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This One Change Could Change Everything

Whilst some would say that technology has made us more connected than ever, the authors of my new favourite book argue that we are more disconnected than ever.

“The next time you call a kid ‘attention seeking,’ change it to ‘connection seeking’ and see how your perspective changes.”

This is one of the key messages from Jody Carrington and Laurie McIntosh in Teachers These Days.

According to the authors, the most important thing you will ever teach a child is emotional regulation. The skill to regulate emotion is the foundation to every other skill that matters in a child’s life. They argue that understanding this concept will change the way you teach, lead and love.

They argue that no one is born with the capacity to regulate emotion well. We have to be shown how to do it. The only way – and they repeat, the only way – you can learn emotional regulation is for somebody to show you how to do it. They can’t tell you, you can’t practise it when you are calm and hope to have access to it when you are distressed. Learning emotional regulation requires someone to show you how to do it, again and again, until you start to take on that skill yourself.

Changing our view of students who ‘flip their lids’ from being attention seeking to connection seeking can be a game changer and is well worth pursuing.

This book challenged my thinking and is well worth the read.

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