Hey teachers! As the season of giving is winding down, I wanted to give a gift to all of you! I am so grateful for each and every one of you, so I decided to make a digital lesson that you can download for free and use in your classroom today. If you like Boom learning – like – lessons, then this is perfect for you. No boom learning account is needed. All you need is the google slides app (for tablets) or your desktop computer. This lesson has 10 winter themed 3 digit addition with regrouping story problems. Your students will be presented with 4 answer choices. When the wrong one is selected, they will be prompted to go back and try again. When the right one is selected, they will be congratulated and allowed to move onto the next one. It’s a great station activity, graded assignment, or something for those fast finishers. I got a great response from my November one, and I know you’ll love this one too! You can grab it at onlineteacherallyson.com/freedecember. If you’re catching this when it’s not December, or just want to use it in a different month, not to worry! The story problems are winter themed. Your students will find stories about snowflakes, snowballs, icicles, and so much more! It’s perfect for any winter month! Again, you can grab your free copy at onlineteacherallyson.com/freedecember. And one final pro tip before we start the episode: school district emails don’t seem to be working well with my email provider. Your best bet will be to provide your personal email and forward it to your district email that way. This ensures you get your free copy instantly! Alright, let’s get to it!
Hey everyone and welcome to a very special episode of the Simple Tools for the Online Teacher Podcast! I am so excited for today’s episode because today we have our first interview! Today you’re going to hear from Kids anxiety solutions’ Niki. She’s going to give you tons of tips and tricks for connecting with your students through the use of anxiety soothing techniques. Since recording this episode with Niki, I’ve since used her strategies on myself and my son, and now that we’re back from winter break, something I want to use in my online classes as well. So without any further ado, let’s jump right into it!
Online Teacher Allyson: Hello everybody, welcome back to another episode. On today’s episode I have Niki and she focuses all on children’s anxieties and how you can help manage it and how you can help them learn how to manage it as well. Today she has tons of fun and relevant ways you can implement it online. So, Niki, why don’t you start off and tell us a little bit about yourself.
Niki: Okay, well thanks so much for having me on. I’m Niki. I was a school teacher for 15 years and I really loved being with the kids and connecting with them sort of on a deeper level. I loved the curriculum, obviously, but I just found that I wasn’t able to connect with them just through the subjects alone. I was working a lot in intercity schools and a lot of those kids just had a lot of blocks and they needed more than just how to add and subtract and read and write. So, I started looking at different things there. Then I became a yoga teacher. Because of my background with kids I ended up teaching teen and kid yoga and I really loved watching how they responded to meditation, how they responded to breath work and even some of the wildest kids how they found a way to just calm and center themselves. And when I saw them leaving my yoga class and going back home and hearing stories of how they were in the classroom it really resonated.
And then I sort of fell out of love with teaching and the school system and what not. So I went into coaching. I was coaching primarily women dealing with generational trauma, anxiety, and that sort of thing. And then the pandemic hit and I just kept looking back and you know I’m always called back to kids. I’m a mom of two and I just kept looking at how the kids were kind of getting negated within the whole lock down. I just kept thinking at home, people their lives are turned upside down. They’re working from home, their kids are home, money is short. And nobody is talking about how our kids are dealing with it.
I hate the term ‘unprecedented times’ but it is, right? So, parents are at home without the skill set of how to deal with what’s going on with their kids because it’s new for them as well. You know, none of us have been through a lockdown. So it was really interesting for me to watch. And then earlier this year in the US they said that children’s mental health was now a national crisis. I just thought is an issue that is going to be going into their adulthood. Depression rates were up, anxiety was up and I just thought we need to be looking at how we can help our kids now. So I shifted from helping people heal their trauma and anxiety in their adulthood to how can we help our kids? And it starts in the home really. Because even if you go to therapy it’s only once a week. And if that’s all you’re doing it’s just not enough to help your kids do it. So I’m really enjoying educating teachers and families how to help their kids deal with the world we’re in now.
Online Teacher Allyson: That’s so cool. I love that you said “It starts in the home.” because it really truly does and it needs to be practiced outside of the classroom. Unfortunately it does a lot of time fall on the teachers to teach some of it. I know as an adult myself this pandemic has definitely skyrocketed my anxiety and it’s been something I’ve been struggling how to figure out how to deal with. Thankfully my son is too young to understand what’s going on. He doesn’t really know any different. But, I know for a lot of teachers and a lot of parents out there it’s a struggle too. So what do you suggest a simple step for them to start with?
