Keeping Calm in Childcare

With a pre-school ratio of 1:8 and the increased amount of paperwork in Early Years Settings, it can be a challenge to keep calm and carry on and many practitioners and teachers are utilising the benefits of supply work to gain a better work/life balance.

April is Stress Awareness Month and is the perfect opportunity to reassess the environment for children and how both you and the children in your care can use a toolkit for managing stress, or for the little ones, gaining control over how they express their feelings and learning ways to self-calm.

Creating the Right Environment… ‘The Zen Den’

The Zen Den can be just a small area of the room that is specifically allocated for promoting calm and providing a ‘safe place’ for children to express their feelings using sensory materials and communication tools. Here are a few ideas to include in a Zen Den:

• Firstly you need to give it a ‘den feel’, this can be done by using a tent, putting up fabrics or sectioning it off away from the rest of the room
• Fairy lights put up around the Zen Den or sensory lights can be a good calming tool
• Soft furnishings, such as cushions, blankets and a fluffy rug
• Sensory toys – I have previously found that sensory bottles that the children have made themselves with a choice of textures help. These are just empty plastic bottles that can be filled with water and adding glitter, oils or food colouring. Similarly, soft textures such as feathers or small objects such as lego in bottles are good.
• Expression or feeling cards are a good communication tool for children with limited speech or who find it hard to communicate their feelings.
• Makaton cards with signs of the daily routine such as activities, toileting and going outside
• Yoga pose cards are a great way for children to release energy or tension in a creative way

Mindfulness…Children’s Yoga

As the Deputy Manager and Pre-school Room Leader of a children’s nursery, I wanted to equip the children with coping mechanisms for dealing with their own stressful situations, that they could apply throughout their childhood and adult life. So as a Pre-school we decided to introduce yoga into our daily routine. The children responded to it so well we decided to get a yoga teacher in to develop our knowledge further. Here are some easy steps for introducing yoga to children.

• Music – find some music that relaxes the children and helps them to register that it is a time for calming down. My favourite is Enya – ‘Orinoco Flow’, and as soon as I put this on, the Pre-school children would know what time it was!
• Personal space – make sure that there is enough room for the children to stretch and move around. Children’s yoga mats are a great way for them to use their own space and relate it to a period of calm.
• Deep breathing – This is a good starting point before going on to poses.
• Yoga poses – I started with some simple children’s yoga poses that I found on Pinterest for us to practice as a group, which was then developed into our own routine with increased level of difficulty. The children’s favourite was the ‘happy baby pose’ that usually got us all giggling.
• Yoga stories – The yoga teacher that came in to work with the children would use a story book and songs to link to the different poses to really engage with the children and stimulate their imagination.

Empowerment & Responsibility

Children love responsibility and the feeling that you have put faith in them to help you do something. This can improve confidence and self-esteem and give children a sense of empowerment and a ‘can do’ attitude. One of the children that I worked with would love sweeping up after snack and even help me to dry up the plastic tableware before going outside and this helped him to remain calm during the transition after snack time. There are a few ways that you can promote a sense of responsibility within a daily routine:

• Helper of the day – give a child responsibility to help you with setting up activities and cleaning responsibilities throughout the day, this can even include setting the table and sweeping up after snack time. I usually gave the helper of the day a big sticker outlining that they were the helper – which they were very excited to show to their parents at the end of the day.
• Choices – allow children to vote on which story to have at group time, which activities they would like for the day and if they wanted indoor or outdoor play are just a few examples of giving freedom of choice.
• Pre-school to home book – give children a sense of responsibility to take their book home to either practice their mark making or stick in photos of what they have been up to at the weekend!
• Honesty library – have faith in children to borrow a book to take home, and either swap for one of their books or return once they have finished with it.
• Brainstorm board – have a designated place in the room for children’s ideas to be displayed – then date once they have carried them out.

These are just a few ideas to help both you and the children in your care remain calm, not just during April but throughout the year. Now go and put your feet up with a cup of tea, you deserve it!

Alicia is our Trainee Recruitment Consultant for Class People's Worcestershire branch. For a further chat with her about early years and primary work in this region, give her a call on 01527 888 908 or email Alicia@classpeople.co.uk