Ever felt 'triggered' or 'dysregulated' in the classroom and didn't know how to handle it? You’re not alone. This episode unpacks this common yet often unspoken experience. With insights into identifying your triggers and maintaining a calm demeanor, we offer strategies on how to stay neutral and present during these testing moments. We delve into the importance of validating our feelings and prioritizing our wellbeing to become more effective educators.
Ever felt 'triggered' or 'dysregulated' in the classroom and didn't know how to handle it? You’re not alone. This episode unpacks this common yet often unspoken experience. With insights into identifying your triggers and maintaining a calm demeanor, we offer strategies on how to stay neutral and present during these testing moments. We delve into the importance of validating our feelings and prioritizing our wellbeing to become more effective educators.
So your students are starting to be distracting and they're starting to interrupt your lessons and you can feel yourself starting to lose your cool and you're looking for a way to calm your body and to get back in the groove. You feel tightness in your chest, your breath is quicker, maybe your pulse is quicker and every point of your body is telling you to just snap out at them, to raise your voice them, but deep down you know that's not what you want to do. If this is you, you are not alone and what you're experiencing is very common. In fact, what you're experiencing is what I like to call a trigger. You see, a trigger is when your body suddenly becomes dysregulated. Oftentimes, teachers will become dysregulated or triggered by students' behavior and not even realize it. Their students are talking when they're talking, and they're getting up in their area and they're holding up their papers in their face and they're running around the classroom, and teachers can kind of just feel this build until they eventually just release whatever energy they're holding on to, and sometimes they don't respond in the way that they would most like to, or in a calm, neutral state. And today I'm going to be sharing with you how to stay calm in moments like these, while managing behavior that seems to trigger you or helps you or makes you become dysregulated. So let's dive in.
Speaker 1:Hey, teacher bestie. My name is Helena and I'm the creator of the present teacher podcast. I'm a first year teacher coach and in this podcast you are going to learn everything from simple, actual classroom management, social learning and teacher wellness strategies. You know that impact you want to make in the classroom, or we're going to make it happen here. Before we get started, a little bit about me. I'm Helena, the creator of the present teacher. I'm a first year teacher coach, or a coach for new elementary teachers, and one of the reasons I'm so passionate about this is because I really struggled my first couple of years of teaching and, in fact, I eventually reached this point where I was just done. Enough was enough. I need to figure out how to be in the moment, to be the teacher I know I'm capable of being, without feeling like I had to hustle myself to the ground, and that's what we talk about here. So if you would like to follow along and learn all the tips and strategies, make sure to like and subscribe to this channel so you can hear more. All right, let's dive in.
Speaker 1:So the first thing you want to do when you feel yourself become triggered or dysregulated is you want to have awareness. So the first step to remaining calm when you are triggered is to recognize that you are being triggered. Now it's hard to fix something when you don't know what it's going on. But there's different ways this can show up in your body. And, as a quick disclaimer, everybody's different. But this could look like a tightness in your chest. It could look like shallow, quick breathing, maybe your heart's raising racing again, everybody's different. I personally feel a tightness in my chest. I feel like my heart beats faster and my breath is shallower and I can just feel very, very tight. And again, this is different depending on who you are and how it shows up in your body. But when you notice this happens.
Speaker 1:Next, take some time to notice what causes you to become dysregulated. When you start to be curious about this, you start to recognize patterns and you can be proactive the next time a behavior gets you dysregulated. Now a quick piece of a reminder. When we're in this awareness stage, it's important to come at it with a neutral state, not criticizing ourselves. We don't wanna be thinking, oh my goodness, I can't believe you're feeling this way. That's so silly. They're just doing this. Make sure to be calm, cool and collected and just go at this with a state of curiosity, like I wonder why that is. I wonder why I feel dysregulated about this. But either way, take some time to really reflect on some times or, as you move throughout your day today, think and be aware of what triggers you, what helps you become dysregulated or gets you dysregulated, and recognizing what behaviors your students are doing to get you there.
Speaker 1:For my personal experience, I become dysregulated when my students come up to me. Now, one is fine, but when I have four or five students up in my face shoving stuff in my face, I can feel the tightness in my chest and I just need to calm my body down because that dysregulates me. Once I was able to recognize this about me, I was then able to do the next step. So the first step when you are trying to calm down is first an awareness, to be just genuinely curious about what makes you dysregulated, and the second thing is to validate yourself. Now, I know, as a teacher, this can be one of the hardest things to do, but you want to validate your feelings, validate what's going on with you, without criticism. Remind yourself that you are okay and you are safe.
