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Five Ways to Help Kids Feel They Belong

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New kids are not new, but their numbers are much higher

Children of today face a very fluid classroom community. They don’t know if their best friend will be there tomorrow. I recently visited a rural 2nd grade classroom. It was amazing to hear that one child had attended five different schools, three children have family members in jail, while several suffer from continual stress over violence at home.  It’s not only new kids, immigrants, and refugees that can feel left out and isolated. The lack of belonging in a classroom community is a persistent problem for many children.

Children who feel they belong can overcome more obstacles.

Developing classroom community where all belong

Developing classroom community

Teachers and caregivers are frequently called upon to provide the love and warmth missing at home.  Often parents are struggling with issues around poverty, drug addiction, PTSD, and more. A sense of belonging to the classroom community can ameliorate some of the damage caused by a struggling family system and uprooting.

The Body Keeps the Score

A fascinating book providing perspective on the topic of belonging is “The Body Keeps the Score” by Bessel van der Kolk, M.D. This book details the impacts of trauma and PTSD on the brain. It’s readable and provides information about the underlying neuroscience. It shows how those with trauma and PTSD issues have different brain waves and different breath and heart syncing. It’s fascinating because he’s personally experienced in all the therapies and treatments he mentions. Thus, he has a deep understanding and a unique perspective. 

Don’t give up on wounded children. Provide a safe environment!

Van der  Kolk clearly says, “People can learn to control and change their behavior, but only if they feel safe enough to experiment with new solutions. . . Where traumatized children are concerned, the last things we should be cutting from the school schedule are. . . chorus, physical education, recess, and anything else that involves movement, play, and other forms of joyful engagement.” (page 351).

Patricia Jennings, author of “The Trauma-Sensitive Classroom,”  says the zero-tolerance policies of the past two decades have not reduced school violence and misbehavior. They have aggravated student behavioral problems, especially those that are rooted in exposure to stress and trauma.” (page 1).

How do you create an environment where all children thrive?

At Growing Communities for Peace we rejected the zero-tolerance policies from the beginning. And, we have always believed that children have a huge capacity for solving their problems. Children show amazing kindness and thoughtfulness toward others when afforded the chance to puzzle through to solutions. They learn more from dialogue and guidance than from dictates.

Every child deserves a safe educational environment

Children that are well-behaved and easy to teach role model and teach children who are not yet peaceful. Teacher language always focuses on building behaviors of those who are still learning.

Here are excerpts from the Parent and Educator Guide of “The Barnyard Buddies Meet a Newcomer” along with ideas teachers shared with us for welcoming newcomers, creating a safe space, and enhancing belonging

  1. Invite two or three children to do a short role-play to learn to be kind to others. Coach the children to act out a “new student” drama where one child is new and the two others are welcoming. What are the words the children say when they are welcoming? Make their thinking visible. Write what they say on chart paper and post, so when a new person arrives, they remember to use these kind phrases. 
  2. Ask children to draw a picture of a time they felt scared and what their fear or concern was about. When we know more about people’s fears or concerns, it is much easier to respect them.
  3. Immigrants, refugees, and newcomers look for ways to become involved, bring more peace, or offer their skills and ideas to their new communities. There are all sorts of ways to do that. Think about your day and draw a picture of how you contributed in a caring way with your family, friends, or classroom. Those are some of your communities. Put these pictures in a Community Journal. Keep it in a special place where children can enter pictures of how they welcomed a newcomer, cleaned up, recycled, shared a toy with someone new, took care of their family animal, sang at the retirement home, and so on.
  4. Invite children to share what they have seen another person do that supports and grows peace, fairness, kindness, or shows care of the earth. To make sure everyone is recognized, draw names or assign children a specific person to observe. Children can draw a picture of what they witnessed. Later that day or later in the week, have a sharing session. In it, you can appreciate each person. Then, add these drawings to the Community Journal. Make this journal visible in your home or classroom. If tattling, or reporting on negative actions is the norm, it may take time for children to learn to focus on the positive contributions of others. Remind them that is their assignment. Then, watch peace grow.
  5. Sing a welcome song. Use the tune of Freire Jacque: Welcome (new student’s name) Mary, welcome Mary, to our class, to our class. So happy to have you! So happy to have you! Join our song. Join our song. Singing is a wonderful way to engage children with the community and inspires a sense of belonging.

We can’t force children to learn

Often we are trying to cram intellectual understanding into a resistant brain that can’t open to new information until it feels safe and welcome. That is to say when it “belongs” in the setting.

A story

A friend of mine suffered from ADHD, and in-class he was a failure. He was very capable at recess and the fastest runner. No one celebrated him where he was a success. Instead, they isolated and belittled him for his academics. With nothing else to offer, he felt he didn’t belong. His painful lack of belonging resulted in him dropping out of school in 8th grade. This man’s IQ is in the high 130s. What a waste. Looking at activity 3 above, I wonder how his athletic excellence might have become his contribution? Maybe he would be able to add more traditional contributions after being recognized for his current abilities?

You belong to our community of supporters! Let our work support you!

We wrote “The Barnyard Buddies Meet a Newcomer” and you can now get it directly from our website. We aren’t going to release it officially until May 1st. This is your chance to get a pre-release copy. Click the picture below. All books we ship have the author’s signature. Reviewers rave about this book, and you will too.

barnyard buddies childrens book

The Barnyard Buddies Meet a Newcomer

Who can benefit from this book about belonging?

