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When Teachers Face Themselves: Managing our Emotions when Children Seek Attention

by Tamar Jacobson
September/October 2018
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Article Link: http://exchangepress.com/article/when-teachers-face-themselves-managing-our-emotions-when-children-seek-attention/5024335/

Not only are warm and supportive teacher-child relationships associated with higher levels of social and emotional competence, greater receptivity to the school setting, and better reasoning skills that result in higher achievement during school years, but there are indications that these important relationships can also play a part in buffering the adverse effects of stress on the developing brain (Lesley Koplow, 2007. Page xvi).

“This is one aspect of teaching that I hadn’t thought of until now—the emotional power teachers have over children,” Colleen (undergraduate student) (Jacobson, 2008).

Early one morning, at the conclusion of a national conference, I shared a taxi to the airport with another early childhood teacher educator. We talked about what I would be writing about in my next book. I shared that it was about how teachers’ emotions affect their interactions with children, and especially with what they considered challenging behaviors. She was silent for a moment and then said reflectively, “I often think that people who work with young children have been emotionally wounded when they were children themselves. It is almost as if they have chosen the profession of early care and education because of that.”

I thought about what she said and recognized that through the ...

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