Self-Care for Writers

My teaching background is the elementary panel so I found this article, Self Care for Graduate Students when Time and Energy are Tight, by dissertation coach Kathryn Peterson about stress in the graduate program fascinating.

I recently completed my doctorate and published a book, and could relate to some of the points in her article. Although our doctorate program didn't have the 'publish or perish' pressures, I agree with the author that working on a long-term writing project is like running a marathon. Writing can be stressful. It can take a physical and mental toll on your body and your energy.

Stressors can include:

• biological stressors: so much sitting - aching shoulders, creaky joints
• cognitive stressors: researching, reading, synthesizing so many articles and so much data; putting it all together in a coherent fashion

• emotional stressors: the review process.  You submit something you think is pretty darn good and it comes back with so many suggestions for revisions, and questions. It can feel a bit like a personal attack when someone 'attacks' your writing.

• prosocial and social stressors: the enormous amount of time and energy spent on a long-term writing project means less time for family and community. 

One of her suggestions is to write down five easy, low cost, short-term ideas for self-care on an index card and keep them in your bag or post them on a whiteboard in your workspace.  Then use them to restore balance and recharge energy when your tension is high and your energy is low.

Some suggestions for low cost, short term self-care include: a hot cup of tea, a walk outdoors, playing with a pet, holding hands with a loved one, reading a chapter in a non-work related book. 

I like the idea of having those strategies for refilling your energy tank posted on a whiteboard or written on an index card and carried in your bag.  When energy is low, it is so easy to revert to old habits like junk food, energy drinks, and mindless screen time. Having a strategy card readily at hand may help me to choose healthy strategies for restoring energy when my tank is low!

Empty fuel tank gauge image from: vectorstock.com/2807186

December Reflections

December is a time for reflection on the year past, and even though I'm retired, this has been an amazing year of professional growth and challenges. My OneWord for 2017 was 'stretch' and I vowed to stretch myself, personally and professionally, out of my comfort zone. I've continued to 'stretch' this year as well.

Rather than list all of them, I've selected four instances that pushed me out of my comfort zone professionally this year:

1. Finished my doctorate! I began this journey before I retired, knowing that I would need a continued intellectual challenge in my retirement. Boy, was it challenging!  But I did it - even though it was difficult and there were times when I wanted to quit, I did it!  Walking across the stage at Western's convocation and meeting all of my online classmates and professors in person was a real thrill. My doctoral work explored Enacting Self-regulation Expectations in Kindergarten Programs Using A Distributed Leadership Framework, and I have published a few articles based on this work. I hope to continue publishing in 2019.


2. Speaking of publishing, my book, Lab Class: Professional Learning Through Collaborative Inquiry and Student Observation became available in August 2018 and it was chosen as Learning Forward's Summer Book Club selection. What a thrill to hold a copy of it in my hands!  It is based on work that we did in our board, engaging as co-learners with educators using a collaborative inquiry approach to professional learning. Going through the publication process with the team at Corwin Press was exciting and scary at the same time - lots of revisions, lots of questions - but totally worth it in the end.

3. I was a guest on not one, but two podcasts on voicEd.com.  I'd never been on a podcast before, and they are kind of challenging.  You're talking with other people whom you can't see. I've read that over 90% of communication is non-verbal and in a podcast you don't have any of those visual cues - head nods, eye gaze, etc - to support the conversation. Luckily the others with whom I was chatting were very experienced podcasters and the hour flew by.  Thanks to Stephen Hurley & Doug Peterson for inviting me to join them on This Week In Ontario Edublogs, and to Stephen Hurley & Susan Hopkins for allowing me to join them on the Voices of Self-Regulation podcast.

4. I have presented at lots of conferences over the years, both locally and provincially, but this year I pushed myself out of my comfort zone and did something different.  Instead of presenting a workshop, I facilitated a conversation which is much more open and fluid.  And, to make it even more challenging, it wasn't at a Kindergarten conference or a self-reg conference (which are my strengths) but at the Bringing IT Together Conference, which is a technology focused conference with lots of intermediate and secondary teachers. I was worried that no one would attend my session, or that the people who did attend wouldn't have much to say.  I needn't have worried - I had a great group and they engaged in a very fulsome conversation.