Niki: I think it starts with connection. First of all, I just have so much respect for any teacher in the times we’re in but especially online teachers. You have a screen and you have kids you’re trying to connect with them in a whole new way. So i think you know it’s really to be admired and stick with it because we need teachers out there. But my recommendation is just to find a way to connect with the kids at a heart level. Find ways, like you said, it does begin in the home but a lot of homes aren’t getting it. I taught kindergarten realizing it was now my job to teach kids how to wash hands and tie their shoes and that sort of thing. I really think it’s parallel to the online teacher as well because you need to find a way to connect with those kids in a quick way in an easy way so they know you care more about them than just the subject you’re teaching.
So, even when I begin our day as a homeschool teacher – I teach my kids – we always begin with something fun either just a quick dance or Simon says or anything like that and then we bring it back down and we talk about: we do two roses and a thorn. What’s gone really well for you this week, this day or this morning, and what’s something that’s sort of a challenge for you right now? You just go around and you talk to the kids if you have the time and then just simple breathwork. You know, it can be just as easy as you know in for three out for three and just get those kids practicing breathing right into their bellies.
Online Teacher Allyson: That’s really good “breathing into the bellies.” I know when I start freaking out it does not go into the belly. So helping to center them. So you said “that heart connection.” And I love how you say “that heart connection” because it’s so much deeper than just hey, how was your day, how was your weekend? It’s really knowing them and knowing their hearts.
So you said two roses and a thorn and really connecting into the heart as well as the belly breathing into the bellies. I love how you can do all of those things every day. Morning meetings, two roses and a thorn, you can practice breathing. Are there any cues that you kind of started to recognize that a kid is maybe exhibiting anxiety and they really need you to intervene and tell them to breathe or try another strategy?
Niki: Kids are interesting because they don’t show anxiety as we present it in adulthood. It could start with a tummy ache. You know you hear a lot of kids saying “Oh, I have a tummy ache today.” Distraction. Fidgeting. A lot of fidgeting is actually just anxiety and they’re just moving their bodies to try to move through it because their bodies are actually in fight or flight as they’re sitting there. Headaches as well is also a sign of anxiety in kids. So you just have to, you know, my suggestion whenever I’m working with teachers or parents is listen to the kids. Listen to what they’re telling you. Tummy aches aren’t always just a way to get out of class. There’s a reason that’s happening. If they’re fidgeting maybe you can then create or make sure they have something they can fidget with because sometimes that just helps them center themselves a little bit more.
And it just really comes back to what I said “heart centered.” I’m a really firm believer in emotional intelligence and that should be a core subject that we’re teaching. Most kids know happy, sad, that kind of thing, but it’s all the in between and it’s really confusing for them. They’re trying to process. Their brains aren’t developed the way adult brains are. So as they’re thinking, they’re not thinking as we do, right? So, they’re almost in the survival sense all the time. So they’re trying to make sense of really complex feelings, especially the ones we’ve had in the last couple of years. They can’t see their friends. They can’t do their sports, they can’t live the way they’ve experienced life. Kids don’t have the words to do it so their bodies are absorbing all those feelings. So it’s trying to find a way to get them to express that. They’re saying they have a stomach ache so “what’s happening in your tummy? How does it feel” get them to talk about it. They’ll say things like maybe they feel worried and maybe they feel whatever and just getting them to develop a language around what it is they are trying to express or their bodies are trying to express.
Online Teacher Allyson: That’s so good, like the butterflies in the stomach. If you don’t know you can call it a butterfly, then my stomach hurts. I don’t like it. It’s something I’ve never thought about.
Niki: Right. I’m a big fan of bilateral movements as well. When you’re working with kids and when I was in the classroom we would always do silly dances where we cross over on your body. So you’re actually using your left hand and putting it over to your left hand and vice versa. And you know slapping your opposite knee. Because that’s bridging your left and right hemispheres. And so it’s creating a calmness in their body and taking, again, out of the fight or flight mode and bringing them back into their body a little bit more. And it’s fun, right?
Online Teacher Allyson: It’s fun, it’s goofy. It gets them moving. And that’s something they can do during testing season. You know, they’re expected to sit, and take a test, and it’s stressful. And that’s something they can totally do at their desk and not bother anybody.
Niki: Yeah. And simple things like other breath meditations that I really like – especially this time of year is imagine you’re holding a cup of cocoa. They can all be holding their cup. And they can feel the warmth on their hand and they’re going to see the steam rising from up. They’re going to smell it, breathe in the chocolate, and blow out the steam. And that’s always a good one for little kids because they like to envision the hot cocoa. And you can do all sorts of fun things like we’re going to make it now and want to add their marshmallows and do all that visualization. I know your time is really pressured when you’re doing online as well, but it’s just finding little ways to interject and connect with the kids.
Online Teacher Allyson: I love that. It makes me think about my morning coffee. I love smelling it, I love sitting with the warmth in my hands. And I think I’m making that connection like, hey, that might calm me down too. I hate mornings. I’m a night person. And that morning coffee just helps, I don’t know.
