A New Year’s Resolution!

As you gain experience with children you become an excellent intuitive thinker. That’s what gets you through the day! Ever wondered why you just know what to do when Johnny is pulling on one sleeve to get help with a puzzle and Suzy is pulling on the other to show off her painting? And Sally, across the room is shouting to get your attention? 

Intuitive thinking is on the spot decision-making. 

Without giving it a thought, you respond, “It looks like you need a red piece, Johnny. Can you find a red piece? Such lovely colors, Suzy. Can you name them? Let’s you and I go across the room to see what’s bothering Sally.”

With fellow staff, however, it’s something else. They can be so irritating. And after all, they’re not children. It takes more than intuitive thinking to manage a situation. With them you’re supposed to use reflective communication (explained in an earlier blog). It's hard to use reflective communication when you’re under high stress. Even when you know that it works, because, after all, it’s aim is to quiet things down and make everything OK again: reflective communication just takes too much time! So much faster to say, “Get over here, NOW!” than, “It really upsets me when you ignore my calls for help.”
 
There simply is NO TIME to fiddle around with polite language when everything is sped up, filled with commotion and bustle that requires your constant attention. .
 

How do you find time when there is no time?

You find time through prioritizing and commitment. With the children you have a bedrock commitment to prioritize their safety and the orderly management of the classroom. These things come first, above all else, every day. Even when you come to work feeling low you still have to think of the children. This is what prioritizing and commitment are all about.
 
You might think you take second place to them and that you don’t deserve such attention. But that’s not true. You are just as important as the children, maybe even more so, as they depend on you. And you depend on your fellow staff to create the kind of relationships that foster warmth and caring for the children. If you believe this, truly believe this, then prioritizing and committing yourself to positive staff relationships is a must.  

Here’s  a first step.
Prioritize and make a commitment to do a turn-around the next time you find yourself ready to make a sarcastic remark that is bound to hurt feelings, or the next time you hear your voice rise, or the next time you're about to give someone the evil eye.
 
Turn-around
I worked a lot with parents. One of their chief complaints was how to manage their own behavior during a temper tantrum. After going through all the child’s reasons for tantrums- tiredness, illness, unhappiness, disappointment, etc., making sure those were attended to-I gave them the fail safe solution:  TURN AROUND AND BREATHE DEEPLY. This tactic stops you from escalating the situation, making things worse and leaving behind hurt feelings that simmer throughout the day and keep you awake at night.

 
When you feel yourself rising up inside, ready to pounce on somebody: TURN AROUND AND BREATH DEEPLY.

When you have said or done something to offend another, TURN AROUND AND BREATHE DEEPLY. DO QUICK REPAIR WORK, IMMEDIATELY. 

It only takes a moment to apologize. That’s all. This small, but significant, effort creates a happier day for everyone. So make a New Year’s Resolution to prioritize and commit to doing a TURN AROUND with your fellow staff.
 

HAPPY NEW YEAR, EVERYONE!

Go to graceorenstein.com to check out my book.

 

Unspoken Rules of the Work Place

How the Unspoken Rules of the Workplace
Can Get Us into Trouble

Though we can keep our cool when we are calm and in control, in situations of high stress when we feel as though we’re hanging on by our finger nails we become irritable, we are less productive, we sometimes have memory loss, we tend to withdraw from our colleagues; we can even get sick. To exacerbate the situation still further, this state of bad stress is fraught with anxiety.  

Over time, without even thinking about it, we develop 

our own unspoken rules for managing stress. 

These rules are not written down for all to see, but operate at an unconscious level to keep the work place functional. We turn to them without thinking in order to govern our behavior and to control our inward panic and discomfort. And, to avoid conflict. We’re hardly aware of them until we take a moment to look carefully.           

Here are three rules that may be operating in your care giving environment, and how to deal with them. See if they ring true for you.