Here's hoping that 2019 offers many more opportunities to continue to stretch and grow!


Thanks to Lynn Thomas for inspiring this blog post, and to Doug Peterson who posted the link to her blog in This Week in Ontario Edublogs.  I always get so inspired by the blogs he shares!

Self-Regulation and Art

Image from Surrealistic Reality

Each person has different strategies for restoring their energy and their sense of calm after dealing with or even while dealing with stress. Earlier this month, I wrote about exercise as one of my go-to strategies.

This image popped up on a social media feed today and I was reminded of how we can use the arts for self-regulation. The arts can encompass a wide range of activities - drawing, sketching, painting, sculpture, music, fabric arts, writing, singing, composing music even culinary arts. 

For some people, it is restorative to create art while others are restored by listening to music, reading poetry, or viewing art. 

One stumbling block for me was the idea that art had to produce something and the something I produced had to be 'good.'  Instead of reducing stress, this mindset made art more stressful for me. As a kindergarten teacher, I was a firm believer in the importance of process over product. It was all about allowing students to explore different media and being expressive. So why wasn't I able to grant myself the same permission to focus on exploration instead of focusing on the final product? 

There are a number of very creative, artistic people in my family who create beautiful art that they can display in their home or give as a gift.  I had to stop comparing my artistic efforts to theirs, and turn off the voice in my head that said, "You're not good at art."  Gradually I began to enjoy the process again.  Now I like doodling in my bullet journal, putzing about with paint, writing poetry, and other creative endeavours for their own sake and not as a means to an end. Drawing, painting, and writing are tools I have added to my self-regulation toolbox.

Do you use the arts as a stress reducing strategy? 

What arts do you like to use to reduce stress?

Do you enjoy the process and/or the product?

Running & Self-Regulation

It was cold today.
And a little bit windy.
There was rain in the forecast.
I am coming down with a cold.
I have a sore throat.
My sinuses are stuffy.

But I put all these excuses aside, got on my cold weather running gear, and went out for a leisurely 5K run late this afternoon.  Not pushing myself to go fast, just putting in some miles.

I ran a half marathon last weekend - over a week ago - and haven't run since.  It was time.

Part of this is willpower.  I pushed myself to put on my running gear and get out the door.

Part of this is self-regulation. I know that running makes me feel better.  It's a great stress reliever. I feel strong and healthy after a run. There are nights when I think I'm too tired to run, and yet after my run I feel energized.

As the weather turns colder, I will keep running a few times a week - just as long as the roads aren't icy.  And then it will be time to switch to the gym for my fitness fix.

Do you exercise to reduce stress?  
What is your go-to exercise? 

From Quotefancy.com

Make It Happen

Doug Peterson's recent blog post pointed me in the direction of a blog by George Couros in which George shared a flow chart for making initiatives happen:

He proposes four steps to make things happen:
1. Identify what you want to do
2. Find someone else who is doing it and learn from them.
3. If number two doesn't work, figure out how to make it happen yourself.
And most importantly:
4. Want to make it happen.


Doug proposed an even simpler flow chart:

I'm sure that there are people who will say, "Yes but......"

I get that this flow chart is perhaps an oversimplification.  But that's a good thing! If we want to make things happen, then we may have to stop making them overcomplicated.  Not every change requires a task force, a committee, a feasibility study.  Sometimes, to make things happen, you just need a person or a group of people who are 100% committed to making it happen. 

Yes, we need to think about barriers and issues, and there may be policies and procedures that we have to follow, but we don't always have to wait until an idea has been examined from every possible angle, with every 't' crossed and every 'i' dotted, before proceeding. 

Here's one small example:

A grade 6 teacher had a class with many students who seemed to have great difficulty in paying attention in class. They were fidgeting, with a myriad of excuses for getting up - sharpening their pencils, getting a drink, borrowing an eraser from a friend, etc.  After checking with her principal, she used some classroom funds to purchase three large yoga balls for alternate seating.  She discussed the purpose of the yoga balls with the class - they were to help them learn, not for playing. The teacher and the students devised a schedule - the day was divided into three 100 minute blocks so every 100 minutes, three different students could have a turn using the yoga ball as a seat. Students were free to pass, if they didn't want a turn.

