It's said that children are great imitators so we need to give them something great to imitate, writes Darren Stevenson.
Although we do our best to be great role models, it’s not always easy to keep our cool with challenging kids.
Stevenson, founder and MD of Extend Before and After School Care, says understanding our instinctive brain responses goes a long way to guiding us to handle our more challenging students.
The logical area of your brain, the prefrontal cortex (PFC), provides the ability to critically examine evidence and compare options in a conscious manner.
If you’ve ever made a pros and cons list, you were using your PFC, and it probably took a relatively long time. At least a few minutes.
By contrast your limbic brain system subconsciously responds to external stimuli at lightning speed.
Understanding its involvement in your responses is useful to move towards more positive and thoughtful actions under pressure.
It probably comes as no surprise that most our reactions to others are subconscious. Here are three ways to harness your subconscious mind under pressure.
- Acknowledge that you feel with your head.
- Be guided by your priorities.
- Identify the child’s desired outcome.
Darren Stevenson is the founder and MD of Extend Before and After School Care, a nation-wide provider of outside school hours care services for children.
For more information, please visit Extend’s website here.