Rule No. 1:  “I won’t call you on your gossiping and complaining if you don’t call me on mine.”  Example: Sally is going on and on about how unfair the administrator is because she wouldn’t let her make a purchase for the classroom. She thinks the administrator is cutting corners because she’s miserly. You listen to her and offer sympathy, even though you are bothered by what she says and don’t agree with her.

Realize that when you listen to someone gossip or complain you perpetuate the cycle of gossiping and complaining.

Solution: Take responsibility for your behavior by not listening, but rather telling those who gossip and complain to go straight to the source. Learn to do the same when you find you have a complaint about a co-worker. 

Your first take on this solution might be that it is rude or inconsiderate to refuse to listen. But perpetuating the cycle of gossiping and complaining is worse. As the rumors spread seeds of disrespect and dissatisfaction grow, resentment builds, anger mounts. Better to stop the process at the beginning by refusing to participate. You might say: “Please, if you don’t mind, would you tell Mrs. Smith (the administrator) about this. I really can’t do anything to help you.”

Rule No. 2:  “I’ll tolerate your unprofessional behavior, that is, your poor attitude, your routinely being late to work and your cutting corners, because I understand what you’re going through.” Example: A staff member is repeatedly late because she is a single mom with two children and gets caught in traffic taking them to school. When the Head Teacher hears her story she feels sorry for her. She doesn’t feel she has a right to require that she be on time because of the difficult circumstances this staff member is enduring.

Realize that when you accept unprofessional behavior from your staff you pay the price with feelings of resentment and increased workload.

Solution: Request high standards of professional performance from your staff. Spend time helping your staff solve problems so they can achieve these standards. 

It may seem unfeeling to demand that this hard-pressed member of your staff be on time. You might think, “Oh, it’s just a few minutes. It’s selfish of me to be so upset.” However, not asking for what you want causes your frustration to mount. Stuffing your feelings doesn’t solve anything. Down the road you risk exploding at her in anger, a far worse reaction.  Better to nip her tardiness in the bud right at the beginning. Offering to problem solve with her about her situation is kind. During this process you may both discover that she really can’t fulfill the expectations of her job. In which case, she may have to leave. But you will have given her the time she deserves to make that decision on her own. Or, on the other hand, you may find a way, by putting your heads together, to help her to meet your expectations.

Rule No. 3: “I’m a forgiving person so it would be wrong of me to criticize you for not doing your job.” Example: A staff member is inefficient in cleaning up the classroom. This afternoon she left the painting area in a mess, the third time this week. You tell her not to worry; it’s no problem. We all make mistakes.

Realize that when you fail to hold a staff member accountable for her actions you lower the standards of behavior under your watch and violate your values of professionalism.

Solution: Get behind your own values of professionalism. Request your staff member to do her job as expected of her. Follow through by holding her accountable.

There are some things that shouldn’t be forgiven, and poor job performance is one of them. You are a person of responsibility. The quality of her work is a reflection on you. If you want a classroom that functions smoothly and efficiently you need to step in when necessary to establish the standards. But you can be kind about it: You could say, “Hello, Hilda. This is the third time in a row you’ve left the art area in a mess. I feel frustrated in the morning when I come into a dirty classroom. What can we do to make sure it doesn’t happen again?” Then, follow up by praising her when she does well. Or, by making a change if she doesn’t. 

By becoming conscious of these unspoken rules of the workplace you can deal with them directly. You can be clear and honest with your staff about your  expectations. And, you can be kind, by engaging them in a problem-solving process that supports their success on the job.

Reflective State of Mind

Knowing your stress style (and you may have more than one depending on the situation) is a first step towards communicating clearly with other adults. Your stress style tells you that something is troubling you. But before you can tell someone else what exactly is on your mind, you have to know yourself.

When emotionally overwhelmed by stress people may not be able to think about anything except the emotional experience they are having right then—they are unable to assess their experience, do a fact check, or examine their perspective. The emotional center of the brain (the limbic system) is clouding their thinking. And without careful thought they may say or do something they later regret.

