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Chapter 12: Why Homeless Children Can’t Sit Still

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Chapter 12: Why Homeless Children Can’t Sit Still

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Homelessness has an impact on family life and education. A study of 81 preschools for homeless children showed that close to half of the children were seriously delayed in at least one major area of development. Homeless children often are described as hypervigilant, possess a low frustration tolerance, “don’t listen”, and “can’t sit still”. These symptoms often coexist with hunger, fatigue, depression, aggression, language delays, precocious self- care abilities, and lack of joy in mastery of age- appropriate challenges. Children who are homeless are often diagnosed with ADHD or PTSD. Unfortunately, the homeless parent cannot provide an intimate environment to nurture and structure her child and they are less available to their children. Homeless parents are more likely to be suffering from mental illness, drug abuse, trauma, abuse, loss, domestic violence, etc. Homeless children are twice as likely to suffer from child abuse. Homeless children often feel unsafe due to their lack of consistency. It is difficult for infants to develop a sense of trust due to the conditions of their environment. In toddlerhood, transitional objects will not support them during separations because they have less access to objects with a personal meaning to help them feel comforted. Preschool homeless children may show signs of regression due to high stress. These children are also less receptive to input. In preschool, the environment should be consistent and well cared for in order to support these children. Some ways to ensure our classrooms support homeless children are to have consistent routines involving arrival, departure, eating, sleeping, and toileting. It is also very important to develop a trusting and supportive relationship with students to help them feel supported and safe.

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Chapter 11: Helping Children with Autistic Spectrum Disorders

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Chapter 11: Helping Children with Autistic Spectrum Disorders

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Children with autistic spectrum disorders show an uneven developmental pattern that can sometimes appear enabled and disabled simultaneously. These children typically are unable to follow social standards, but may exceed academically, ie: reciting the alphabet flawlessly. Pervasive development disorder can consist of autism, asperger’s, disintegrative disorder, rett’s disease, pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified. Children who received early, intensive, high-quality intervention for many years showed more positive adjustment in long term studies. Intervention is necessary to develop if and where the child is on the spectrum. Children with PDD NOS have poor connection to peers and empty play patterns. Children with PDD also have a lack of appropriate language development. This is important to address because a child must connect to their experiences before being able to put them into words or play symbols in order to communicate them. Children must be able to relate in order to be motivated to share their experiences with another person. Children with ASD or PDD’s first words are frequently not typical like “mama, dada”, but instead are “elevator, fire extinguisher”, etc. They also seem to use words that are are borrowed verbal routines or reenactments of television or video routines as well as frequent repetition.

In order to identify PDD NOS in preschool children, typical manifestations include the following:

·      Lack of relatedness

·      Oblivious to peers or overidentifies with peers

·      Atypical language

·      Lack of symbolic play skills

·      Preoccupation with fantasy characters

·      Need for sameness

·      Focused on meaningless details

·      Lacks a full range of affect

·      Atypical posture (floppy or rigid) (self stimulation)

Teachers must provide intervention strategies to support children displaying these manifestations. Some examples are helping children identify familiar and unfamiliar people, provide visual supports, social stories, and provide short 2-3 word phrases.

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Chapter 10- The Traumatized Child in Preschool

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Chapter 10- The Traumatized Child in Preschool

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Key Points: As we have been reading about throughout the book, trauma has become a deterrent to a child’s development and can diminish their potential if untreated. Below are some definitions of trauma disorders:

Posttraumatic stress disorder: a traumatic event when a person experiences, witnesses or is confronted with that involved actual or threatened death or serious injury, or a threat to the physical integrity of self or others.

Psychiatric trauma: an experience that is emotionally painful, stressful, or shocking which often results in lasting mental and physical effects.

