Our children have spent the past two years living through a pandemic, sifting through experiences and learning the new “normal.”

Dr. Lindsey Murphy, associate professor in Missouri State University’s department of childhood education and family studies, has worked with children in crisis situations.

“In general, caregivers have been more stressed during the pandemic, balancing work, home life and health,” Murphy said.

“If caregivers stretch themselves too thin, there may be fewer quality interactions and less structure in the home. That can all have a significant impact on child development.”

But there is good news. Murphy notes that children can bounce back from difficulty easier than adults. Because children are still developing, they can be quite resilient.

Children feeling the effects

Distance learning, working from home and shelter in place can affect child development.

“The pandemic disrupted a lot of family routines,” Murphy said. “Most often, families are trying to get through the next hour or the next day.”

On the positive side, Murphy shares some families may have experienced more quality time together due to the pandemic.

“Some families are working from home and not commuting to and from work. This means they can have a longer family dinner together,” Murphy said. “There’s no universal impact in this situation.”

What we can do to help

While the chaos of pandemic life may seem inescapable, all is not lost.  Adults can help children through these trying times.

Murphy explains five things children need in stressful situations:

1. Safety – create predictability and limit media exposure. Respond to questions when asked with simple, age-appropriate honesty.
2. Regulation – give tight pressure hugs, rock in a rocking chair, massage or sing a song to help regulate the body with rhythm.
3. Connection – be present and make time to bond through a dance party, reading a book or having a family game night.
4. Efficacy – give opportunities for children to make others feel better. Encourage them to make a card for someone or help a neighbor in need.
5. Hope – make plans for the future and help children believe that things will get better.

When parents help children establish these basic coping skills, they have the tools to process the situation on their own terms. This helps children to develop resilience.

“Resilience is growing in the face of challenge and becoming a stronger, healthier version of yourself,” Murphy explained.

“A lot of times I see resilience in play settings. When children become playmakers, they can manipulate the experience. This allows them to gain control over something that could have felt overpowering at one point.”

It’s never too late to start early

Because crisis events are unpredictable, it is important to practice with children, so they have a set of skills to pull from during a crisis.

“It’s really hard to learn coping skills when you’re already under stress,” Murphy said.

“The sooner we start establishing the basics, the better children will be able to use these skills in the midst of crisis, and therefore the more effective they will be.”

Explore degrees in early childhood development

When students act out in classrooms, many schools deal with the disruptive behaviors through restraint and seclusion.

“Restraint restricts a child’s movement, while seclusion involves removing a child from the academic context,” said Dr. Reesha Adamson, a special education expert at Missouri State University. “Historically, our schools have underreported these incidents.”

While kids misbehaving in the classrooms isn’t unusual, it has been happening a lot more. One contributing factor is COVID-19 and the move to virtual instruction.

According to Adamson, an associate professor in the department of counseling, leadership and special education at Missouri State, schools often act as first responders, connecting kids with additional supports and services beyond educational needs.

During the pandemic, students lost that support system due to less time spent in the school environment.

“For kids already having issues, COVID provided a level of trauma to their lives that we haven’t experienced before,” Adamson said. “And when you think about trauma and how that manifests, it manifests sometimes in kids as that acting-out behavior.”

Preventing acting out in classrooms

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Preventing outbursts

The key to minimizing and preventing negative classroom behaviors is de-escalation.

“It’s trying to make sure a student never gets to that point where he or she is out of control and requires additional supports and interventions,” Adamson said.

De-escalation involves using the seven phases of a crisis cycle – calm, triggers, agitation, acceleration, peak, de-escalation and recovery – to individualize prevention and recovery strategies.

Understanding a child’s curve

While it’s common to think of the cycle as a bell curve – a student starts out calm, moves up to a peak phase and then gets back to recovery – the curve will look different for each child.

So, using techniques specific to each of the seven phases in the crisis cycle can help students minimize or avoid disruptive behaviors.

Adamson and her team have mapped out specific strategies at each phase within that cycle for teachers and school personnel to consider.

“For example, if a kid is calm, what should you be doing? You should be teaching because when kids are calm, they’re ready to learn,” Adamson said.

“You should be teaching not only academic pieces, but also practicing for what happens if. What happens if you do get upset? How could we try something different or go someplace different that maybe will limit getting higher on that escalation curve?”

Adamson adds it’s also important to help kids know their spot on the curve in moments of crisis.

“It involves getting them to think about physiological changes they may feel to know they’re getting escalated,” Adamson said. “So, it’s not only on the teacher’s part to say, ‘What can I be doing to support this kid,’ but also for that kid to know what I can be doing to support myself.”