At this moment a person can choose to go into a reflective state of mind. A reflective state of mind is quite the opposite of emotional immersion. Rather than feeling at the mercy of her emotions and unable to control them, she is in a reflective state of mind where she takes her feelings seriously, and thinks about them. They hold important information, that I call the nugget of gold, a value that has been slighted, perhaps. She is curious and open to her thoughts and feelings, to finding that nugget. She is not trying to push the emotional swirl away but is instead paying attention to it in a focused way to try to figure out what is upsetting her. And her brain helps her in this process. 

The reflective state of mind accesses the neocortex -- or executive functioning center -- of the brain. This part of the brain provides a person with the means to gain new knowledge and to find explanations for events that appear a first glance to be inexplicable, confusing, or difficult to understand. It can sift through fierce feelings, identify them, and eventually explain them. The executive function helps a person detach from the immediacy of her emotional turmoil and think more clearly about the situation and her own part in it.

You begin to activate your executive functioning center through self- reflection. Self-reflection at its best takes place in quiet, unrushed moments when you are undistracted by the events going on around you. To wonder about yourself and the emotions you are experiencing helps to create a reflective state of mind. In this state the first step is to be curious about yourself the way an explorer might be curious about what’s ahead around the next bend in the road. You’re in a process of discovery, only this time it is about you, self discovery. You have questions about yourself that you want answered. When are you most likely to end up in your stress style, immersed in your emotions? What do you feel and think then? How are you likely to behave? What are the emotional habits that get you into trouble or have an unintended result? And, most importantly, what is at the heart of your upset, that nugget of gold?

Here is an exercise to help you begin to access the executive function of your brain:

1. Imagine yourself in a very upsetting situation with a friend, a colleague, or a partner. Perhaps pick an ongoing conflict that you can easily bring to mind, something unresolved that always irritates or frustrates you.

2. Feel the tension enter your body as you dwell on this situation. Notice the way your emotions flare up. Perhaps certain images and  words appear with the emotions. Let yourself feel the discomfort of being at the mercy of these powerful feelings.

3. Notice your thoughts, too. What are you thinking? How are you blaming the other person or yourself?

4. Finally, imagine how you are likely to act from this state of emotional immersion. What might you do or say that you would later regret? How might you habitually react to these strong feelings?

5. Now close your eyes. Imagine that in your head, part of you is watching and listening to all of this with great curiosity. Perhaps you haven’t been aware of it until now because you have been caught up in your emotions. But it is there. To activate this more detached part of yourself, your executive functioning, use words to name your feelings. 

For example, you might be feeling any of these emotions, or others:

angry    frustrated    irritated    disgusted    annoyed

furious     discouraged     sad      impatient     scornful

ashamed     anxious     afraid     worried

6. After naming your feelings, identify your thoughts. When you are in this state of emotional immersion, what are you saying to yourself about yourself? about the other person? about the situation?  Don’t judge yourself for the thoughts you are thinking; just notice what they are.

7. What do you notice as you use words to understand yourself better? How is your emotional state changing? What is happening in your body?

If you are like most people, using words to name your emotions and identify what you are thinking gives you insight into a troubling situation. You might notice, for example , that as you think the words and see the pictures in your head you are becoming calmer. This is because you are no longer operating in the emotional part of  your brain, the part of the brain that was all stirred up. Now you are actually using a different part of the brain, the executive functioning center of the brain. It is this ability to reflect, to reason, to visualize, to understand, to plan that helps us take charge of our emotions.

   

And, you may discover your nugget of gold, the value that has been violated in the interaction with your colleague. If you make this discovery you will be able to calmly and objectively state it to her without generating hard feelings.           

Stress Styles, Children and You!

Children deal with stress in clever ways. When the parents who are supposed to protect them get angry, ignore them, are indifferent, or anxious they revert to certain strategies to stay close to them even though they appear dangerous.

Sometimes they play quietly so as not to disturb an angry parent. On the outside they look calm, but inside their hearts are pounding with fear.