Children and families who experience on going trauma, have traumatic histories, or have poor psychosocial support are more vulnerable to long term mental health problems such as depression and PTSD.  If a child’s has a history of trauma and is not properly supported, they can remain in a constant physiologic state of high alert.  This can cause abnormal levels of chemicals that negatively impact learning, behavior and memory. It is important to understand that children of the same experience may not manifest trauma in identical ways.  Children under 28 months of age have no verbal memories of a traumatic event. Children of all ages have behavioral memories of trauma. These can be expressed in fearfulness, play, reenactment, and dreams. Single traumatic events tend to be remembered in detail for a lifetime, while repeated trauma tends to cause disassociation from the experiences and reduced memories of that trauma. Traumatized children can be hypervigilant causing them to be anxious and on guard. They constantly monitor the environment for potential sources of injury or loss. Traumatized children can also appear preoccupied (inattentive, worried, dazed).  These children are unlikely to remember their learning. Traumatized children can be hypersensitive to auditory stimuli and are easily frightened by loud noises.  Traumatized children may experience flashbacks of a traumatic event as if it is happening in the present moment. Traumatized children can have panic attacks causing them to cry, scream, tremble, hyperventilate, urinate, vomit, or sweat.  Trauma can alter the quality of a child’s play. These children can show restrictions, or the inability to play symbolically. Community trauma comes from recent tragedies that effect a population.  Specifically, the attacks of September 11th have caused trauma symptoms in children such as nightmares, fears, and separation anxiety for years after the attack.  Statistics show at the younger the child, the more likely he is to develop PTSD in response to trauma. Adults can experience countertransference, which is an emotional reaction caused by the child’s affects, behaviors, and issues. As we have discussed, this chapter stresses the importance of creating a classroom environment that is safe, predictable, nurturing, secure, and reliable to support these traumatized children with disorganized and unpredictable home environments. Teachers really need to understand and anticipate specific child’s anxiety and trauma in order to provide reassurance and support. Times of day where traumatized children may be more likely to become anxious are toileting, mealtime, and naptime. Offering a child a transitional object can support them during naptime, ensuring they will have enough food can support them during mealtime, and reassuring their safety during toileting can help them to feel safe. Being aware of these fears and empathizing with them is crucial to supporting children with trauma. A preschool classroom should have a curriculum that is inclusive of children’s specific experiences, support systems, and be a place where experiences are validated, emotional needs are met and students can begin to heal.

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Chapter 8- Affect Meets Cognition: Building a Curricular Bridge and Chapter 9- Lesson Plans for Emotional Life

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Chapter 8- Affect Meets Cognition: Building a Curricular Bridge and Chapter 9- Lesson Plans for Emotional Life

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Key Points: Curriculum content must be meaningful and motivating in order to promote ego-development in children. A therapeutic curriculum must allow children at various cognitive levels to address unresolved development issues that are precursors to academic learning. Therapeutic curriculums are designed to help bridge the gap between their internal and external worlds. Teachers must use 3 steps in order to create a therapeutic curriculum: 1- look at the themes expressed in children’s play, 2- look at children’s behavior for manifestations of unresolved developmental issues, and 3- look at children’s life experiences. Children who are pre-occupied with specific issues addressed in the curriculum will be more likely to focus and will allow them to master their worries. Children experiencing trauma often need to be supported with appropriate ways to express strong emotions. Specific themes that the teacher would like to add to her curriculum can be worked on during morning meetings and group activities throughout the week. Assessment will be completed based on evidence that material has been internalized based on the students new behaviors. There are many great examples of themed lessons to add to your curriculums in chapter 9 and that we have all shared in sharepoint. Please use them as a reference for future planning. By incorporating an emotionally responsive curriculum highlighting specific themes for your students at an early age, they will feel supported and understand that school can help them with their emotions and it is safe for them to express them in an appropriate way. In turn, they will practice positive behaviors, be more willing to participate, and advance socially and academically.

