June 5, 2020, Sara Silva – STARS Coach

Time flows in a very different way for children than for adult; although, even for us there are moments when minutes seem to last forever! The time that children have spent at home due to the stay-at-home order has taken place over a considerable chunk of time. Add the emotional highs and lows that we have all been experiencing and a time before COVID-19 seems to be very far away indeed. This is important to keep in mind as children and families return to childcare.

The National Center for Pyramid Model Innovations has put out a helpful resource with strategies that can help support children returning to childcare. This resource, Reconnecting After a Break, can be found at: https://challengingbehavior.cbcs.usf.edu/docs/Rebuilding-the-Pyramid.pdf. The biggest key to a successful reopening is going to be maintaining open communication with families and rebuilding  relationships with children. As you reconnect with children and families, reviewing program expectations becomes so very much easier. Try these strategies to reconnect with children and don’t forget that as we teach and direct children through our expectations and routines (making withdrawals from their internal energy bank), we also need to be offering them positive, descriptive feedback (making deposits into their internal energy bank). This resource will help you get started!