Suppose you are an elementary school teacher, and your student, Joe Don, has problems managing his anger. He gets angry during recess if he doesn't win the game he's playing. He gets angry in the classroom if a student nearby tells him to be quiet during seatwork. Today, he pushed another child causing the child to fall and scrape her elbow on the pavement. How might you use the guidelines for

Question

encouragingemotional self-regulation to teach coping strategies, to make sure your other students feel safe, and to help Joe Don learn self-management skills?

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Suggested Response:Social and emotional competences and self-regulation are critical for both academic and personal development. Joe Don needs to learn coping strategies to contain his anger in social and learning situations. His anger is disrupting learning in the classroom and damaging relationships. The episodes on the playground also become barriers to learning in the classroom.
Joe Don needs to work on all five of the core social and emotional skills: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making.
• Using the guidelines for encouraging emotional self-regulation, you would follow through with fair consequences when Joe Don displays anger. This helps maintain a climate of trust and helps the other students feel safe in your classroom.
• You might build into your curriculum time for journal writing and encourage students to express feelings and emotions in their writing. Teach them vocabulary to use to express their feelings of anger, delight, sadness, and happiness.
• Talk specifically to Joe Don about his anger and the need to manage it. Help him recognize that others have emotions. Guide him to think about how his peer felt when Joe Don pushed her down and caused her pain. Find a story that addresses anger and other emotions and conduct an analysis of the feelings of the characters in the story.
• Teach Joe Don to recognize his feelings of anger and stop and think before acting. Give him prompts for self-talk such as, "Stop and think." Take him through the steps of walking away from a scene when he feels angry. Teach him to say, "Get it together."
Text Reference: Self-Regulated Learning