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Chapter 7: Playing for Keeps: The Value of Open-Ended Play

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Chapter 7: Playing for Keeps: The Value of Open-Ended Play

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Key Points: Free play is encouraged for healthy children in high-quality preschool programs. Through free play, children have the right to learn through self- initiated exploration and collective experiences with peers. Through playing, children are able to think in increasingly sophisticated ways, which improves their potential as learners. Play begins as isolated play, moving on to parallel play, and then finally cooperative play. The well-functioning child uses play as a way to interpret experiences, to integrate concepts, and communicate his understanding to others. Children who lack play skills have difficulty communicating their experiences to their peers and may not have the capacity to interact constructively. These children need tools that will allow them to make sense of their experiences. Children with minimal verbal skills might use free play to withdraw or engage in unusual rituals. Teacher should integrate therapeutic techniques described in chapter 6 to help expand their resources and intervene effectively. The teacher’s attention, accessibility, and scaffolding may increase the child’s potential to engage, stay focused, and develop play symbols. Teachers must make themselves available so that the can respond to children’s play needs when appropriate, facilitate interactions with peers in play sequences, and help to organize children at times when they are unable to organize themselves.

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Chapter 7 ppt- Playing For Keeps_ The Value of Open Ended Play (1)

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Chapter 6: Therapeutic Technique: The Tools of Preschools That Heal

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Chapter 6: Therapeutic Technique: The Tools of Preschools That Heal

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Key Points:

Therapeutic techniques should be used by teachers and others who are working on developmental and socialization issues in a group setting. Ways a teacher can use therapeutic language is to ask fewer questions as initiators of conversation and use more observational comments. This allows for emotional and conceptual connections. Reflective language can consist of literal repetition to clarify situations or selective reflections. Bibliotherapy is the use of books that reflect a range of cultural issues, developmental concerns, life experiences, and emotional dilemmas. Some examples are pregnancy, loss/ death, covid, making friends, etc. Teachers can make a book with their students to add visual representation of this situations. Visual therapy is highly effective in clarifying complex issues. After reading the book, allow time for the children to work on and develop feelings about the subject. Teachers should also provide tools for self-expression and invite elaboration to further develop feelings and thoughts with opportunities for symbolic play through drawing, painting, play doh, etc. The children’s environment must be strong enough to contain their feelings. During a tantrum, a teacher must be calming and supportive. External rewards and reinforcers might intervene with the children’s ability to develop instrinsic motivation.  A behavior modification program can support a child who hurts others. The goal of this program is to increase a child’s awareness of hurtful behavior and increase awareness of their own socially appropriate behavior. The process of recalling the behaviors and acknowledging the aggressive actions is the essence of the intervention. The teacher and child should also review patterns and other alternatives. Interpretation is useful when children are anxious about an event or activity, but cannot explain the source of the anxiety , for example: a teacher is out sick and children are acting silly upon her return. She can say “I wonder if you got worried, maybe you thought I wasn’t going to return”. This can lead to a conversation where children feel connected to the teacher rather than being reprimanded which would reinforce their feelings of rejection. Teacher’s drawings of actual events could help the child reflect on their emotions. Behavior is meaningful and children can rely on adults to help them find meaning through interactions and activities.

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Chap 5- Play Therapy as Early Intervention:

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Chap 5- Play Therapy as Early Intervention:

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Play therapy can be used as an intervention program for emotionally fragile children. Unfortunately, it is not offered in most pre-school programs. Play therapy is the process of using play symbols to establish a connecting dialog between child and therapist, as well as between the child’s conscious and unconscious experience. Play therapy should be used to address developmental delays and trauma. Children should learn their ability and be able to master personal challenges. Play is the child’s tool for making sense of the world. Children who “can’t play” remain silent and pre-occupied. They also have language difficulties, emotional inappropriateness, are disorganized, and prefer to play alone due to their lack of communication. The ability to play implies trust in the maternal environment, and reliance on caregivers to keep them safe. These children who can’t play tend to their own survival needs. A space for play therapy must be safe, clean, predictable, and organized in order to support object constancy and object permanence. Play therapy can support a teacher- child relationship to build and grow.

