Cool in School

I thought I would share with you this week an interesting article I read in the Scholastic Magazine for Teachers concerning bullying and childhood trauma. This magazine was started in 1920 and has been helping teachers and administrators in their jobs for almost 100 years. Scholastic launched “Keep your cool in School”, a company-wide campaign against violence and verbal abuse. Their hope with this campaign is to offer teachers, parents, and children the tools to identify, develop, and enhance core strengths.

Children’s Trauma and Core Strengths

Scholastic adopted these core strengths from Dr. Bruce Perry’s NMT approach to treating childhood trauma. Family Christian Counseling Center has two therapists who have been trained by Dr. Perry in the Neuro-sequential Model of Therapeutics.  The core strengths are:

  • ATTACHMENT: Being a Friend
  • SELF-REGULATION: Thinking Before You Act
  • AFFILLIATION: Joining In
  • AWARENESS: Thinking of Others
  • TOLERANCE: Accepting Differences
  • RESPECT: Respecting yourself and others

Scholastic reports that research shows when a child is violent, one or more of these core strengths did not develop normally. The child without these strengths will be in greater danger of becoming violent and less able to cope with bullies and other verbal or physical abuse. A child who does not develop these core strengths is a vulnerable child. Significantly, though, children with these core strengths rarely become violent and, in fact, recover more quickly when exposed to violence.

Core Strengths explained

Over the year 2018, Early Childhood Today (another magazine produced by Scholastic) is presenting six additional features, each focusing on one of the core strengths.

Scholastic writes that promoting a child’s emotional health is the most successful approach available to fighting violence. With our help, more children will grow up to be kind, thoughtful, and productive. If you would like to read more about the Center’s approach to treating childhood trauma please click on the link.

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