Who are you looking to for guidance right now for teaching during the pandemic?

Whether your program is open, opening, you’re teaching remotely or you’re still not sure yet as to what’s happening this Fall, if you’re like most early childhood professionals you are OVERWHELMED.

So many questions!

Not a lot of good or clear answers.

How do you…

Back in April I hosted a series of webinars.

One of the webinars was about providing remote teaching and support to young children and their families during Covid-19 school closures.

Another webinar was an early-days discussion of teaching - and using practical & FUN strategies to support yourself and young children during this wild and often difficult new world of the pandemic.

Both of them were panel discussions.

Both of them were FANTASTIC.

On those two webinars we certainly discussed strategies, strategies, strategies (I always like to keep it super practical) and worked to tackle some of the difficult day-to-day struggles you all are facing…

...and, interestingly, some of the feedback I got was that it was the more how-to-think-about-teaching-right-now ideas that were the most helpful.

So, since many of you recently responded to the survey I sent out to say that you needed help teaching during this unprecedented time I wanted to share my personal top take-aways from those two panel discussions with you…

To our essential ECE workers still out there in the field, today I’m writing for you.

Abbi Kruse, Director at The Playing Field, a center in Wisconsin, and creator of the group Essential not Expendable recently wrote something that I immediately knew I wanted to share with you.

I keep hearing from teachers who have recently found out that their schools or centers will be closed through the end of this school year (or until at least May/June for year-round programs).

So surreal and sad for those that won’t meet with their children in person again.

When programs initially closed a few weeks ago this was unimaginable.

Yet, here we are.

Which one of these sounds like you?

(If you’re not currently teaching - or you’re teaching remotely - due to Covid-19 closures read on - we’ll get to that, I promise! But you still might relate to some of these…)

An unreasonable idea that stalked me.

Then, it became an almost easy reality when I learned that a friend-of-a-friend specialized in helping people run online conferences.

Sometimes life's magic like that.

Is it going to get old if I keep asking you, “how you’re holding up?”

I’m so concerned about everyone. I hope you and your loved ones are safe and healthy. I’m thinking about you every day.

I want to share a few things today in an effort to be helpful - you can just skim to see what’s relevant for you.

A lot has happened in a week.

How are you holding up?

Also, *what's driving you nuts right now*?

For me I was in high gear and taking action until Sunday night and then *all the people* and *all the things* really started to BUG ME and *all the emotions* started bubbling up.

What if you felt complete confidence in your ability to connect with and support even the children who challenge you most?

Sure, sometimes it still seemed impossible to connect with certain children...but that didn’t discourage you in the least because you knew: this is normal too. So you didn’t let it make you feel bad and you kept persevering and eventually? CONNECTION!

What if instead of feeling like nothing you tried worked when it came to that child who throws chairs, kicks, spits, swears at you, or runs and hides you had tools that prevented the behavior at about 95% of the time…

...and the other 5% of the time...

3rd Annual Transform Challenging Behavior Online Conference

MAY 6-12, 2020

REGISTRATION OPENS: Wednesday April 8th.

You put it in your calendar, right!?

Last year we had over 24,000 early childhood professionals from around the world sign up.

Here’s a little more info...