Niki: Yeah, it’s life.
Online Teacher Allyson: It is! So, are you a counselor or anything like that? No, right?
Niki: No, I never did my formal counseling training. But I have a cognitive behavioral techniques certification. My door was always open in the classroom. So I was always the unlicensed counselor that people would just come in and just want to chat and stuff.
Online Teacher Allyson: You work with clients and your own kiddos, right?
Niki: Yes. I’ve had anxiety for years. Growing up it was called you’re shy. You’re just a perfectionist. You’re this or that. It wasn’t ever labeled as anything other than that. I just thought I was, you know, just shy. That’s who I’m shy. But it wasn’t shy. It was anxiety. It was a lot of perfectionism, which was correct. But it was, I never had any tools around it. So when I started seeing my son develop it I was like, “no wait”. Because I practice Gentle Parenting and Attachment Parenting. But it’s generational and it’s hereditary and they pick up on little things. They see you gnawing at your fingers. They see you stressing out or freaking out about something. So even if you‘re parenting in a certain way, they’re still absorbing that. They’re seeing that. It’s part of what they do. I’ve even seen with other teachers, kids picking up teaching habits of stress and anxiety. So, it’s part of life and I think it’s really important that we’re teaching our kids these things just so that they can head into adulthood with the skills.
Since my kids were little we’ve done lots of affirmations since they could talk. We did “I am brave, I am powerful, I am strong.” Especially with my little daughter who is 6 now. She needs those. When she’s in a moment of feeling fear or feeling shy or any of those things I’ll say “what do you need to say to yourself?” and she’ll say “I am strong.” I’ll say “pardon?” She’s like “I am strong!” so then she says “I am strong, I am powerful, I am brave.”
Just the other day she had a playground session and two of the little girls started fighting. She said “Mommy, my stomach is sore.” I said “Well what can we do?” She’s like “I think I need to sit and breathe.” So kids are little sponges and if you give them the tool and you give them the right way to practice it, when they do need it they can use it and draw upon that and use it in the right way. That for me is really rewarding to see.
Online Teacher Allyson: Yeah, that must have been a proud Mom moment right there.
Niki: Yeah, it was good. I always laugh when they say “I think I need to meditate” because they just like to strike the pose but you know it’s all part and parcel so it’s good.
Online Teacher Allyson: So, you’ve given us a ton of techniques. Do you have a favorite strategy that you use that you find yourself always going back to?
Niki: I love books, I love different things. I do bubble blowing with some of my clients, but really just simple. I’m a big fan of keep it simple. I think just the easy breathwork. Just sitting and breathing is the easiest, quickest way for kids to get back into their body, reconnect to their work, and focus again. So just those really easy techniques.
If you want to expand more, I really like the 5,4,3,2,1. 5 things you can see. 4 things you can feel. 3 things you can smell. (More at the end about this.) It’s a 5 senses meditation. It’s really good as well. Just whatever works for you. Just find ways to connect. That’s my big message for the teachers out there. That’s how your’re going to get through to your kids the most. Especially kids that are having a rough time. If they can’t trust you, if they can’t connect with you on a deeper level, you’re never going to get them to sit and learn their times tables.
Online Teacher Allyson: That’s so good. That connection; it comes back to everything. The screen has made it so much harder.
Niki: Everything.
Online Teacher Allyson: I love all those quick and easy ways. Alright Niki. This was so good. Tell everybody where they can find you online.
Niki: I’m everywhere @kidsanxietysolutions all one word. On instagram I do lots of the techniques I talked about today. I do demonstrations on my reels. So you can come check me out there. It’s just kidsanxietysolutions one word. I’m also on TikTok kidsanxietysolutions. You can find me on Facebook, pretty much anywhere these days, kidsanxietysolutions.
OnlineTeacher Allyson: Alright, excellent. Thank you so much, Niki for coming on the show. Hopefully we will see you again!
Niki: Yeah, thank you so much!
Online Teacher Allyson: Thanks!
Alright teachers, there you have it. After I stopped recording we chatted for a bit and Niki remembered the 5 senses technique she mentioned. It’s 5 things you can see, 4 things you can feel, 3 things you can hear, 2 things you can smell, and 1 thing you can taste. Like I mentioned in the intro, I’ve already used some of the strategies that Niki shared with us today. I’ve seen first hand how it can help alleviate anxieties. It helps me feel like a better Mom and teacher, and I feel like I have a stronger connection with my son. If you loved what you heard today, be sure to give her a follow and let her know. I enjoyed our chat so much, and I’m sure this won’t be the last time we hear from her. As always, thanks so much for being here! Chat soon!
Great article thanks a lot!