're all on the same page about what your expectations are in the room to help that consistency. [gasps] Um, and then lastly on our big five are social and emotional skills, probably the biggest one out of all of them. So, intentionally teaching those social and emotional skills to children. So, emotional literacy, talking about your feelings, modeling your own feelings as an educator and an adult, helping them work through what their feelings look like and feel like, and what do their friends feelings look like and feel like, and how they can kind of work around those together. Um, peer interactions. Children aren't born naturally knowing how to make friends and sustain good friendships. We have to teach that to them. And some children pick up those skills quicker and easier than others. Some children might have lots of friends and be the social butterfly of the room, but you might have other children who struggle with those friendship skills. They might need a lot more prompting and a lot more helping and learning to be able to make friends in the room. Um, and problem solving. Problem solving with preschoolers and toddlers, there's always going to be problems that need solving. So again, some children it comes really naturally to and they can figure it out easier, but some children we're going to need to intentionally teach them those problem-solving skills. So how do we ask a friend for a turn? How what can we do while we're waiting for a turn? How do we share the toys? Um we often are saying things like gentle hands, use your words, share your toys. We say those phrases to the children, but we really need to be intentionally breaking it down and actually showing them and teaching them what those things actually mean. And if we can put all of those five practices consistently into place, then the amount of challenging behavior in our rooms and our programs will naturally go down. Children will be calm. They will be regulated. Um, and not all of our problems will be solved, but it will definitely be getting us on our way to having a much calmer place and a routine. And again, that's in your workbook. Those five, the big five is in there. So, you guys can take a look at those later, too.

Um, expectations we talked a little bit about. So, making sure that we have those clear expectations. When children understand why something is happening, they're more likely to be successful in that activity or the routine. So, we can make sure that our expectations match their neurodedevelopment by using the first then statements. So using the first then helps to break down those expectations or a routine into those smaller simpler steps. It tells the child the order in which the activities are happening. Um so the examples I used before were first we wash our hands, then we eat our snack. Um first we put our shoes on, then we play outside. If possible when you're using this practice, you're going to want to make sure the second activity is the preferred activity. If we're saying um that the first activity is something they love doing and then the second activity is something they don't like doing so much, it's much harder to uh to have them move on to that second one. So trying to make sure the first activity is the least enjoyed activity. So the handwashing or the putting the shoes on followed by a fun activity that they want to do after. And if possible, use the visuals. You can make the visuals. You can there's lots of visuals available online. You can make your own, take pictures. Um, but having the visuals is definitely a really good way to support this practice to show them what's coming up next.

So, which leads us into the choices. All children like to make choices and a child who communicates with challenging behavior might need to make choices more often. So, sometimes when children feel like they have that freedom to choose, they're more willing to follow our expectations and directions. They might con um communicate with challenging behavior as a way to get back some of that control in a situation if they feel like they don't have any. And this can be especially important for children who've experienced trauma, which is often defined by a time in their life when they haven't had that choice or autonomy over themselves and their own body and their own choices. So choices can be offered throughout the day and throughout any activity or routine. So, as the adults and the educators, we want to make sure those choices are limited and still reasonable within our day. So, for example, at cleanup time, we could say, "Do you want to pick up the red toys or do you want to pick up the blue toys?" And our ultimate goal is they're still going to pick up some toys, but we can give them the choice over what they're going to pick up. Would you like to put the Lego or would you like to put the cars away? So, we're still having them take part in that routine of cleaning up, but we're giving them some choice over what part of it they do. Um, when we want them to do something and there isn't actually a choice. For example, if we're going outside to play, um, and everyone has to go out, we don't have enough educators to split the group, so everyone has to go out, so staying inside isn't a choice. And if we have some children who are maybe reluctant and showing us some behavior as way of communicating their reluctance around that, we're going to have to be creative with the choices we give them. So, um, you're coming outside, [laughter] we can give them a choice. Do you want to carry the backpack? Do you want to carry the water bottles? Or would you like to hold this friend's hand? Or would you like to hold this friend's hand instead? So making sure that the ultimate um the goal is that we're all going outside but making those options for choice within there so they feel like they have their own control around their own routine as part of the day.

