Here’s another one of many reasons why I love the Internet.
A week ago, I wrote up this little post on Instagram about how I’m constantly learning new things from my kiddos. How everyone thinks teachers are selfless and *give more than they take,* but the reality is that our kids give us more than we could ever imagine.
Anyway, long story short, someone commented and shared one of her own learning experiences. It’s had me reflecting on certain social thinking curriculum that I’ve used in the past with several of my students.
The Size of the Problem
“The Size of the Problem” is a common one that we use in the classroom. And, while I recognize the benefits of teaching kids appropriate reactions to specific events, I never stopped to think about how, in doing this, we may be invalidating their feelings which feel very, very real to them.
Her comment was, “My kids taught me to stop teaching ‘problem-size’ lessons. I’d done it for years, but this year a child told me that it made him feel like I didn’t ‘believe’ his feelings. Lightbulb moment. I realized I’d been invalidating the feelings of children who have been impacted by trauma and whose brains are wired to perceive small problems as threats. Now I simply focus on teaching how to self-calm, no matter what caused the big feelings.“
I’ve been thinking about my own groups of kiddos I’ve had over the course of my teaching journey.
One of the things that inspires me most about being around my little ones is how they find the biggest joy in the smallest of things.
We recognize (and even celebrate!) that these kids have big, BIG happy and joyful emotions about the small things. So we should also recognize that these big, BIG emotions will show up when things aren’t going so well. Even if the trigger is something as small as losing their pencil.
There’s something a little unsettling about having used the “Size of the Problem” and similar practices with my former kids. My kids who have experienced trauma. Kids who are set off by the smallest of things. Thinking back on it now, I feel a little icky. Replaying those moments of me saying, “Let’s look at that chart. Someone is sitting in your seat. Is that a small problem, a medium-sized problem, or a big problem?”
Yikes.
I recognize we’re all just learning as we go along. So I can’t fault the old me for using tactics and techniques that I thought were best at the time.
I guess that’s why we have to continue to learn and continue to connect and collaborate with others. So we are constantly developing ourselves so we can be the best for our kids.
I just love learning from other educators. And I’m grateful, yet again, for opportunities to connect with people who force me to critically think about my practice and how I can get better.
When kids are overwhelmed by big emotions, we don't need to label their trigger. We don't need to give it a size. We should share our calm and teach them how to self-regulate. Share on X
I couldn’t agree more with this post. We tend to think that any problem a child has is insignificant compared to an adult. In reality though a young mind has so much new information to process that even “small” things can be big deal to them in the moment. In addition, this advice is even applicable to our dealings with other adults since we tend to dismiss other peoples problems and focus on the magnitude of our own.
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Hello, I am an Occupational Therapist who has used this curriculum with children for years. The way to make sure we are teaching this without invalidating feelings is to let the children know that ALL their feelings are okay, no matter what AND that their problems will always feel much bigger to THEM because they are their problems. So I think it’s good to recognize that nuance.
I usually use an example from my own life, such as not receiving a package on time and discuss my feelings (feels medium) but then identifying what the size is really (small). It helps to draw in humor, such as pretending to call the police in response to a missed package, as it helps the children to understand that the emotional response can be put in perspective and therefore the feeling doesn’t feel so unmanageable. It’s just another tool in the toolbox for calming, vs. shaming.
I think that perspective taking (size of the problem) is useful as long as it’s used carefully, so as not to invalidate feelings but to provide a container and model for those feelings.
Anyway, I hope the author doesn’t mind me sharing this, I just wanted to share how I use this tool while being careful to respect children as the thoughtful beings that they are!
I really love this point of view on teaching size of the problem!
Problems can be big, medium or small. Feelings can also be big, medium and small, and feelings do not always match how the big/small the problem is..and that is ok. Recognizing the size of the problem would help them recognize when it can be solved by themselves or get other people involved,