Helping Kids Navigate Playground Politics

Helping Kids Navigate Playground Politics

School is back in session, and families are settling into routines. Children are back in the classroom, reuniting with friends, meeting new people, and getting used to their new social environment. During these early months of school, it’s not uncommon for certain dynamics to cause challenges for young children.

Typically this happens in less-supervised areas, like the playground. It’s common for children to come home and tell their parents things like:

  • “I was told there wasn’t enough room for me to join the game all the other kids were playing at recess.”
  • “A boy in my class keeps punching me at lunch when he thinks nobody is looking.”
  •  “A girl in another class keeps calling me names in front of my friends, and I hate it!”

But there’s good news: Parents can help their children navigate day-to-day playground politics by teaching them social-emotional skills—such as empathy, emotion management, and problem-solving.

Building Social Emotional Skills to Deal with Playground Politics.

Empathy

Empathy helps children understand or feel what another person is feeling by putting themselves in the other person’s shoes. Empathy can also help create self-awareness that allows children to distinguish their feelings from the feelings of others.

How to Teach Empathy to Kids

The most powerful way to encourage empathy is to model it. For example, when your child is hurt, disappointed, frustrated, or has a strong emotion, you might model showing empathy by saying, “Oh no, you sound sad…” or “It’s so hard to leave the park when you’re having so much fun, isn’t it?” or “Uh oh, what happened?”

You can also foster empathy in your child by discussing scenarios in which it could be used. For example, you could talk with your child about how another person might feel if he or she were to see someone get hurt on the playground or in response to something that happens to a character in a book or movie.

Emotion Management

Emotion management refers to a person’s ability to control his or her emotions in response to arousing situations.

How to Teach Emotion Management to Kids

Two of the most important skills we can teach children are how to identify their feelings and how to self-soothe when they are experiencing a strong emotion. These skills take time and practice to develop. Positive self-talk and deep breathing are two emotion-management tactics commonly used and practiced with children. Teaching self-talk encourages kids to talk to themselves in a quiet voice or inside their heads. Some examples are: “I need to take three breaths,” “I can do this if I practice more,” “I’m not going to let her get to me,” “That was probably an accident,” or “My mom still loves me, even when I mess up.”

Deep breathing is an effective way to connect the body and the mind in order to move from a fight-or-flight response to problem-solving. The “Flower Breath” is a simple breathing method kids can use. Ask your children to imagine smelling a beautiful flower, breathing in through the nose and breathing out through the mouth, and releasing any stress, strain, or emotion they might be feeling as they exhale.

Problem Solving

Teaching problem-solving means helping kids learn to recognize a social problem, focus on finding solutions, predict consequences, and select a safe and respectful solution.

How to Teach Problem Solving to Kids

When challenges arise with other children, ask your children a series of questions to help them think through the problem. Eventually they’ll be able to ask the questions for themselves. Questions to consider when teaching problem solving are:

•   “What happened?” 

This allows each child to tell his or her story and feel heard before solutions are brainstormed.

•  “How did that feel?” 

Helping kids get clear about how they feel will help clarify what they actually want or need.

·      •  “What did you want/need?” 

Many times we can read situations inaccurately. Asking this question helps focus the brainstorming solutions.

•  “What are other ways to get what you want/need?” 

Let your children brainstorm two or three ideas. It’s okay if they’re not all great ideas! This is just brainstorming. If they can’t come up with ideas on their own, offer them two choices that align with your family’s values.

•  “How would that work for you?” or “What will happen if you try …?”

This is an opportunity to evaluate each of the proposed solutions.

•  “What are you going to do now?” or “What will you try next time?” 

By asking this question, you allow your child to choose how to act differently next time. Expressing a future action out loud increases the likelihood your child will try it.

Managing social dynamics in a school setting can be very stressful for children and their parents. Social-emotional skills can help children de-escalate a conflict, advocate for themselves, and find more acceptable, safe, and socially appropriate ways of getting their needs met when they may be feeling bullied or dismissed.


About the Author: Melissa Benaroya

Melissa Benaroya, LICSW, is a Seattle-based parent coach, speaker and author in the Seattle area (MelissaBenaroya.com). She created the Childproof Parenting online course and is the co-founder of GROW Parenting and Mommy Matters. Melissa provides parents with the tools and support they need to raise healthy children and find more joy in parenting. Melissa offers parent coaching and classes and frequently speaks at area schools and businesses. Check out Melissa’s blog for more great tips on common parenting issues and Facebook for the latest news in parent education!

5 Comments

Anita

I love these questions!! I’m searching for how to help kids during recess or lunch when they run into challenges with each other.

Reply
Paramanantham

Thank you very much for your recent articles,
question need to be answered that Is there any relationship between Anxiety and coldness on legs.
Thank you

Reply
Karen - Hey Sigmund

Anxiety can cause more general changes in body temperature, but it would be worth getting this particular symptom checked by a doctor to make sure there is nothing else that might be causing this.

Reply
Shweta Mg

No cold legs are to do with blood vascular nature and body temperature regulation and feed back, and anxiety is just a disproportionate fear to a stimulant or aggression that the fore brain, primitive fore brain and other primitive behavior regulatory mechanisms allow the individual to experience.
However proverbially and colloquially only by language,they have been associated as in sayings of ” he/ she has the jitters and cold feet.”
My grandfather used to tell me, and I’m Indian myself that Sanskrit and Hindi or even Japanese or other old world texts had words for every associated psychological feeling that English a mixed derived language ( which is of course easy today) lacks to describe. It’s why proverbs a group of words to make phrases have to describe one feeling.