So another thing that we can do is redirection. So this is another tool we can keep in our tool box for presenting preventing some challenging behavior. So, for example, if we have a child that um enjoys playing outside, but they might like throwing sand, um that could be a sensory experience for them. It could be their schema of play that they're currently interested in. Um just removing them from the sand or telling them they're not allowed to do it isn't going to prevent that behavior in a productive way. So, we can redirect that play to make it safe. So, we could bring out maybe buckets. We could bring out um different tools, different toys. We can model, we can use prompts, different ways for them to get [clears throat] that play experience, but in a safe manner without throwing the sand. So, it's important to remember that we're going to pay as little attention as we can to the behavior if possible in this situation, which I know is really, really hard. Um but we have to remember there are reasons behind it that are bigger than what we are thinking at that time. So if we can pay less attention to for example the throwing of the sand and more positive attention to that redirection in the play um then hopefully we'll see a decrease in that challenge too for us. So redirection can help strengthen those connections and um and just like reinforce the appropriate behaviors instead of the challenging behaviors.

Um, I think on here, [clears throat] we're not going to go through these all individually. I think they might be in your workbook, too. But it's important to help children develop those new skills to communicate their wants and needs without showing us their challenging behavior. So, here we have some examples of some of the things that we might teach the children to do or say instead of using challenging behavior to communicate their needs to us. So we want to teach a child of what to do instead. We have to think about the purpose of the behavior. For example, um Sarah talked a little bit earlier about those stresses that the children feel. So if we go back to that, think about what is the stress behind that behavior. So for example, if we have a child who is pushing their peers, um we don't know what the stress is behind that. Maybe they don't want anyone in their personal space. Maybe they have a trauma response to people being too close to them. They need their own space. Um, so we need to teach them those skills to be able to so they can use their words, use their voices to say, "I need space. Don't stand so close to me." Or teach them to move away from the situation if it makes them feel more comfortable. So remembering to think back about what those reasons might be behind the behavior. Um think about them in a trauma-informed way and trying to help redirect them. Um ana another example would be a child who runs away during transitions and I think this popped up in the chat box earlier when it was zooming through and someone asked about a child who was running away all the time. Um so during that transition you might need to um intentionally teach that routine using visuals. You might need more transition cues. You might need that child to be the line leader with you. You might need to have them be a leader and ask for them to help show the other children how to make a line. So, just using some tools from your toolbox to kind of help them in a positive way to naturally um decrease some of those behaviors. Sometimes I think we overthink what the solutions might be and we have to go right back to the beginning and think about that.

So, so we I don't think we have a whole lot of time left. I feel like I talked really fast then on this slide. Um, we won't spend a long time on here. I'll kind of give this to you guys for homework because I know we're really close to the end of our presentation. So, this slide that says stop, start, keep, this is also in your workbooks that you were sent for the handbook. So maybe later this evening or tomorrow, sometime in the next couple of days, just have a little think about what you learned this evening during this presentation. Um, think about some things that you do in your practices that you might think about stop doing since you heard Sarah and I tonight. Um, think about something that you might have learned this evening that you want to start doing in your practices with your children. And think about something that you're doing and that you're proud of and you're doing it well. and um it's helping you support those children in a positive way. So, think about something to stop, start, and keep doing. And you don't have to do that right now. We were going to do it in the chat box, but we'll uh we'll let you guys go. We'll honor your evening because I know some people are joining from all over the province, and it's much later for some people than it is for us here in Alberta.

So, >> absolutely. I just want to say I really was impressed by many of the comments in the chat box that were really connecting um all of the things that Paula was talking about particularly the big five and relating it back to the first part of the presentation around relational safety and just making those connections. So that was really beautiful and I will be answering some of the questions in the Q&A box >> in the in the Q&A box I'll type. Thanks so much. That was amazing. And you can see by the chat, people are so excited with this topic and really want to share all their thoughts and share their ideas. And thank you very much to Paula and to Sarah for giving us all this information. And I mean, for one thought that every negative comment with five positives was a great idea. I'm going to totally put that in into use in my life for sure. Uh we wanted just to finish with a few slides too from the Canadian Childcare Federation if you don't mind. So, uh, as some of you probably know and how you heard about this webinar, we do have, uh, newsletters and we do have social media and that's a way to find out about our upcoming webinars and we do encourage you to sign up for those newsletters and get those emails so then you get ahead of the crowd and you you know when we're having our next uh, professional development webinar and how that's you can get signed up for that and you get to know our topics too. So, and in closing just thank you so much for joining us. We know this was part of your evening and and how difficult that can be sometimes after working a long day, but such important topics and it's really a great opportunity to get some more information from experts like our friends Sarah and Paula from Kids Included and also just get some things that you can use in your practice every day. So, I mean a key point of our webinars with the federation is that we want people to get information that they can actually use the very next day to improve their practice. So, we hope you got that out of this webinar as well. And thanks again to Suzanne and to Paula and to Sarah for joining us this evening. And we hope you all have a really great evening. Thanks so much for joining. See you next everyone. >> Bye.