Virtual Teacher

These are dramatic times for teachers. In educating children, we have a difficult and demanding role. Like no other, our profession is responsible in ensuring that children develop emotionally, socially, and academically. As society evolves in complexity, so does our role. With so many social and emotional issues affecting directly a student’s potential for learning, we can no longer guarantee our success in educating children relying only on academic expertise. The fact is that, like adults, in coping with modern society’s pressures and demands, children are paying a heavy emotional toll too. At alarming rates, more and more children and adolescents are experiencing all kinds of stress and trauma reactions, and at all levels of severity. This can turn into a chaotic scenario for teachers if it catches us ill-prepared. Since children’s affective and emotional status strongly influences how they perform in the classroom, it is imperative for teachers to become acquainted with how s...

Watch Your Language! Ways of Talking and Interacting with Students that Crack the Behavior Code For teachers and school staff To buy on Amazon, click here .

Encouraging words are words that aim at building children’s self-confidence or trust in their own abilities to master a skill and to solve their own problems. Children need to understand that it is okay to make mistakes; trial and error are part of the learning process, and this is how we master new and challenging skills. Parents and teachers can encourage children to remain optimistic and positive in their ability to learn new skills or to improve current skills. When the child makes a mistake, simply shifting his/her focus from failure (problem-oriented) to hopefulness (solution-oriented) can do wonders in improving the child’s attitude and self-confidence. We can help children see personal or academic errors and mistakes as both external (not as a personality trait or defining who they are) and controllable ; that is, something that it can be improved through effort and using specific learning strategies . We help children focus on effort by consistently noticing and apprecia...

Here are some “tricks of the trade” in language-based discipline so that teachers and parents get better results when disciplining angry and/or noncompliant children. 1.      Lower Your Voice When disciplining, reduce the tone of your voice and speak s-l-o-w-e-r. This helps you both in projecting self-confidence and in remaining calm. Louder and angrier statements, on the other hand, conceal the message beneath all the noise and harsh words that accompany them. 2.      Stay in the Present Do not dwell on past behavior, or something that happened weeks earlier. Correct only behavior that is happening here and now . 3.      Own Your Message Change “You-messages” to “I-messages.” For example, instead of saying, “ You are such a potty mouth!” say, “ I feel uneasy because I don’t like being cursed.” 4.      Challenge the Child When you address misbehavior, keep it simple but keep it ...

In the psycho-educational field we firmly believe that adult behavior strongly influences child behavior, often creating an emotional atmosphere that is more conducive to noncompliance than to compliance. More specifically, what we say to children and how we say it can either accentuate or de-escalate a behavior problem. Caregivers need to be vigilant of those communicative (i.e. messages) and interactional (e.g. strained adult-child interactions) factors that may inadvertently fuel inappropriate behaviors in children. Next, I share some insights of things we say to children that may be contributing to disruptive behavior at school and at home. Among them, we can find: ·         Creating on-the-spot penalties for misbehavior rather than developing and discussing consequences for negative behavior with children before problem behaviors happen. Children need to know the consequences for misbehavior in advance. ·      ...

Forman (1993) defines coping skills, or coping efforts, as sets of information and learned behaviors that children can use purposely to bring about positive outcomes in potentially stressful situations. Coping techniques teach psychological, social, cognitive, affective, and behavioral skills that children and adolescents can use to deal with potential stressors. According to the author, knowing and using coping skills can prevent or reduce a variety of academic, emotional, behavioral, and health problems in children and adolescents. On the other hand, the inability to handle potentially stressful situations or stressors may result in emotional, behavioral, and/or physical health problems. Coping skills are a way of promoting general, emotional, and social competence in children, and we can divide them into two major categories: a)      Problem-Focused. Acting on the stressful stimuli to change or to solve the problem. Using problem-solving techniques, we focus th...

To read this article, click on the link: Chapter 20: Conflict Resolution and Power struggles A+ Resource in Student Discipline Ways of Talking and Interacting with Students that Crack the Behavior Code Now on Amazon

To read the article, click on the link: How To Teach Kids Positive Self-Talk: A Child’s Emotional Bulletproof VestMental Toughness Training

School staff and caregivers can help children understand how their internal self-talking or private speech influences the way they feel and behave. Knowing and reciting positive and optimistic self-statements help children feel happier and display improved self-control. Anger-prone, distraught, and/or impulsive children can be trained in monitoring their private speech and thoughts. Once the child recognizes the body (e.g. muscle tension and sweating) , thoughts (e.g. “I hate Mr. Evans!”) , and action (e.g. cursing and kicking) signals that cue an agitated state of mind, he can interrupt himself before acting aggressively and/or impulsively, and then the child self-corrects to calmer behavior and thoughts using his customized self-dialogue. Anger-prone and/or impulsive children can use specific self-statements or self-instructions to stop their habitual ways of thinking and to direct more positive responses. Self-coping statements to guide children in (a) handling anger triggers, ...