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Key Points- We learned about therapeutic responses last chapter, and chapter 4 focuses on the therapeutic classroom. A therapeutic classroom addresses the needs of the individual child and is a place where troubled children are helped to sort out their complicated experiences so development can proceed. A therapeutic classroom needs to be safe, contained, and organized where children are given permission to think, feel, and are provided with the means to safely contain and organize powerful feelings. Components in a classroom that contribute to a therapeutic classroom are listed below:

Structural Frameworks: Daily schedules, routines, organization, rules, limits, cognitive framework, teacher- child relationship

Materials: are inviting children to represent their experiences

Object Permanence: Everything has a place in the classroom.

Physical Environment: is cared for.

Free Play: Open ended, but teachers can organize and help children elaborate

Rules: Safe and orderly environment. Offer strategies to mediate feelings and behavior which will eventually be internalized.

Object Constancy: Can be supported with a transitional object.

Instruction: Provide children with developmentally appropriate learning tools to discover concepts, acquire new skills and organize experiences.

Caregiving: Some children need help establishing trust and need check-in’s, so the adult must be consistently available.

Therapy: Talk over incidents with students to help them express feelings.

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Chapter 3- A Look in the Mirror: Self- Concept in Preschool Children

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Chapter 3- A Look in the Mirror: Self- Concept in Preschool Children

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Key Points- Chapter 3 focuses on self-concept in pre-school children. Self- concept is typically developed at the end of their second year which is when the child develops an objective awareness of self, known as self-concept. Between 21 and 24 months, children should be able to differentiate between self and others. As we know, the child's personal experiences with their caregivers have much to do with their development. Caregivers emotional responsiveness and availability is necessary to develop a secure attachment relationship. Caring relationships foster the development of a well defined self-core, which promotes appropriate social interactions and relationships. Many children enter our classrooms needing support with self-concept. To support self esteem, teachers need to find positive ways to engage with children who seek negative attention. This week, we worked on sharing therapeutic reflections that we have used or will use with our students. One example is "You have gotten really good at riding that bicycle. I remember when you use to say I can't do it. You worked really hard at it, and now you ride so well". Therapeutic responses encourage students, help them overcome fears, remind them of past success, and assist where necessary. Teachers should also provide opportunities for mastery while reassuring children that they are children and adults are there to support them, which is something that may not be available in their homes.

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Therapeutic Responses (Chap 3) - Google Jamboard

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Chapter 2- If You’re Sad and You Know It: The Value of Children’s Affects

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Chapter 2- If You’re Sad and You Know It: The Value of Children’s Affects

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Key Points- Within this chapter we learned about affect development, which is the outward facial and postural expression of one’s feeling state. Affects communicate feeling states to others and provide them with a nonverbal means of assessing our emotional needs and responding accordingly. Affect begins at birth when a baby cries in order to communicate his distress and generate a response. It is essential for preschool children to be able to project and read emotional messages for successful peer interaction. Preschools should support affect development by 1- providing opportunity for connection with adults in a safe and stable environment to promote strong attachments. 2- providing opportunity to receive empathic responses from adults. 3- providing opportunity for dialogue concerning affects and emotionally salient experiences by initiating dialog about affect related events. By doing this, the adult implies ability for tolerating the child’s emotions. 4- providing opportunity for peer interaction in open ended play. Adults also must mirror and model affects. They should allow children to feel and express all emotions through drawings, stories, and conversations. Children should also be encouraged to have a dialogue with an angry child to support their emotions and understand them, rather than ignore them. By doing this, students will have an educational environment that reflects their experiences.

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Chap 1- Developmental Reality And The Reality Of Experience

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Chap 1- Developmental Reality And The Reality Of Experience

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Key Points- Within this chapter, we learned that healthy child development happens in a supportive and nurturing environment. Child's psychosocial history and trauma need to be considered. Children feel confident in separation with object constancy, which is the ability to access the image of the nurturer when out of site. Carrying an image of a caregiver can help soothe a small child in distress. Development can be delayed if their early childhood did not support their development, such as high stress situations. Caregivers who are not attentive to infant needs result in infants in distress, and developmental issues can occur through childhood.