Speaker 1:When we become in a dysregulated state, it's easy to become into that fight or flight mode and your body is essentially put in a position of survival, a mindset of survival. So the first thing you need to do is recognize or have an awareness that you are becoming dysregulated, and then take a breath and validate your feelings. Remind yourself I am safe, everything's okay, it's okay to have this reaction, it's okay that I am feeling this. Validate how you are feeling, because the last thing you want to do is think, oh, my goodness, I can't believe I'm feeling this way, and then just push it down further and further. And what often happens when we push down our emotions and it explodes later, bigger and better.
Speaker 1:So recognize that you're being triggered or dysregulated and take a breath and validate it's okay to be feeling this way, it's okay to be upset and remind yourself that you're not alone. A lot of teachers experience this, and this is something that a lot of teachers aren't talking about, and that's one of the reasons I was so passionate about talking about this, because other teachers make it seem natural that they never have us go on, but the truth is it happens to all of us. So remind yourself in the moment my feelings are valid, I'm safe, I'm not alone. Other teachers have things that dysregulate them too. And take a second to remind yourself that this doesn't make you a bad teacher. If anything, it just makes you like a normal human being who gets dysregulated from time to time.
Speaker 1:So once you have an awareness that this is going on and you've taken some time to validate your feelings, you need to now calm your body down. So figure out a way to calm your breathing and return back to the present moment. Now there's a couple of ways that you can do this. One thing that I like to do and I actually use this as a teaching moment for my kids I show them that when I become upset, I feel the tightness of my chest and I can feel my emotions, and I need to calm my body down. So what I like to do is I breathe in for four, out for six, so one, four, three, four and you're just breathing in and out and calming your breath back to normal, and your heartbeat will start to slow down.
Speaker 1:Another technique that I learned when I was in counseling was to point out things in the room and notice them, because when we become dysregulated, our mind is in a fight or flight mode and we might be looking around and our mind's going a million miles a minute. Are we safe? Is everything okay? You know stuff like that subconsciously. Start pointing stuff in the room to make you feel more grounded in the moment. So, for example, if I had my students doing a behavior that was getting me dysregulated or triggered, I would validate I'm okay, take a deep breath in, oh, and I would start pointing stuff out. I would start to notice things in my mind like the my students backpack. Who has Mario on it, start to notice the colors, how the M is a red and that R is a green. I would then start noticing my library and how the different colored shelves, based on what level they are, and just looking around the classroom and putting myself back in the present moment so I can be in the moment when I respond.
Speaker 1:So doing a quick recap of what we talked about so far. The first thing you want to do is awareness. Second thing, you want to validate your motion. The third thing is to calm your body. Once you fill, your heart rate return to normal and you are neutral. It is now time to respond, which brings me to step number four. Step number four is to respond. Now that you've calmed your body, you can now respond in a neutral tone and a neutral way, with a neutral consequence, in a way that will make you feel proud and will be aligned with your values. So remember to respond in a calm, neutral way.
Speaker 1:You don't want to be, you know, extremely upset. You don't want to be exasperated. You don't want to be angry. You're taking the time, giving yourself permission for the space to be calm and then responding. You're detached from the outcome. You're minding yourself or students. Behavior has no reflection on you. Everything to do with them and them articulating a need, a lack of want, and then you can move forward.
Speaker 1:And you don't want to respond when you're upset because oftentimes it makes things worse. I don't know about you, but if you've ever had a day where you were having a really hard day and your students seem to pick up on that and they made it 10 times worse, that's that's what happens. You are bringing that rough energy and you're snapping it back at them. Then the whole class is just going to be a bit chaotic. So you want to calm yourself down and then respond in a neutral way. Students will often feel the emotion off you and they will amplify it and mirror it back to you. So that's why, whenever you give a consequence, you want to be neutral about it. Even when a student snaps back, they want the last word. You walk away. Give the neutral consequence and you walk away.
Speaker 1:So, with that being said, I want to invite you, if you so choose, this task of practicing the steps in your mind. I want to invite you, with your permission, to think and to sit down in a comfortable position, and I want you to imagine yourself getting triggered or dysregulated by a situation. So you're just going to think of a time or you know something that always gets you extremely upset and think to yourself what is that student doing? What does that feel like in you? Is your chest getting tight? Is your breath quickening? Is your heart racing? Take some time to recognize that you are being triggered, that you are now dysregulated.
