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Social and Emotional Learning

A Toolkit for Students in Crisis

An elementary school assistant principal shares a few ideas for how to help students calm down
and regain self-control.
By Ryan Wheeler
March 9, 2017

© Shutterstock.com/Monkey Business Images

I’ve learned a few tricks over many years of working with emotionally reactive students—kids
who feel emotions intensely and have difficulty managing them. Each time I acquire a new skill,
I put it in my toolkit, my figurative database of different techniques to try in situations when
students are in crisis. These students do not yet possess self-regulation strategies to help
themselves, so my job is helping them out of the immediate moment. One technique does not
work for every student, so I take the pragmatic approach and just keep rolling through my toolkit
of tricks until I find one that’s effective.

Be Present

Students often act out because they’re not feeling seen or heard, so if I give them my complete
focus, they’re having that need met. I get a student’s attention first by using his or her name,
which communicates that I’m there to help. Eye contact is my first tool. I know this sounds
basic, but it’s essential. I’ve found that if I focus all of my attention on the student with my eyes
and convey a real sense of empathy, it begins to build a bridge of understanding. After saying
their name and catching their eye, I engage them in some dialogue.

The first strands of conversation are not particularly of consequence as I am merely trying to get
their mind off being flooded with negative emotions. Sometimes I ask a genuine question like,
“What is the matter?” and other times I try to distract with a completely unrelated comment like,
“Whoa! Is that the Millennium Falcon outside?” I have also been known to tell a silly joke as a
means of shaking a student out of a frustrated mindset.

Saying something that has absolutely nothing to do with the present moment may also be enough
to snap them out of their troubled state. I’ve used distraction in many ways to get a student’s
attention off of whatever or whoever made them furious and bring them back to a state of

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rational thinking. Once, I walked into a room where a student was holding a cadre of teachers at
bay at the side of the room by brandishing a shelf from a bookcase. After quickly surveying the
scene, I just said, “Hey what is that?” while pointing away from me. That second of distraction
was enough for the student to forget what he was doing, see my friendly face, and give me his
would-be weapon, and the crisis was resolved peacefully.

Rapport is the best remedy for any crisis situation. For this reason, I make a point of getting to
know the students with histories of being highly reactive. I like to think of this as building equity
in case a need arises. One day I was walking out to the recess field with my football and passed
the PE teacher. She politely asked what I was doing, and I replied, “I’m going to have some
positive experiences with kids.” She appreciated this response and understood immediately that
my laying the groundwork with positive interactions could pay off exponentially later on. And
playing with the kids is just fun, for them and me!

Use a Tactile Approach

A tactile approach can also be extremely useful. For a specific young autistic student, I bring a
small squishy soccer ball to any situation because simply handing him that ball is enough to quell
his anger. With another student I use hand squeezes that count down from five: I hold his hand in
mine as he holds my thumbs, then count five hand squeezes, and next he squeezes my thumb five
times. Then we do four squeezes each, working our way down to one in 30 seconds or less, and
the frustration abates. These tactile techniques can give students a safe and positive way to let
out their negative energy.

Practice Breathing

My favorite technique from my toolkit involves only breathing. Teaching a student how to breath
intentionally as a means of controlling emotions is one of the gifts I impart. I ask them to focus
on my eyes, and I teach hand signals to reduce verbalization and focus first on the act of
breathing. The hand signals are as follows: palms up to breathe in, palms out to hold the breath,
palms down to breathe out. We do no more than five total breaths, and the entire process takes
about 40 seconds.

I like teaching this technique because it can help promote emotional self-regulation and clear
thinking in any situation. Intentional breathing can be used to alleviate test-taking anxieties, to
center oneself before giving a presentation, to find a moment of peace before moving from one
thing to the next, or just to mindfully be present in the moment.

Emergency situations can be impactful for everyone involved: the student acting out, the staff
trying to help, and any student who witnesses the action. I arrive in these instances ready to use
my toolkit to help resolve problems as quickly as possible.

Our purpose is to help our students however they need, and guiding them to get their emotions
under control can be one of the most essential lessons we teach.