July 2024 Post

July, 2024 Every Child’s Champion Blog

To listen to the podcast version, click here

Greetings, Children’s Champions! I have so many things to share with you! The first very exciting thing is that I recently was awarded a credential in Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health. This credential, provided through the Illinois Association for Infant Mental Health (the ILAIMH) allows me to expand my work and take on a much stronger focus on challenging behavior, social and emotional development and mental health in early childhood, whether I am doing consulting, training, coaching, or creating resources for teachers. Mental Health has always been a passion, but now I have more credentials to go with my passion!

This is my first blog in quite a while. I’m writing it in conjunction with the relaunch of the Every Child’s Champion podcast and the startup of the Every Child’s Champion Membership website. This project (the website) has been a long time coming. It’s something I’ve wanted to create actually for several years, and until now I was simply lacking the know-how for website building. But I have taken a leap of faith, and I’m working with a website builder who is helping me get it off the ground! I’m really excited! I am a creator at heart. My mind is always spinning, always analyzing, always dreaming. I absolutely LOVE creating child development – related games, activities, and tools for use in the PreK, Kdg, or Infant/Toddler classroom!

But as I’m sure you agree, we are in a really difficult time in our field. Between 2019 and 2024, a full 32% of early childhood teachers have left the field. 1/3 to ½ of teachers report that they plan to leave in the next two years.  

Challenging behaviors have been on the rise in our classrooms ever since the pandemic. Children’s    80% of teachers report that they are dealing with significant challenging behaviors in the classroom. Why is this??? Well, there are several conditions that have impacted the behaviors of our children.

Conditions affecting children, such as trauma, everyday stress, and parenting are the main factors involved with this dramatic increase in challenging behaviors.  Teacher Conditions such as burnout, your own state of mind, and inadequate supports are probably the top 3 factors that can drastically impact how you respond to challenging behaviors! How is technology – specifically tablets, phones, and video games – affecting the brains of our children? And how does PARENTS being on technology 24/7 affect their ability to parent??? These are the 90-million-dollar questions, in my opinion.

Well, even if we don’t know the actual brain structures being affected by all this stress, trauma, and technology, we can safely say that they are impacting parenting and impacting CHILDREN’S MENTAL HEALTH and BEHAVIORS.

This situation we are in, with so many more challenging behaviors, so much more teacher burnout, and so much more parental stress and dysfunction – I discuss all of the many factors that are creating the substantial teacher shortages as well as influencing so many challenging behaviors in my latest podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/686867/15368880 and all of these factors are WHY WE NEED THE “EVERY CHILD’S CHAMPION MEMBERSHIP WEBSITE” RIGHT NOW!!

I invite you to investigate whether you can benefit from becoming a member of the site, and obtaining access to core training, articles, preventive activities, tools, visuals, social stories, webinars, and even coaching (asynchronous or live) to help you with the challenges you’re facing every day in your classroom. If your school or center will purchase your membership, that is one way they can support you. If you need to purchase your own membership, try to use your local CCR&R or Early Learning Coalition funding to reimburse you. Membership tiers range from as little as $10 per month to a full $150 per month that includes live coaching sessions.

Watch an introductory video at www.everychildschampion.com to see how you can benefit! Follow along for my monthly blogs, podcasts, and access to free resources every month!! This is ALL ABOUT YOU and THE SUPPORT YOU NEED IN THE CLASSROOM.

I am here for you, and together we are going to make sure you and your students have a GREAT YEAR!!