End of year contagion

con·ta·gious
/kənˈtājəs/ (of an emotion, feeling, or attitude) likely to spread to and affect others.

June 1st brings a new meaning to chaotic schedules in the education setting. As we prepare to wind down a school year, we fill the days with energetic, end-of-the-year events and nerve-wracking assessments. This welcomes a slew of feelings that can spike or drop at any given time...both for the educators, students and even our families.

If you don’t think that the stressful feelings of rush, rush, rush in our lives is being felt by our kiddos, think again. Dr. Dan Siegel (author of The Whole Brain Child, Mindful Brain and many more) has done extensive research to support the idea of emotional contagion-how one person’s emotional state impacts another. The end-of-year anxiety that we feel can be felt by our students and children. Their pops of relentless energy just may be a group response to the edginess that we feel as we scramble to fit everything in. (And we always do, don’t we? So what’s the use in worrying...)

The essential question: How can we keep the flow of our classroom (and home) calm, cool and collected through the end of the year chaos?

• Remain present and empathetic as we move through familiar and new events of the day.
  
• Take a few critical extra seconds to observe your students and their interactions. What emotions are they exhibiting? How can you connect to their feelings to help them feel more at ease?
  
• Pause, smile and laugh. Because remember, you are the core of your classroom culture (and home) and the feelings that you express can be contagious to those around you!
  
• At the end of the day, have the children close their eyes. Take their imaginations on a calm journey using the magic of your storytelling and voice.
  
• And don’t forget to make lists! That just might save your day…;-)
  

Happy last days of school! 

Fondly,
Christy Lynn

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