by Amy Griffin, Guest Commentary, Arkansas Advocate
February 17, 2025

I was in my PreK classroom working with students, when suddenly a shoe buzzed past my ear.

I had noticed that Billy had left out the Legos he had been playing with. When I told him to clean these up, he threw his shoe at me in response.

That same day, Sue pushed another student who wouldn’t do what Sue wanted her to do.  As soon as I started talking to Sue about her behavior, she screamed and kicked.

Not long ago, I attended a brain-based behavioral program that focused on the three brain states:  survival mode, emotional state, and executive frame.  When we are in survival mode, our focus is on fight, flight, or freeze. In an emotional state, we talk back, yell, or scream.

The goal is for us to get to the executive frame where we are able to use our problem-solving skills.

It was only after I started integrating the workshop’s practices into my classroom that I realized how impactful this approach is. Teaching children to breathe through upset is one of the techniques that I learned.

Several things happen when we take deep breaths. Our heart rate slows down, and adrenaline diminishes; we are able to focus because more oxygen is reaching our brain. One of my students, Benjamin, loved Spiderman. Benjamin would breathe in and as he blew out his breath, he would imitate shooting webs out of his fingers. This helped Benjamin calm down and get back to learning.

Finding our voice and using appropriate language is another strategy I use with my students. When one of the boys in my classroom pulled a girl’s hair, we approached the boy together. When the girl said, “I don’t like it when you pull my hair, please stop,” the boy looked at her and said, “Okay, I won’t.” When young children find their voice in this way, it’s a big win for all of us.

A third approach for an upset child is to learn how to remove themselves from the situation and calm themselves.

In my classroom, we have an area where students can spend time alone. They decide what might help them calm down. It might be a visually calming toy like watching the bubbles float in the oil in a bubble bottle. It might be a tube you can pull and stretch or it might be walking away and curling up on the pillows with a stuffed animal.

The important thing for me is to teach my students that there are many different ways to self-regulate.

If we don’t teach explicitly the strategies children need to handle emotional upset, they will continue with their inappropriate strategies — possibly through adulthood.

There are many incidents that occur in the classroom that can be solved by my students without adult intervention. When we teach our students the brain-based strategies for resolving conflict, we are turning the power over to them.  Instead of intervening everytime something goes wrong, we are enabling them to push past fight or flight and to choose not to use hurtful words or physical actions. In this way, my students gain the ability to resolve conflict without damaging words or harmful actions. They become empowered to solve problems wherever they are.

Bill and Sue are still sometimes upset at school. As the two of them have learned and practiced calming strategies, both have been able to handle their upset in a better way. Bill uses the “Birthday Cake” breathing technique, breathing in and then pretending to blow out candles on a cake.  When Sue is feeling overwhelmed, she goes to the regulation corner and plays with stuffed animals.

Sue’s mom told me that at home Sue will sometimes tell her brother and sister, “I don’t like it when you do that. Stop.”  At first Sue’s siblings didn’t know what to do because they were so used to Sue pushing and shoving.  Mom said sometimes she still sees Sue beginning to put her arms out to push, but will pull back her arms and then use her words. Now that’s a success story worth shouting about.

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