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Over the past the past 24 hours, I’ve been in Devonport, Tasmania to deliver two sessions to parents and carers - ‘Big Feelings, Connection, and Confidence’, then later an open Q and A where parents brought their real life questions - and we talked.

Thank you for welcoming me so warmly, and for trusting me with your questions, your stories, and your vulnerability. 

This was an openness where real change begins. Parenting is hard - beautiful and messy and hard. In the last 24 hours, I’ve been moved by the openness and honesty of parents I’ve shared space with. This is where generational patterns start to shift.

So many of the parents I met are already doing this deep, brave work. The questions asked were honest, raw, and profoundly human — the kind of questions that can feel heavy and isolating until you hear someone else ask them too.

Our children will grow in the most incredible ways if we allow them the space, and if we hold that space with love and leadership and a curious mind. And, if we open ourselves to them, and are willing to shift and stretch and grow, they will grow us too.

Thank you to @devonportevents for everything you’ve done to make these events happen.♥️
Can’t wait for this! I’ll be in Devonport, Tasmania next week to present two talks for parents and carers. 

The first is on Monday evening 19 May for a talk about how to support big feelings, behaviour and regulation in young people. This is not just another anxiety talk. You’ll walk away feeling hopeful, empowered, and with strategies you can start using straight away. 

Then, on Tuesday morning 20 May, I’ll be giving another talk for parents and carers but this will be a Q&A. Bring your questions to me! Even if you don’t have questions, the ones I answer will be loaded with practical information that will support you in your parenting journey. 

So grateful to @devonportevents for organising the events. They are public talks, open to everyone. 

Tickets available at Humanitix - search Devonport events and scroll down until you find me! 

Would love to see you there.♥️
Hello Adelaide! I’ll be in Adelaide on Friday 27 June to present a full-day workshop on anxiety. 

This is not just another anxiety workshop, and is for anyone who lives or works with young people - therapists, educators, parents, OTs - anyone. 

Tickets are still available. Search Hey Sigmund workshops for a full list of events, dates, and to buy tickets or see here https://www.heysigmund.com/public-events/
First we decide, ‘Is this discomfort from something unsafe or is it from something growthful?’

Then ask, ‘Is this a time to lift them out of the brave space, or support them through it?’

To help, look at how they’ll feel when they (eventually) get through it. If they could do this bravely thing easily tomorrow, would they feel proud? Happy? Excited? Grateful they did it? 

‘Brave’ isn’t about outcome. It’s about handling the discomfort of the brave space and the anxiety that comes with that. They don’t have to handle it all at once. The move through the brave space can be a shuffle rather than a leap. 

The more we normalise the anxiety they feel, and the more we help them feel safer with it (see ‘Hey Warrior’ or ‘Ups and Downs’ for a hand with this), the more we strengthen their capacity to move through the brave space with confidence. This will take time, experience, and probably lots of anxiety along the way. It’s just how growth is. 

We don’t need to get rid of their anxiety. The key is to help them recognise that they can feel anxious and do brave. They won’t believe this until they experience it. Anxiety shrinks the feeling of brave, not the capacity for it. 

What’s important is supporting them through the brave space lovingly, gently (though sometimes it won’t feel so gentle) and ‘with’, little step by little step. It doesn’t matter how small the steps are, as long as they’re forward.♥️
Of course we’ll never ever stop loving them. But when we send them away (time out),
ignore them, get annoyed at them - it feels to them like we might.

It’s why more traditional responses to tricky behaviour don’t work the way we think they did. The goal of behaviour becomes more about avoiding any chance of disconnection. It drive lies and secrecy more than learning or their willingness to be open to us.

Of course, no parent is available and calm and connected all the time - and we don’t need to be. 

It’s about what we do most, how we handle their tricky behaviour and their big feelings, and how we repair when we (perhaps understandably) lose our cool. (We’re human and ‘cool’ can be an elusive little beast at times for all of us.)

This isn’t about having no boundaries. It isn’t about being permissive. It’s about holding boundaries lovingly and with warmth.

The fix:

- Embrace them, (‘you’re such a great kid’). Reject their behaviour (‘that behaviour isn’t okay’). 

- If there’s a need for consequences, let this be about them putting things right, rather than about the loss of your or affection.

- If they tell the truth, even if it’s about something that takes your breath away, reward the truth. Let them see you’re always safe to come to, no matter what.

We tell them we’ll love them through anything, and that they can come to us for anything, but we have to show them. And that behaviour that threatens to steal your cool, counts as ‘anything’.

- Be guided by your values. The big ones in our family are honesty, kindness, courage, respect. This means rewarding honesty, acknowledging the courage that takes, and being kind and respectful when they get things wrong. Mean is mean. It’s not constructive. It’s not discipline. It’s not helpful. If we would feel it as mean if it was done to us, it counts as mean when we do it to them.

Hold your boundary, add the warmth. And breathe.

Big behaviour and bad decisions don’t come from bad kids. They come from kids who don’t have the skills or resources in the moment to do otherwise.

Our job as their adults is to help them build those skills and resources but this takes time. And you. They can’t do this without you.❤️

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