How To Start The Mental Health Conversation Young With Conscious Discipline
Soraya De La Oliva
As well as being an intern here at Robbie’s Hope, I work as an assistant teacher in the toddler classroom at The Big Red Barn Early Learning Center. At The Big Red Barn, we incorporate conscious discipline into our curriculum and everyday activities. Conscious Discipline is a learning program founded by Dr. Becky Bailey that focuses on social and emotional development. Although it was created for classrooms, its practices can be utilized by anyone at any age. Through my Conscious Discipline training and work at Robbie’s Hope, I have learned so much about taking care of mental well-being and how important it is to every other aspect of life.
What is conscious discipline?
Conscious discipline is a trauma-informed, psychology-based, and evidence-based learning approach certified by the SAMHSA National Registry of Evidence-based Programs and Practices. Conscious Discipline utilizes the Brain State Model as a basis to better demonstrate how the mental state of a person affects their behavior. It outlines why we need to feel safe before we can feel loved, and why we need to feel loved before we can learn. Conscious Discipline also focuses on the act of self-regulation which applies to both the student and the teacher. Thinking about the “why” behind built up emotions can help resolve them using self-regulation; kids, however, need our help in understanding what they are feeling. Overall, this approach helps kids and adults take a step back and look at the bigger picture. From the moment you are born, safety and love are the most important factors in your survival. As we grow up, that feeling of safety and love allows us to not only have the security to make mistakes, but the motivation to learn from them as well. With strong emotional intelligence, resilience and curiosity thrive, allowing for a smooth processing of new information. Research conducted has shown that implementing a Conscious Discipline curriculum improves social and emotional skills, academic readiness, academic achievement, quality of interactions, and school/home climate while decreasing aggression and impulsivity. Learn more at consciousdiscipline.com.
How does conscious discipline relate to mental health and how can we incorporate it into our daily lives?
Since conscious discipline is based on psychology, many of the practices specifically work to prevent the roots of most mental illnesses and maintain healthy and close relationships. Not only that, but it helps us learn to express our emotions in healthy ways, set personal boundaries, and achieve goals despite obstacles. Conscious Discipline allows us to take the extreme reactions from children and analyze the emotions behind them, helping us conclude general triggers in kids and the best ways of approaching these situations. As you may recognize from the brain state model, triggers typically come from not feeling safe or loved. These feelings in general are the main cause of most emotional outbursts, especially in young kids. A constant feeling of lack of love or safety can cause lasting anxiety and depression and hinder learning abilities. Humans typically take a while to warm up to new people and environments as we have to build up our security before we can move out of our comfort zone. That’s why it is so important to make sure kids grow up with a strong sense of love and safety; it lays down a strong foundation for individual thinking. If we don’t feel loved unconditionally, we may feel too vulnerable to explore our individual personalities and opinions. If we don’t feel safe, we may feel too scared to explore our surroundings and curiosities. Though Conscious Discipline is used to work through the extreme reactions of kids, what is revealed about the vulnerability and insecurity felt in that moment is true for all ages. The older we get, the better we are at ignoring these conflicting feelings, while as a child, we can barely sit still with them. Conscious Discipline helps create the habit of communicating how you feel and knowing that your emotions are valid. By providing ways to recognize how you feel, communicate how you feel, and ask for help early on, you are eliminating the main barrier faced in youth mental health struggles. Normalize talking about emotions and how to deal with them, as well as building healthy relationships with your feelings.
Learn more about suicide prevention and teen mental health at robbies-hope.com!
