Today was a Day 4, which means that I have a prep period at the end of the day: it’s music. Since we don’t have a separate music room at our school, our music teacher comes to our classroom with a large cart of instruments and a traveling stereo to support many singing and dancing activities. During this period, I’m usually trying to upload documentation from our day, so I often sit over at our eating table to do so. I can’t help but watch the children as I work, and my teaching partner, Paula, often does the same. It was one of our observations today that inspired this post.
This music class is often a very loud and active one, and while the children love the regular songs and dances that they do each week, sometimes the noise and activity can feel overwhelming at the end of the day. Paula noted that there were three children today — one SK child and two JK children— that chose not to participate in all of the songs and dances.
- They sat back and watched. A couple of the children swayed along to the music, but did not stand up to dance.
- One child clapped along quietly, but chose to observe from the periphery.
- Another child decided to sit on the sofa, read a book, and write her own alphabet chart.
As Paula noted in our discussion, all three of these children self-regulated. They knew that the music program was too much for them at this time, and instead of getting actively involved, becoming dysregulated, and ending the day on a bad note, they all chose calmer options. They still enjoyed the songs. They still liked watching the dances. But they knew that they couldn’t partake successfully at this time of the day.
And as Paula and I celebrated the fact that all three of these young children knew what they needed, I had to wonder, would their choices from today always be seen in a positive light? None of these children complied with what was being expected. Our music teacher knew what they needed, and so supported their decisions, but is there a chance that they could have been questioned for not following the norm? I think back to many of my teaching experiences.
- Would I have seen these children as disrespectful or disobedient?
- Would I have said that they can’t self-regulate because they don’t follow instructions?
I wonder if this very scenario highlights the difference between self-regulation and self-control. How do we create classroom environments where we support self-regulation first? For I know that I could have insisted that any one of these three children join in on the music activity as the rest of the class did, but I guarantee you that they would not have ended the day as calmly as they did. They knew what they needed. Are we always ready to listen to them?
30 Comments
Je pense qu’a un certain point nous connaissons nos amis et a ce moment est ce que c’est plus facile de géré les amis et de dire ok toi c’est un besoin mais toi c’est un caprice
Thanks for your comment, Brigitte! Do you have an example or two to share to expand on your thinking. I would love to hear more.
Aviva
It is so true. Just because the children are not participating in what the educators are doing with the other children does not mean they are not regulating.
Thanks for your comment! I absolutely agree. I wonder how we can also support educators in seeing this, as it does seem contrary to what we might have thought or believed in the past. Any thoughts?
Aviva
The Children needed the rest and time for their selves. If forced to take part, most likely would have be a bad choice the children would have started to cry or worse. I think the three just wanted to watch for a bit. All of our classroom’s with 1or more special need’s student’s have a area to go when they need to self-regulate, or just be a lone. We always ask if we can join them, to talk. If the student wants to be a lone for a bit it’s ok, because we are in the same area to watch over them.
Thanks for your comment Yvette! I would love to hear more about your Self-Reg spaces. What do they include? How do children respond to them? It would be interesting to hear what others have also tried.
Aviva
We have a space for one child who is known to hit, he can go into fight or flight pretty fast, so he has a tent that has all his personal things such as his blanket, tablet, a little mattress. He knows to go there when he is becoming angry. plus he has an area with his desk and his EAs, his tent is within that space. All our areas are made into a space they can go into. We teach the other children the importance of their privacy for our special needs students. These lessons are taught when the EA does special projects with our special needs students. We teach the class when they are not present, so they don’t feel centered in anyway. Plus our staff take updated courses to help them deal with students in a better way.
Thanks for sharing this, Yvette! How do you find children responding to this? Have there ever been any difficulties, and if so, what did you do? I would love to hear more.
Aviva
This is key for me both in my past career as a music specialist, and as a mom of a neuro-divergent kiddo, learning how to cope in grade school with many challenges and distractions for his own self-regulation.
Visiting teachers can only assess children’s participation in that sliver of the day. For them, they must be ‘on’ all day in order to be exciting and engaging to try and include all the children. But sometimes it’s the quiet observers who take in the most from our lessons. They watch the whole of the situation, not just the content of what is presented, but how we have responded to their peers over time, and how different expectations shift for different activities. It’s extremely difficult in that kind of role to be able to see the whole child or the whole situation, so heads up from coworkers and parents is absolutely essential in order to respond well to the nuances of what different children may need during these kinds of activities.
Thanks for your comment, Aurora! Your last point made me think a lot about the value of relationships, and how we build these strong connections with parents, co-workers, and kids. What are some ways that you’ve done so? I’d love to hear more.