The impact on student learning was immediate. Students who were formerly 'wanderers' were now able to stay focused. And students who had been quiet and not participating began to participate when they were sitting on the yoga balls.  It seemed the yoga ball seats helped down-regulate some students and up-regulate others.

After about six weeks, the students wrote to the principal, advocating for funds for more yoga balls and explaining how the yoga balls had impacted their ability to learn. 

This teacher saw a need, she figured out what she thought would be best for her learners, and she made it happen.

Restoration & Resilience

Yesterday I had the honour of being invited to join Doug Peterson (@dougpete) and Stephen Hurley (@Stephen_Hurley) for their weekly podcast This Week In Ontario Edublog (#twioe) on VoicEdRadio (@voicEdRadio). It was great conversation and we talked about a wide range of topics from county fairs, self-regulation, educational leadership, and grades versus feedback. But just like a job interview, about an hour afterwards I thought of MUCH better answers to some of their questions. I messaged Doug and he said, Yeah that happens a lot.  Why don't you write a blog post with what you wished you said?

My biggest 'woulda, coulda, shoulda' moment was in regard to Stephen's comment about dealing with stress that he experienced as a result of dealing with technical issues at the Self-Regulation Summer Symposium. Now I was at the symposium and I would have never guessed that anything was going wrong; Stephen looked calm and in control at all times. But, apparently, behind the scenes there were multiple technical glitches.

Afterwards I thought, that was a perfect opportunity to talk about Restoration and Resilience.While we can reduce stressors as much as possible, there will still be some days or moments that are more stressful than we expected. Even at the Self-Reg Symposium there is going to be stress. We need to know what helps us to restore our energy after dealing with stress.  This can vary from person to person. At the summer symposium, they had a wide range of activities available for participants to use to restore energy after a busy day of learning

• knitting stations
• jigsaw puzzles
• make your own stress ball station
• colouring books
• bikes
• kayaks and canoes
• yoga
• zumba
• board games

Other people might have restored their energy by going for a walk or reading quietly in their room.

So if I had a 'do-over' I'd ask Stephen what strategies he used to restore his energy and get back to calm so that he was ready to tackle whatever stressors the next day at SRSS2018 might throw his way.

Two great examples of how what restores us varies from person to person:

Baths - There are lots of people who relax by having a bath. Since the time they were little, my girls love 'spa bath' - we'd float rose petals from the garden in the water, dim the lights, put on soft music  and they'd relax in the tub forever. In my self-reg course, lots of people said they relaxed by taking a bath. I don't find baths relaxing. I'm just bored.  And I sit in the tub and wonder how other people find this relaxing. And why doesn't this work for me?

Massage - I love massage and find it very relaxing.  Other people can't stand going for a massage - they hate the weird music, they don't like having to lay still, they don't want someone else touching them. Not only do they not find it relaxing, some actually find it stressful. There are the physical stressors of touch and sound and scent but it's also stressful because there's a social stressor because you're supposed to be enjoying this and relaxing and why aren't you? 

We each have to discover what helps us to restore our energy, knowing that works for someone else may not work for us. And what works one day for us may not work another day - that's why it's important to have a range of restoration strategies. What are your strategies?

The First Follower

Often when people learn about self-regulation, they begin this journey with a goal of helping others – students in their class, their own children – but what ends up happening is that self-reg impacts their own life as well. When we start to see others with soft eyes, we turn that same lens on ourselves.  Instead of chastising our own lack of self-control and willpower, we ask ourselves “Why this behaviour and why now?”

And once we realize what a profound impact self-regulation is having on our lives and our relationships with others, we want to share self-reg with everyone!!! Principals want to share it with their staff, teachers want to share it with colleagues and parents want to share it with other parents.