They may sneak into another room, listening carefully and paying close attention to where the parent is and what the parent is doing.

They could get angry back, escalating a fight with the parent so that mom or dad will pay attention. Yes, the child may even make the parent more angry, but at least she gets that parent engaged.

Or, they could be especially charming, or obedient, trying to get on the parent’s good side so she’ll stay calm and protect her as he should.

We carry these coping styles into our adulthood.  
When relationships get tense, when we sense that something is not quite right, we revert back to these early childhood styles, which I now call stress styles.

What is a stress style? It is an unthinking fear response to distress that we learned in childhood that is triggered by tension filled moments in the present.
 
Let’s see if you recognize them.
Attacker When a stressful situation occurs, the Attacker is not hard to miss. The Attacker’s behavior is provocative -- often loud and blaming. This person will often interrupt an ongoing conversation and display anger, sarcasm, resentment and vengeful feelings. An Attacker might commonly say, “What’s wrong with you?,“ or “It’s all your fault!” It’s hard to believe that underneath all that bluster and bravado is fear.

Avoider The Avoider is often invisible during times of tension: she has fled the scene, either physically or emotionally. The Avoider’s preference for retreat leads to behaving in a non-confrontational manner during conflicts. As tension mounts, the Avoider -- who is growing increasingly anxious--will find an excuse to go to the kitchen to make coffee, or to the office to find a book -- anything to get out of the room. Fear has driven the flight response. An Avoider might commonly say, “I think I hear one of the kids waking up,” or use any possible excuse to move away from a situation where tensions are heating up.

Placater As nurturers many women are natural Placaters. When tension mounts, their fear will motivate them toward trying to keep the peace and calm everyone down; they want to make it all better. Their behavior is agreeable, pleasant, and non-confrontational. They may consent to do something they don’t want to do so others will be happy; as nurturers they think that their role is to please. A Placater might commonly ask, “How can I help out?,” or say “Let’s not start a fight.” Placaters usually get lots of positive strokes for their good deeds but one result of playing the role of Placater can lead to feeling used, at which point the Placater may turn into the Attacker, often stunning everyone with an unexpected outburst.

Complainer The Complainer lets off steam by being relentlessly critical of everyone and everything, often in the name of trying “to make things better.” However, even when a change is made, the complaints keep coming. In the guise of being helpful, a Complainer might ask innocently, “Wouldn’t it be better if we did . . .,” or say “That’s just not good enough.” The Complainer is never satisfied. It might be hard to believe that all that nit-picking is a response to the anxiety the complainer is feeling from the stress she is experiencing. However, it is not so unusual, when you think about it, that striving to make things perfect is one way of controlling fear.

Stalemater As you might expect, the Stalemater doesn’t do much. This individual expresses distress by refusing to be helpful. The Stalemater’s general mode of operation is to be nonchalant, indifferent, or unyielding. The Stalemater often exhibits an attitude of superiority, of being “above it all,” and might be heard to say: “I don’t see a problem,” or ask, “Why are you bothering me with this?”

Helpless One The Helpless One’s fear is immediately visible. This person does not hesitate to let others know that she is scared and unable to do the job. She needs to be rescued and often gratefully accepts overtures of assistance, usually from a Placater, who steps in to do her work in order to calm her down. A Helpless One might commonly say, “I don’t know what I’m going to do,” or “I can’t do anything right.”

You may wonder why these types of behavior that we developed in our early childhood still have a hold on us today. The reason is that they have a favored place in our brain stem where the flight or fight response is ready to jump to our defense. They worked very well back then so we automatically access them, even though we’ve outgrown them; even though they no longer work today. They hold a powerful sway, but we can take charge of them. My next blog will show you how.


Building Blocks for Reflective Communication: A Guide for Early Care and Education Professionals, by Grace Manning-Orenstein, Ph.D., is available from She Writes Press (www.shewritespress.com) or by contacting the author via snail-mail: 1563 Solano Ave., #546, Berkeley, CA 94707.