A recipe for Escalation

A recipe for escalation!

I am sharing a comment I made on a recent post for an organization that our district contracts with for “crisis prevention” that has received a lot of attention and comments that are in agreement with my comment.

I’ve begun discussions with the district, as what this organization trains in is not crisis prevention, and is a recipe for escalating any dysregulated human, especially our vulnerable kids. 

This is what we are seeing everyday in our classrooms.  Outdated methods that actually escalate already stressed and dysregulated kids AND importantly our already stressed and stretched very thin teachers and staff, para, etc.  This matters.  

My comment …

“This is cognitive…..=neuroscience has taught us (30 years ago) that we must use body up/ bottom up approaches first to co regulate .  There is no access to thinking brain which is why we need to understand this brain science and esp brain state dependence and how this impacts our ability to regulate our nervous system…..add brain differences and it is even more challenging.  

Which is also why connection through co regulation is the ONLY thing that shifts brain state to the thinking , social engagement brain, the cortex.   

These 5 steps most often will fail esp when using them with kids or a dysregulated adult.  Talking, explaining, reasoning are all higher brain functions.  

Please learn about this important neuroscience because these outdated approaches are harmful and leading to trauma in many kids, esp when practices such as isolation, seclusion or restraint is used in response to “behaviors”. Behaviors are signals of distress.  Do you want to be punished when you get distressed, or told to stand outside or worst, have hands placed on you because you didn’t calm down?  

Kids are humans and deserve better, as all humans do.  The information is readily available ….30 years is a period of time that has no excuses for not keeping up with the research and science.”