Take a moment to imagine the following scenarios...
A preschool teacher, overwhelmed by the constant demands of teaching and caring for young children, starts to feel emotionally drained. Over time, they lose patience and fail to maintain a positive demeanor around the children in their classroom, often raising their voice and reacting harshly when challenging behaviors arise.
A school district introduces a new curriculum requiring educators to integrate technology into daily lessons. Several educators who do not feel “tech-savvy” are so overwhelmed and stressed that they simply cannot and will not implement the new curriculum in their classrooms.
An early childhood educator is excited about a new classroom project. However, the children are disengaged and cannot complete certain tasks to meet learning standards. Instead of adjusting along the way so the children can complete the project, the educator admits defeat and gives up.
While these scenarios may seem like exaggerations of adult behavior, they all have one thing in common: A lack of resilience.
Being resilient means that you can bounce back and recover from the expected, and unexpected, challenges of life without reaching your breaking point. Early childhood professionals who are resilient can adapt to change and handle challenging situations with less stress so that they can continue to provide high-quality educational experiences for children of all ages.
If you can relate to any of the scenarios above or feel that resilience is a struggle, keep reading. A Kaplan partner, The Devereux Center for Resilient Children, conducts research on social and emotional development and provides resources that help educators, children, and their families foster appropriate social and emotional skills, and resilience. In this article, we’re sharing some of Devereux’s research-backed information to help you uncover four “protective factors” affecting early childhood educators’ resilience and ways to build this critical skill for long-term success and well-being in your profession.
According to Building Your Bounce: Simple Strategies for a Resilient You, protective factors are the characteristics, people, and supports that help a person through tough times. They contribute to a person’s resilience and make it easier for them to bounce back during challenging situations. The four protective factors that are the most beneficial to education professionals who want to improve their resilience are relationships, internal beliefs, initiative, and self-control.
Supportive, trusting relationships pave the way for healthy, fulfilling lives. They also significantly impact your resilience and how you handle the stresses of life and education. When it comes to supportive relationships, more is not necessarily better. Instead of worrying about the number of friendships or relationships you have, focus on cultivating a few solid and supportive relationships with people who meet your current needs and reflect your values.
As an early childhood educator, it may be beneficial for you to connect with fellow educators or other professionals who work with or near children. These people will have firsthand experience with your professional world and may help you develop solutions to challenges you have never thought of before. Aside from professional relationships, building strong relationships with friends, family, and even mentors outside of the early childhood profession is also important. These people will help you focus on creative interests, future personal goals, and fun outings that can help you relieve stress and practice proper self-care.
To provide children with high-quality care and education, you must care for yourself. Caring for yourself goes beyond facials, massages, and other relaxation methods you might think of when you hear the word “self-care.” As an early childhood professional, nurturing positive internal beliefs is one of the best forms of self-care and significantly impacts your resilience.
To nurture positive internal beliefs, you must first remind yourself of the good you bring to those around you and all you do in the classroom. Think of all the children you have helped reach developmental milestones. Think of all the families whose lives you’ve touched. Think of all the times you selflessly helped friends, family members, or fellow teachers work through challenging situations. Let these reminders confirm that you make a positive impact in the lives of others.
If positive self-talk is not your strong suit, you can nurture positive internal beliefs by thinking about recent compliments a child, fellow teacher, parent, or friend has given you. Write down the compliments and keep them in a safe place to look back on when you need to refresh your internal beliefs. Compliments can include anything from your director raving about the chocolate chip cookies you made for a staff potluck to a child saying they love it so much when you read stories to the class.
As you nurture positive internal beliefs, you will build resilience that helps you learn from your mistakes, trust others, bounce back from difficult situations, accept praise, and handle unexpected challenges with limited stress.
Did you know that initiative and resilience go hand in hand? When faced with a stressful or challenging situation, it is initiative that helps you think for yourself and find appropriate solutions to the problem. Initiative also allows you to welcome new ideas and willingly try different approaches to find solutions that work.
One crucial skill that helps early childhood professionals build initiative and resilience is effective communication during times of great stress. Imagine if a co-teacher forgets to set out materials for an upcoming activity, throwing a wrench in your lesson plan for the day. Using accusatory or derogatory language would not be helpful or appropriate. In fact, this would do little to solve the problem and could hurt your relationship with the co-teacher.
Resilient adults who show initiative communicate their feelings clearly while being mindful of how others will receive their words. They do their best to always speak with respect and understanding, even during tense situations.
As an early childhood professional, you are always under the watchful eye of young children who love to mimic adult behavior. Because of this, your resilience and how you control your emotions and actions are incredibly important, especially in the classroom.
Personal stress, educator burnout, and the daily overwhelm from working with young children can make it more difficult to control your emotions. With that in mind, setting boundaries for yourself becomes crucial as you work on your self-control. If a colleague or family member asks for your help with a task, protect your time and energy by taking on no more than you can handle. If a particularly challenging event occurs and you feel yourself losing your cool, use calming techniques to maintain your composure.
The more control you have over your emotions, the better you will feel when faced with the unexpected. As you model resilience and emotional control in your classroom, children will see how they should treat others and ways to solve conflicts with their peers.
As you can see, building resilience is an ongoing process and it is never too late to start. However, if you can focus on the four protective factors mentioned above, you will develop your personal and professional resilience much faster.
If you need more resources on building resilience so you can handle the challenges in your classroom for years to come, click here to view the Building Your Bounce Professional Development Learning Series. This self-paced video series is designed specifically for teachers and parents who want to improve their resilience.