Aviva
I would not hesitate to think most would see this as a negative and not look
at the positive growth these children displayed
Hi Lesley! I hope so too. I just wonder if some would be concerned with them not joining the group and doing the activity. Thoughts?
Aviva
While some might see this as disobeying some will see it as much more positive way. Personally being their teacher I would be amazed seeing them so calm and self-regulated in a loud room. They were still attentive to what was going around, if they were to start talking, or disturbing the class then I might have a different perspective. But it is great to see kids who knows that in this moment, there is a class being taught but still find their safe place.
Thanks for the comment, Emmy! I think you make a great point that some people might view this differently than others. How might we change a perspective to help people more see this as Self-Reg? I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Aviva
In my context we have many students who struggle with specialist lesson: PE, Music and Art. All students have the opportunity to self regulate in their own way as these skills have been introduced and supported by all staff to enable the students to self redirect their learning and needs. For example, some students have head phones that block out minimal noise during music session or can sit in a safe space to hear and see the lesson unfold. When they are ready they may join an activity for 1-5mins then sit back in their safe space.
Thanks for sharing Cindy! I love how you are working through this “self” component of Self-Reg. How have you helped determine what works for your students and what role have they played in this? I would love to hear more.
It’s interesting to hear that these times tend to be the most stressful for students. I have often found the same. Why do you think this is? I wonder if figuring out this “why” would help more kids.
Aviva
Some teachers most definitely would see this as non-compliance and would insist the children join the group and the activity and may then create a confrontation and make the situation a lot worse. They may also see this as a stressful situation for them as they may put a lot of pressure on themselves to be able to complete the teaching to all of the students and may feel inadequate as a teacher if they couldn’t get 100% participation.
I most certainly would not, and would encourage students to participate when ready or provide an alternative activity to demonstrate the concept or suggest tools such as head phones for students finding it too loud.
Thanks so much for sharing, Tracey! What’s happened when you made similar choices. I would love to hear more.
Aviva
Yes! Many people assume that if a child isn’t actively participating, they aren’t engaged—but that’s not always true. As you and Paula noticed, these children were still connected to the music in their own way. They were making a choice that helped them stay calm instead of becoming overwhelmed.
Instead of seeing their actions as “not following the rules,” it’s important to recognize them as signs of self-awareness and self-regulation. When we honour these choices, we help children feel safe, respected, and in control of their own learning.
Thanks for your comment! I really love your second paragraph here. I wonder about other times in the classroom when children might be communicating the exact same thing.
Aviva
This example is perfect and really resonates with me as this is a daily struggle …..
when one educator out of three understands this it is very difficult.
Thanks for your comment, Cheryl! How do you think you might change perspective? I would love to hear more of your thoughts.
Aviva
As a daycare teacher, I feel that if I am trying to preform a dance activity, some of the children come over and dance dance dance. Some of the children chose to stay at the back of the dance party and kind of move their arms. While just a few chose to go one to the book center, sit with a book, but not look at the book, just hold onto it, and watch us dance.
I feel everyone in the room is getting the self regulation that they need, whether it is watching and learning from watching us play from a distance across the room or moving to the music slow and easy, or moving like a bunch of monkeys. There is no wrong way of learning. The children know what they need and learn from it.
Thanks for sharing this, Tracy! I love how open you are to what every child needs. Do you ever need to support students with making some of these choices? If so, what does this look like? I would love to hear more.
Aviva
Its true, if the children choose not to join in and participate, thats the choice they are making. It also doesn’t mean that they aren’t leaning. Its just their own path and oppourtunity of self regulating.
Thanks for sharing, Tracy! I wonder if at times they might be learning something else or ready to learn this content at another time. Thoughts? You remind me that Self-Reg needs to come first.
Aviva
My Grandson rarely sits in on circle time. He builds or is engaged in another activity. When I ask him what the others were doing he can tell me what they did and sing the songs. His way of staying regulated????
This is an interesting question, Ingrid. If he can learn in this way, is there a reason to stop this? I wonder what other students might also benefit.
Aviva
I believe that at the beginning of the year he was encourage to come and participate. I think they just gave up and accepted that that was him. Once they realised that he was learning they were more accepting but have expressed a concern for him next year when the expectation is to sit at a desk all day.
Hoping the next teacher understands self reg.
Thanks for sharing, Ingrid! It’s interesting how often there is a concern about the following year. I found this a lot as a kindergarten teacher. It actually inspired this blog post: https://self-reg.ca/a-self-reg-look-at-preparing-kids-is-it-time-to-change-the-conversation/. I wonder how we can shift this thinking around “preparing kids for the next year” instead of “preparing the next year for them.”
Aviva