At the Self-Regulation Summer Symposium, Catherin Lethbridge spoke about this during her presentation: “From a single tweet to system-wide implementation….lessons learned.”  In her work as a school administrator, she fundamentally believed that the well-being of students is directly linked to the well-being of the adults in the building. She knew that if self-regulation was to take hold in her school (and later across the entire district) that she had to begin with the adults. Adults are the ones who help students by co-regulating, and you can’t help someone else if you are dysregulated yourself.

But she also knew that to shift the paradigm from behaviour management to self-regulation, she had to issue an invitation, not a demand. She believed that this type of paradigm shift would occur, not as the result of a top-down mandate, but by creating a group of people who willing to join in the learning.

Catherin shared this video of The First Follower: Leadership Lessons from Dancing Guy to illustrate her point:

As a leader who is looking to share a vision, whether that vision is self-regulation, inquiry based learning, or some other shift in thinking and practice, we don’t need management to mandate everyone on board.  Mandates often lead to superficial implementation, not long-lasting, deep implementation. We need to create invitations and find those first followers, who will then help to create a space where others feel safe to join.

When our board introduced Interactive White Boards many years ago, we began with four primary teachers who didn't have a lot of technology experience but who accepted an invitation to be part of this project. Initially they received support from Doug Peterson, myself and other members of our program department, but quickly they took ownership of their own professional learning. Just like the self-reg learners, these four teachers, our first followers, became advocates and started offering workshops in our board and across the region to share their enthusiasm about IWBs as a powerful teaching and learning tool.

Think about your vision for change. Who are the people inside and outside of your school, your community or your organization?  How are they engaged in the work? Might some of them be your first followers?

Shopping at Sephora: Stressor or So Much Fun?

We talk a lot in self-reg about how what is stressful for one person may not be stressful for another person. My shopping excursion this afternoon was a perfect example.

I have two daughters.
Eldest daughter, 28 years old (D28) loves to shop. Clothes, shoes, purses, makeup, housewares, whatever. She loves to shop and she's good at it. She has can walk into any store and zero in on great deals and beautiful items instantly.

Youngest daughter, 26 years old (D26) doesn't like shopping unless necessary. When she was a kid (and sometimes even now) she'd say, "just hold it up to me. It probably fits."

I'm somewhere in the middle.  I don't like shopping but will go if I have to. I'll try clothes on in two or three stores and then I start to lose energy and enthusiasm.

For the past many years I've been wearing the same makeup. When I run out, I just buy the exact same thing. I knew it was time for something new, so when D26 and I were on a trip to Tokyo in April, I threw out my almost worn out eyeshadow and vowed to buy something new when I got home.

Then I procrastinated. I don't want to shop for makeup. Since I'm retired and don't go out much, I got away with it. But I have D26's graduation this week and a birthday celebration next week so today I decided to buy makeup. And I went to Sephora for the first time.  Oh My Gosh.  So much make up.

I texted my girls.

And that's when I made the self-reg connection.  One finds shopping stressful; one finds it pleasurable.

At this point, I decide to reduce my stress by narrowing the selection down to one brand, Sephora, and finding a salesperson to help me.  While she's talking to me, my cell phone is constantly pinging as D28 excitedly texts me with suggestions.  If she didn't work so many hours, I definitely would have brought her with me. Luckily the salesperson was very sweet and helpful.  In my head, I'm convinced she was thinking, "It's just eye shadow. Pick one already. You're still going to look old." But she patiently showed me about six different shades, all on her hand. I'm not going to wear it on my hand, but I didn't want to seem ungrateful so I just kept nodding.

This is probably the highlight of D28's day or at least a fun break from work.  I chose two fairly neutral colours (Romantic Comedy and Lucky Penny, FYI), paid for my purchase and got out. I guess this counts as a successful shopping trip. I didn't walk out and leave the store empty-handed. I got what I needed. But this is definitely more stress than fun for me. Next time, I'll just send D28 to shop for me. She'll love it! 

As teachers, we need to consider that what is fun for one student may be stressful for others - gym class, assemblies, field trips, special events.  If someone complains that the noise level is too loud and it is creating stress for them, then it is creating stress for them even if you may find the noise level not a stress at all.  Each of us is unique and our stressors are unique too.  

