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Resources for educators, link to Permission To Feel book club

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Resources for educators, link to Permission To Feel book club

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Marc Brackett, author and Director of Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence

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Happy Thanksgiving. Grateful for the incredible work schools do w/ ⁦@rulerapproach⁩. This morn, I found this pic from a school in LA. This 5th grade girl's best self: creative, friendly, gentle, brave, challenged, & a rebel! I love the complexity that is within each of us.

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Marc Brackett Ph.D. | Founder & Director of Yale Center of Emotional Intelligence

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Happy Thanksgiving. Grateful for the incredible work schools do w/ ⁦@rulerapproach⁩. This morn, I found this pic from a school in LA. This 5th grade girl's best self: creative, friendly, gentle, brave, challenged, & a rebel! I love the complexity that is within each of us.

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Little Flower Yoga

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A very simple but effective type of meditation is the practice of fixing your gaze on one steady object for a set period of time. You may have heard of an adult practice of fixing one's gaze on a candle flame. With children we get more creative to find safer variations of the practice.

1. Choose something to be the object of your gaze. This is an important choice. A candle flame works so well for an adult practice because it is at once con- stant and ever changing. A candle flame has a small amount of movement that keeps drawing you in, but it doesn't change so much that it inspires thoughts or ideas. Try to choose something with similar qualities for your practice with your child: a sand timer, a jar filled with water and glitter that you can shake, a battery-operated flickering candle (try putting it inside a brown paper bag), or something out in nature such as a stream, clouds changing shape, or leaves moving in the wind. Involving your child in this choice will make the entire practice more interesting to him.

2. Sit down on your yoga mat with your chosen object in front of you. If you are outside using an object in nature for this practice, make sure you have some- thing clean and comfortable to sit on. Sit up tall and take a few full breaths to prepare.

3. Set a timer for two minutes (this is a good amount of time to start with, but you can try more or less depending on your child's prior capacity and experience).

4. Fix your gaze on the object you've chosen, and let it fill up your mind.

5. Now, here is the most important part of this practice: When your mind wanders away from your object, try to notice right away, and then bring it back. The exercise of noticing your mind wandering, and practicing bringing it back, is the true purpose of this activity. Keep practicing until your timer goes off.

6. When the timer goes off, close your eyes and try to keep the object you have been gazing at fixed in your mind. Take a few full breaths, and when you are ready open your eyes.

Follow-up: Talk with your child about his experience practicing Single-Pointed Focus. Allow him time to share whether he was able to notice his mind wandering, and even what his mind wandered to. Practicing this alongside your child, and sharing some thoughts about your own wandering mind, is a helpful part of the experience. As your child gets more comfortable with this practice, extend the amount of time on the timer.

Challenges: Some children feel frustrated when they notice their mind wandering. They think that the point of the practice is to stay connected to their object for the whole time they are practicing, and that if their mind wanders they are doing something wrong. Make sure your child knows that everyone's mind wanders. It is the job of his mind to make thoughts, and that is a good thing! Remind him that this activity is about noticing when his mind wanders, and that every time he notices his mind wandering he is doing the activity perfectly.

Daily Practice: Learning to notice when your mind wanders, and bring it back to the activity you want to be focusing on, is a vital life skill. Your child can remind himself of this practice anytime he has something important to do. Encourage him to take a few full breaths before starting, and remind him that it is totally natural for his mind to wander. Whether he is trying to focus on homework, a test, learning a part on the piano, or listen- ing to a friend talk, his mind will still keep making thoughts. The important thing is that he can recognize when his mind is wandering, and bring it back.
See this and many more activities in LFY founder Jennifer Cohen Harpers book, Little Flower Yoga for Kids: A Yoga and Mindfulness Program to Help Your Child Improve Attention and Emotional Balance, available now for pre-order from New Harbinger Publications.

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A very simple but effective type of meditation is the practice of fixing your gaze on one steady object for a set period of time. You may have heard of an adult practice of fixing one's gaze on a candle flame. With children we get more creative to find safer variations of the practice.

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Erin McClintock

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, teachers, school counselors, and school employees have remained acutely focused on supporting their students and continuing to do their jobs at this time. In some cases, this may mean teaching, care-taking (whether for children or other loved ones), and continuing to work through the same challenges that everyone else faces. While resources related to mental health have been (rightfully) front and center for supporting students, parents, and others, less focus has been paid on maintaining mental wellness for teachers and educators who are also trying to find balance in our new normal. That's why we put together some mental health tips for teachers during COVID-19 and beyond.

10 Mental Health Tips for Teachers Balancing Life and Remote Teaching

Here are ten teacher mental health tips you can start practicing today.

1. Control the Controllable During COVID-19 & Beyond

There are certain things that you simply cannot control right now: who will be impacted by COVID-19, whether it will be you, how things will continue to evolve. But there are some things that you can control: how you spend some of your time, what you choose to prioritize, what types of media you consume (and how frequently) and your mindset, to name a few. By focusing on the things that you can control and prioritizing the ones that are healthy, you can help to put your mental wellness front and center.

Webinar | Mental Health Strategies for Teachers and Students

In honor of Teacher Appreciation Week and Mental Health Awareness Month, experts from the EVERFI team are partnering with the Jed Foundation to ensure you have the resources necessary to support your mental wellness and that of your students. In this webinar, we explore activities and strategies around mental well-being that can be used in the classroom or virtually, as well as providing tips and tricks for educator self-care.

