By Sheila Mulvenney, Schools Week, March 19, 2020
Even in normal times, the combination of overwhelming stress and lack of adults who can help them manage it can lead children and young people to be unable to regulate their behaviour. As partial closures begin, with schools responsible for supporting vulnerable children, we need to be aware that many of them may end up with reduced access to the very adults who help them to manage themselves. And this in the midst of a situation of prolonged, repeated and inescapable stress for the nation that is likely to be felt hardest by the most vulnerable among us.
It is important to remember that children as well as the adults trying to shield them from it will be suffering from the effects of stress, whether it is evident or not. While small doses of stress can be good for us (call them life’s “desirable difficulties”) resilience is really all about context.
Stress is an integral part of learning. In every class, we know that we have students who cope well with it and students who don’t. Those who don’t are likely either to be experiencing other stress in or outside of school, or to have experienced toxic stress, which can cause injury to the developing brain.
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