Speaker 1:After, make sure to do this without judgment. You're not thinking to yourself I can't believe, or this is silly. Just remind yourself that I'm safe, it's okay. Validate your feelings. So, now that you've thought about what that student is doing. You can feel it in your body. You have that awareness. You're now going to validate your feelings. I am safe. It is okay. I'm not a bad teacher for feeling this way. My feelings are valid. I'm valid. It's valid to be upset. I understand how I could be upset. This makes no reflection on me as a teacher. It has everything to do with how my students are feeling their emotions and how they're choosing to express it right now.
Speaker 1:And after you get through that, I want you to calm your body down, whether that's breathing, whether that's pointing the stuff out in the classroom. So you're going through the scenario with me and then, after you've taken some time to calm your body down, another deep breath in. Now I want you to respond to that soon to help them make a desired adjustment and fix their behavior, or adjust their behavior to the expectations in class. With that being said, I want to invite you back to me. If you close your eyes, go ahead and open them, and I want you to take a deep breath in, shake it out and take some time to practice this. I want to invite you, with your permission, to take some time to practice this with different scenarios throughout the day. You want to practice this before it happens, in the moment. That way, if it happens, or, dare I say, when it happens, you are more likely to respond in this way because you've practiced it, because you've gone through these scenarios, because you've thought it through before, it'll become effortless once it becomes in the classroom and you've done it a couple times because it'll become a habit.
Speaker 1:And that's the whole point, is, we want to recognize that we are feeling dysregulated, validate calm, take action. So, with that being said, let's wrap this up and let's summarize how to keep yourself calm while managing disruptive behavior. The first thing is awareness, or recognition. You want to recognize what it feels like in your body and recognize that you are in fact being triggered or dysregulated. The second thing you want to do is validate your feelings. It's easy to meet yourself with self-criticism, to belittle your feelings and to bash on yourself, but I want to invite you to reach out to yourself with kindness internally, as you recognize this emotion, this dysregulation.
Speaker 1:Step three is to calm your body down using a breathing technique, navigating or looking at different things in your classroom, choosing something that will help bring your heart rate back down and bring your breathing back to normal pace. And the fourth thing is to respond. You want to respond in a neutral way that will not reflect or amplify extreme emotions or energy to your students, so then they amplify it back and it just creates more chaos. I want you to invite you to walk through this process the next time that you are feeling dysregulated in the classroom Practices beforehand, if you so choose that way. When it happens in the classroom, you are that much more likely and it's that much more effortlessly to practice it in real life or to implement it in real life.
Speaker 1:Now if, throughout this process, you feel like, yes, heck, yes, I wanna learn more. I wanna learn how to master my classroom so I can build confident when disruptive behavior happens, I wanna invite you to download the mastering your classroom guide. This has all the top 10 classroom management tips I recommend implementing in our classroom and it's completely free. I will put in the link in the description, but we cover everything from procedures on what you want your students to do when they aren't listening to you, all the way to how to navigate a chatting class and all the other things. So if this feels like a heck yes for you, I would like to invite you to go check out the description down below and, if you want to continue working with me, I wanna invite you to check out the mastering your classroom management three day challenge.
Speaker 1:This is for most teachers who are feeling like you know what I do, wanna check out the guide, but I kind of want a step above that. I want more assistance, more help. I want someone to walk me through this process. It is a free three day challenge. Walk you through everything from managing a chatting classroom, what to do when your students aren't listening to you, and then how to choose strategies that will get you to be that confident teacher that you know you are capable of being. And at the end, if you feel yourself, give a heck, yes, I want to learn more. I will invite you at the end of the challenge to join the present teacher circle.
Speaker 1:This is a community of other new teachers who are working together to implement the systems to show up as the confident teacher they know they're capable of being. To show up in the morning with everything done, drinking their coffee, sitting back with systems in place, not stressing about managing their classroom or all the things they have to do today, just peace and stillness and relief and confidence that they are where they need to be, that they have the systems in place and that they don't need to stress or feel overwhelmed and that they are making an impact every single day. So if this feels like a heck yes for you, I would invite you, with your permission, and go check out the classroom management challenge in the description. And, as always, remember we are stronger together and I will talk to you soon, teacher Busty. Bye, Thank you so much for joining me on today's episode. As always, remember that we are stronger together, with all the love in the world. Helena, aka the president, teacher, see you next time, teacher Busty.