Educators need to be informed about the latest trauma research and the neuroscience of behavior.  So many of the approaches that are used in schools are actually triggering to neurodivergent children who are navigating a neurotypical world and to those who are living with the impacts of trauma.  

If we want our classrooms to be safe places for everybody, then we need to create nurturing environments where everyone experiences a sense of felt safety.  Felt safety is an individual experience of security and the absence of threat to our physical, social, emotional and psychological wellbeing.  we all deserve this!

So many times, school discipline systems are supportive to kids when they are having a good day, but leave them feeling abandoned and misunderstood on their worst days, when they most desperately need connection and co-regulation.  We need to love and support kids unconditionally.

Many school discipline systems put all of the responsibility to fix a difficult situation on the shoulders of the students who is having a hard time and often lacking the resources to meet the demands of the situation they find themselves in.  In equitable situations, student voices are important, everyone gets their needs met, and those with the most power and resources take on the most responsibility.

Relationships are the most important thing.  They are more important than getting assignments completed and cleaning up messes.  It is on the foundations of stable, trusting relationships that our children with learn the most, build resilience, and flourish (and build the capacity to complete assignments and clean up messes).  Building stable relationships takes time, and it's worth every minute!

Many of our children who are viewed as the most challenging don't feel wanted in school.  Imagine an environment where children are taught to view differences as strengths and to cherish every classmate for their own unique characteristics. Children learn from our example, they feel our energy through our affect, and they reflect it back at one another.  Inclusive environments start with our beliefs.