All children in grades preschool to three need opportunities to build their social and emotional skills. Belonging is a key to life success. This book inspires children and teachers to include and welcome others. The story tells of an abandoned, lonely, and a hungry dog who isn’t welcome in the barnyard community. Finally, he finds his way into the hearts of the other animals. And, in the end, a reluctant, Farmer Jim. Reading this book sets the stage for the compassionate treatment of all others. The Parent and Educator Guide can help you build a more inclusive setting and reduce “otherizing” and related bullying as well. We must never forget that most bullies have been bullied. 71% of school shootings were done by people who had been bullied. 

 

You can be part of the solution! Share these children’s books!

Every Child has unique, diverse learning styles

Diverse learning styles offer challenges and opportunities, in a classroom or home!

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My friend Sam, was an ADHD student going through elementary school in the 60s. He had a miserable experience. The structure of a sit-down classroom was impossible for him, and soon he felt isolated and alone. He was sure that no one cared about him, that he belonged alone in the hall, and that school was a place to be hurt, embarrassed, and maligned. And he didn’t learn a thing. By 8th grade he was so lost and behind that there was no catching up. 

Dropping out early impacted Sam’s entire life. He couldn’t hold a job and had terribly low confidence. His defensiveness resulted in explosive, even violent outbursts. Sam’s life was forever impacted by the adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) he encountered. After he succumbed to the lure of drugs, he couldn’t hold a job, and ultimately ended up incarcerated for larceny. Childhood Disrupted: How Your Biography Becomes Your Biology and How You Can Heal by Donna Jackson Nakazawa, provides extensive additional reading on this topic. We highly recommend it!

There are many classrooms and families where Sam would not thrive. If children’s learning styles are not the same as the teacher’s or the parents’ it can be difficult for all. And since Sam has some adverse early childhood experiences such as I describe here (this topic, including what constitutes an adverse childhood experience, will be addressed more thoroughly in subsequent blogs), it becomes even more challenging for him.

Honoring diverse approaches to learning is a critical ability of a parent and/or a teacher

Yes, ACE training is now being provided more often for educators. Instead of harsh discipline, we are learning we must draw in closer to our children and follow their lead. We need to demonstrate love and care for the unique person each child is. By honoring each child’s unique needs and diverse learning styles we can make those critical connections that provide a different outcome from what happened in Sam’s story. If Sam’s teachers had known his family story of neglect, and how vulnerable he was in 3rd grade, after numerous moves from town to town, and the murder of his father, how might Sam’s life and the lives of those he touched, have been changed?

Julie Penshorn, MBC (left) and Rebecca Janke, M.Ed.

Two parents and teachers working to be the best we can be.

This is where Smart Tools for Life comes in. We provide smart tools for classrooms and homes for today’s children!

Hi, my name is Julie Penshorn. I am the author of the Smart Tools for Life children’s books on this site, with content editor and co-author, Rebecca Janke, who blogs at Children’s Peace Education Company (coming soon!). We’ve been working together over the years since 1992 with the nonprofit organization, Growing Communities for Peace.

Developing as a Teacher or Parent Educator

Though I didn’t have any ACEs growing up, I was, and still am an active learner. I evolved into an intense, driven riding teacher, following in the footsteps of my own teachers. It took some time for me to evolve my teaching toward facilitating. Only after I gained some age and perspective did I figure out that the best way for learning to occur for many of my students was to help them feel, learn, and become aware of an experience, on a deep level. I couldn’t “teach” it or “explain” it. The student had to find it. So, it was the horse that did the teaching, and I found my role as a facilitator and a guide. The capability of the horse was important, since heavy, dull, or lame horses gave bad lessons.

Learning to be an effective facilitator drove me to become a children’s book author. I thought maybe here was an opportunity to engage with the Sams of the world in a different way.

Bumper sticker: Life is Short: Ride a Good Horse! or Life is Short, Read a Good Book!

With limited time for children’s stories in classrooms and in homes, adults need good tools. I felt we needed smart tools for children’s lives, specifically stories and music that could educate them that being a loving, caring, participating, peacemaking person, capable of dialogue when in conflict and working out problems, was “normal.” They needed to become “peace literate.”

Valuing diversity all over the world

Children in a classroom are gathered around a globe to show they value all our Earth’s people and value diversity.

 

I saw that children were inherently filled with compassion for others and the planet, and that when they were in close connection with their families and teachers they learned better. With the help of Rebecca Janke, I discovered that I could create a unique learning experience for children by using the illustrations and words to bring a “feel” to the children, much like the way I learned to ride.

Stories and music provide the learning in a memorable way, and we can empathize with the animals or other characters in the story, and share their experiences vicariously. When children read our stories, or are read to, they can feel the characters’ pain and angst, their satisfaction, and their successes. They can see that the story has a given outcome because of the choices that were made along the way. The teacher or parent only must facilitate, which is easily done by reading the children’s book!

Children as the leaders in co-creating a culture of peace.

All our current and upcoming children’s books provide some suggestions for extending the learning in the back of the book. They meet state standard curriculum needs, but each book will also stand alone. So, just read them. Again. And again. Read them until the children recite passages from memory. Then it’s deep in their hearts. Then they “feel” it and you know their lives will be changed as they become the leaders in co-creating a culture of peace.

We need each child. No one is a “throw-away.” We need each flower, each butterfly, each bee, each tree, each ocean. Caring for the most maligned, the lonely, the hurt, the sick and the poor, the displaced, and the miserable, is the only way to bring peace to the planet. The way we raise our children has huge consequences — not only for the children — but also for our society! The children need us, as adults, to facilitate their journey into adulthood.

Smart Tools for Life makes teaching peacemaking skills easy for you, even if you’ve not been focusing on this in the past. We need these skills for our children’s future! Worried that you’re not a Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Dorothy Day, or Mother Theresa? Don’t worry! We make the road by walking. Let’s journey together!

Read news about our books and music. Please investigate the gofundme campaign and support this work! Share with others!