2. Carve Out Time for Self-Care to Maintain Your Mental Health

Now, more than ever, we are acutely focused on remote teaching , physical health, and preventing illness- washing hands and engaging in other healthy practices. But it is just as important, for maintaining mental health, to try to carve out some time to prioritize the other things that help us feel balanced: for some, it is exercise, for others, it is reading, journaling, meditation, or spending time doing a hobby. And, if you are someone who isn't sure what you can do for your self-care, simply the act of doing can help maintain your mental health .

3. Get Your Body Moving to Help Your Mental Wellness

One of the biggest challenges for many educators during this time is how hard it is to be sedentary- you may be used to moving around, physical transitions from one room to another, or even your usual lunchtime walk with a colleague. As you work around your schedule, set a timer or create breaks for you specifically to move around- this might mean moving around your house, or taking a walk around your building or neighborhood- obeying physical distancing recommendations, of course. Anything to get your body moving will help manage your mental wellness .

4. Model Self-compassion

Now, more than ever, we need to be incredibly kind to ourselves to help maintain mental wellness. We teach students this all of the time- the basics of self-compassion, kind self-talk, and growth mindset . Now is the time to also turn it inwards. In doing so, you'll benefit your own mental wellness and also be able to model it for others in your life.

5. Set Reasonable Expectations (for yourself and others)

Collectively, we need to acknowledge that we are still in the midst of a pandemic and distance learning- and that it is not business as usual. Things are going to be different, and that is okay. We can't expect to be as productive, or on top of it, or together as we once could. If you are one of those, like many, who is trying to balance educating with care-taking or educating your students on top of your own kids, there is no possible way that you can be all things to all people all of the time. By setting small, realistic goals and expectations around what you actually could be capable of, you will be setting yourself up to feel much more fulfilled and help maintain your mental health.

Webinar | Empowering from Afar with Social Emotional Learning

Although most of our social interactions these days occur at a distance, helping students work on social emotional skills can still have a big impact. Developing courage and grit, strong communication, and empathy can all help students make the most of their time in quarantine.

6. Communication is Vital for Maintaining Mental Health for Teachers

Let people know what is going on- especially colleagues and supervisors. By being transparent about what you are experiencing, and with what things may be helpful, you can bring them in and potentially expand your own network of resources and support. You may also be modeling healthy communication for other colleagues to follow suit.

We live in an "I'm sorry" culture. Consider how often you apologize, and the ways in which you can stop. Be unapologetic about taking time for yourself, setting realistic goals, setting boundaries, and being clear and transparent about what you are capable of (and what you need). This is one of the hardest things to do for many, but oh so important for maintaining mental health and wellness.

8. A Dedicated Work Space Can Improve Mental Wellness

This is a psychological trick that helps you to both be more productive, and to disconnect from work more easily. When working from home , we can quickly fall into an unhealthy balance between work and life, especially if you are working in the areas of your home in which you're also living. By creating a dedicated workspace: even if it is just one corner of your home that you designate as "work only," you can do two things: you can send an outward message to those in your life that when you are in that space you are working, and also an internal message to your own brain that signals when it is work mode and when it is time to disconnect.

9. Set Office Hours While Remote Teaching

By controlling and identifying specific times in which students or colleagues can reach, you will be able to both set boundaries while remote teaching, and will also provide a designated time in which students know that they can reach you during distance learning. Tools like Class for Zoom can make it easier for 1:1 conversations during class while other LMS platforms allow you to set office hours in the platform. Some districts have done this work for us, but for others remote teaching, it may need to be something that we do ourselves to help maintain our mental health while working from home.

Remote Learning Resources for K-12 Educators

By providing a catalog of digital learning resources focused on the skills needed for life - skills in social-emotional learning, health and wellness, financial capability, and career readiness - you have the tools to bring meaningful remote learning to students.

If you feel like you are having a tough time, and are struggling in any way with enjoying things, balancing your mood, or finding time to take care of yourself- or if you have any thoughts of hurting yourself- please reach out to a counselor. All of the resources that we shared for students can also be utilized by educators. Psychology Today has a fantastic therapist directory, and your health insurance can also help you locate a counselor, most of whom have switched to offering telehealth services. What we are experiencing right now is hard- and trained professionals across the globe continue to mobilize to serve as front-line responders for our minds in the same ways doctors have for our bodies during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Resources:

Crisis Text Line: Text SHARE to 741741

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-TALK

SAMHSA National Helpline: 1-800-662-HELP

NAMI HelpLine (M-F 10am - 6pm EST): 1-800-950-6264

Disaster Distress Hotline: 1-800-985-5990 or Text TALKWITHUS to 66746

Erin McClintock lead's EVERFI's impact work in mental health, wellness, and social and emotional learning. She holds a graduate degree in Counseling Psychology, completed her post-masters studies in Trauma and Addiction Counseling, and has extensive experience as a practitioner in community, school, and collegiate mental health.

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10 Teacher Mental Health Tips During COVID-19 & Beyond

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Erin McClintock Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, teachers, school counselors, and school employees have remained acutely focused on supporting their students and continuing to do their jobs at this time. In some cases, this may mean teaching, care-taking (whether for children or other loved ones), and continuing to work through the same challenges that everyone else faces.

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Prioritizing Self-Care (from back to school PD)

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Prioritizing Self-Care (from back to school PD)

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Kara O'Connell

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WELCOME to Yoga With Adriene! Our mission is to connect as many people as possible through high-quality free yoga videos. We welcome all levels, all bodies, all genders, all souls!
If you’re brand-new to yoga, check out my Yoga For Beginners and Foundations of Yoga series. These are designed to giv…