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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Too many students are being stifled by anxiety, and this number is on the rise.

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Relationship first, then learning and behaviour will follow. It can’t be any other way. 

Anxious brains can’t learn, and brains that don’t feel safe will organise young bodies (all bodies) for fight, flight (avoidance, refusal, disengagement, perfectionism), or shutdown. 

Without connection, warmth, a sense of belonging, feeling welcome, moments of joy, play, and levity, relational safety will be compromised, which will compromise learning and behaviour. It’s just how it is. Decades of research and experience are shouting this at us. 

Yet, we are asking more and more of our teachers. The more procedural or curriculum demands we place on teachers, the more we steal the time they need to build relationships - the most powerful tool of their trade. 

There is no procedure or reporting that can take the place of relationship in terms of ensuring a child’s capacity to learn and be calm. 

There are two spaces that teachers occupy. Sometimes they can happen together. Sometimes one has to happen first. 

The first is the space that lets them build relationship. The second is the space that lets them teach kids and manage a classroom. The second will happen best when there is an opportunity to fully attend to the first. 

There is an opportunity cost to everything. It isn’t about relationships OR learning. It’s relationships AND learning. Sometimes it’s relationships THEN learning. 

The best way we can support kids to learn and to feel calm, is to support teachers with the space, time, and support to build relationships. 

The great teachers already know this. What’s getting in the way isn’t their capacity or their will to build relationships, but the increasing demands that insist they shift more attention to grades, curriculum, reporting, and ‘managing’ behaviour without the available resources to build greater physical (sensory, movement) and relational safety (connection, play, joy, belonging).

Relationships first, then the rest will follow.♥️
Love and lead. 

First, we love. Validation lets them know we see them. Validation is a presence, not a speech. It’s showing our willingness to sit with them in the ‘big’ of it all, without needing to talk them out of how they feel.

It says, ‘I see you. I believe you that this feels big. Bring your feelings to me, because I can look after you through all of it.’

Then, we lead. Our response will lead theirs, not just this time, but well into the future. 

If we support avoidance, their need to avoid will grow. The message we send is, ‘Maybe you aren’t safe here. Maybe you can’t handle this. Maybe your anxiety is telling the truth.’ 

Of course, if they truly aren’t safe, then avoidance is important. 

But if they are safe and we support avoidance, we are inadvertently teaching them to avoid anything that comes with anxiety - and all brave, new, hard, important things will come with anxiety. 

Think about job interviews, meeting new people, first dates, approaching someone to say sorry, saying no - all of these will come with anxiety.

The experiences they have now in being able to move forward with anxiety in scary-safe situations (like school) will breathe life into their capacity to do the hard, important things that will nourish and grow them for the rest of their lives. First though, they will be watching you for signs as to whether or not anxiety is a stop sign or a warning. The key to loving bravely and wholly is knowing the difference.

Teach them to ask themselves, ‘Do I feel like this because I’m in danger? (Is this scary dangerous?) Or because there’s something brave, new, hard, important I need to do. (Is this scary-safe?). Then, ‘Is this a time to be safe or brave?’

To show them we believe they are safe and capable, try, ‘I know this feels big, and I know you can do this.’ Then, give them a squeeze, hand them to a trusted adult, and give them a quick, confident goodbye. Their tears won’t hurt them, as long as they aren’t alone in their tears.

It doesn’t matter how small the steps are, as long as they are forward.♥️
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New, hard, important, brave things will always come with anxiety. It’s the anxiety that makes these things brave.

The only way for kids to never experience anxiety is for us to never put them in front of anything growthful, new, hard, brave. They’ll never feel the discomfort of anxiety, but they also won’t grow and strengthen against it. 

We’ll never get rid of anxiety and we don’t need to. The key to strengthening young people against anxiety lies in helping them feel safer with it. 

Here are 3 ways to do that. First though, and most importantly, establish that they are actually safe - that they are relationally safe, and that they feel safe in their bodies.

1. Take avoidance off the table. Avoidance makes anxiety worse by teaching the brain that the only way to stay safe is to avoid. Little steps matter - any step, even the tiniest, is better than none.

2. Show them you can handle their anxiety and the big feels that come with it:

‘Of course you feel anxious. You’re doing something big. How can I help you feel brave?’ 

Or, ‘I know this feels big, and it feels like you can’t. I know you are safe and I know you can. You don’t need to believe it because I know it enough for both of us. I know you won’t believe it until you see it for yourself. That’s okay, that’s what I’m here for - to show you how amazing you are and that you can do hard things. I can take care of you through the ‘big’ of it all. What’s one little step you can take? Let’s take it together. And don’t say ‘no steps’ because that’s not an option.’

3. Help them understand why they feel the way they do when they are anxious, otherwise they’ll interpret sick tummies, sore tummies, racy heart, clammy skin, big feelings as a sign of deficiency or potential disaster. It isn’t. It’s a sign of a brain and body trying to protect them, at a time they don’t need protecting. 

As long as they are safe, the need to avoid is often more about needing to avoid the thoughts, feelings, and physiology of anxiety, rather than avoiding the thing itself. This is why the physiology of anxiety will continue to drive anxiety until we make sense of it. ‘Hey Warrior’ will help you do make sense of it for them.♥️

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