Skip to main content

Inclusive Education

From
Date
29 May 2023
Link
inclusive.tki.org.nz/guides/behaviour-and-learning/anticipate-monitor-and-plan-for-responding-to-child-stress

Anticipate, monitor, and plan for responding to child stress

Suggestion for implementing the strategy ‘Support emotional wellbeing and positive mental health’

On this page:

On this page:

Current page section: Anticipate, monitor, and plan for responding to child stress

Go to top of current page: Anticipate, monitor, and plan for responding to child stress

Show list of page sections

Go to top of current page: Anticipate, monitor, and plan for responding to child stress

Go to top of current page: Anticipate, monitor, and plan for responding to child stress

Ensure students are known

Ensure students are known

Get to know and understand each student and identify potentially difficult times or situations that may be stressful or difficult for them.

Keep up-to-date and maintain an interest in a student’s life beyond school.

This will help you to:

  • eliminate or minimise situations that may cause unnecessary stress (for example, changes in routine, rushing, illness, sensory overload, turn taking, being reprimanded in front of others, things happening at home)
  • identify the student’s personal signs of stress or unhappiness and intervene early 
  • have a timely conversation with a student about what you have noticed and how to develop coping strategies
  • more accuratelly interpret wider classroom/playground behaviour and pre-empt potential areas of conflict.

Source: Guidelines for registered schools in New Zealand on the use of physical restraint (opens in a new tab/window)

Watch for external and internal behaviours

Watch for external and internal behaviours

Remember, children and young people can express feelings outwardly or internalise them.

Pay attention to unusually quiet behaviour as well as “loud” exhibitions of behaviour.

11677 [Alexandra-Koch-from-Pixabay-Behav-guide.jpg]

Source: Alexandra Koch (opens in a new tab/window)

Source:
Alexandra Koch
https://pixabay.com/users/Alexandra_Koch-621802/?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=image&utm_content=2122019

View full image (173 KB) (opens in a new tab/window)

Pay attention to specific needs or sensitivities

Pay attention to specific needs or sensitivities

Make a point of understanding particular stressors for children and young people.

Ask students and their whānau:

  • What situations create stress, such as certain types of noise, changes in routines, pain, or discomfort?
  • What can you as the teacher do differently to remove or minimise stress points?
  • What can we change in the classroom or school environment to reduce stress points?
  • How can the student help themselves to return to a calm state if they become stressed?

 

Monitor overload

Monitor overload

Students experience cognitive stress and overload when a task or situation is overwhelming.

As cognitive fatigue accumulates through the day/week, it may impact self control and heighten sensitivities.

  • Regularly connect with the student and parents/whānau to discuss their workload and what is happening at home.
  • Work with the student and their family to prevent overload. (For example, negotiate in advance the expectations around completing tasks.)
  • Find out what the signs of the student being overloaded are.
  • Find out what triggers overload for the student.
  • Discuss with the student what support they need to self-manage when they are overloaded. For example, use a break card, withdraw to a quiet space, tell the teacher they are overloaded.

Questions to discuss with students

Questions to discuss with students

Discuss and agree as a class.
  • How can we communicate if something is too hard?
  • How can we ask for help?
  • How can we look after our friends and recognise when they are stressed?
  • Where we can go if we are stressed?

Useful resources

Useful resources

Website

The incredible 5-point scale

Overview of the Incredible 5-point scale, including examples and a blank template.

Publisher: Kari Dunn Buron

Visit website

Screen Shot 2020 07 31 at 11.24.34 AM

He māpuna te tamaiti: Supporting social and emotional competence in early learning

Read time: 160 min

This resource has been written for kaiako in Aotearoa New Zealand early learning services. Its purpose is to support you to understand and draw on effective practices that enhance children’s social and emotional competence, engagement, and learning.

Publisher: Te Whāriki Online

Visit website

Next steps

More suggestions for implementing the strategy “Support emotional wellbeing and positive mental health”:

Return to the guide “Behaviour and learning”

11698 [Behaviour-learning-guide-banner-image.jpg]

Behaviour and learning

- Popular

How to use this site

Guide to Index of the guide: Behaviour and learning

Understand:

Strategies for action:

Key resources:

Top

This is a Ministry of Education initiative​​​​​​​. We shape an education system that delivers equitable and excellent outcomes.

This information was downloaded/printed from the Ministry of Education's website "Inclusive Education". Except where otherwise noted it is Crown Copyright 2018.

Information on the Inclusive Education website is regularly updated so we recommend you check the website version of this information to ensure it remains current.