This is then further complicated by the reality that what is stressful one day when we have a lot of other stressors in our lives, may not be stressful on another day and vice versa.  As a parent or a teacher, this can be frustrating when what was an enjoyable activity one day is now stressful another day. Going back to my Sephora shopping trip, if I had already had to deal with a number of stressors on the day of my shopping trip, I would have probably just walked out of the store and had to return another day. 

Class lists - Reframing 'that' child

As the school year winds down, the discussions in the staff room begin in earnest about who has what teaching assignment next year and what students are on which class list.  And, unfortunately, you may sometimes hear talk about who is going to have 'that child' in their class.  The child with the challenging behaviours; the child who hits, or kicks or misses so much school that their learning is fragmented at best. Aviva Dunsiger wrote a blog in September 2017 that you may wish to share that asks us to reframe 'that child.'

Aviva says: This student is doing the very best job that he/she can. This student — like all students — deserves a positive space in the classroom. At one time or another, any child can be “that child”, and every child needs to know that he or she has the additional love and support to make it through a challenging time. 

A former principal said of Aviva's blog, This is one of my favorites. I have shared this with former colleagues in the past. “That child” was the reason I took the Foundations course in the first place. I knew there was something I was missing; something he needed that I wasn’t giving him. This would make an awesome staff meeting discussion starter.

Years ago, I went to visit a very experienced kindergarten teacher and she had a student with some really challenging behaviours in her class.  As I watched him, she said to me, "He's making me a better teacher." She was reframing his behaviour which made it a positive experience not only for the student but for her as well.

As you and your colleagues consider your class lists for next year, think about how you might reframe 'that child.'

Self-Reg and Aging

While I began my self-reg journey from the perspective of an educator, thinking about how self-reg could help students to achieve their fullest potential, I quickly realized that self-reg begins with the self - with me and my own self-regulation. Yesterday, I used self-reg from the perspective of a daughter during a visit to my dad.

Last week, my husband took a week off from work and we spent the entire week in London getting his condo ready to sell.  He lived in it for a few years when he was working in the city, then he had tenants in it for a few years and, for the past three years our girls have lived in it while they attended post-secondary school.  Like most renovations, it is taking longer than we anticipated and we are doing most of the work ourselves - ripping out carpeting, installing laminate floors, removing panelling in the basement and putting up dry wall. Needless to say, there were lots of stressors as we worked together on this project each day and then collapsed into bed each night.

At our own home, we are still returning to normal after a flood while I was away on vacation two weeks ago. The interior of our home is fine, but the garage is filled with all of the seasonal decorations that were salvaged and scrubbed clean after the crawlspace beneath the house filled with lake water. Unfortunately, there was also the emotional stress of losing many holiday decorations - my grandmother's ornaments that hung on her tree and now ours, decorations the girls had made when they were younger, ornaments that we had picked up on our travels - all were ruined and discarded.

I usually go to visit my dad twice a week to help with his banking, run personal errands and just chat about what's happening with folks we know. My dad is dealing with his own stressors that come with aging. He decided to move to a retirement home last fall, and while he chose a lovely place, it's not the same as being at home. The challenges of having to be dependent on others for so many things, especially since he decided to stop driving last fall. He still reels from the loss of my mom (12 years younger and always so much healthier than him), and the physical challenges of aging.

Yesterday as I was preparing to leave, I knew that I had to stop for a moment and restore some of my own calmness.  If I was to bring all the stress and tension I was carrying with me to my visit with him, it would only add to the stress and tension he is already feeling.  By making a conscious effort to approach this visit with compassion and empathy, as well as taking the time to return to a place on the Thayer Matrix of less tension and more energy, I was able to arrive at his retirement home relaxed and calm - even after encountering 3 different construction projects on the road during my short drive!

As an educator and a consultant, I used this same tool. Whether heading into a classroom of kindergarten children or an auditorium of educators gathered for a professional learning session, I needed to take time to reflect on my own energy and tension before beginning my work with others.

Just as I was about to post this blog on Twitter, I saw that Stuart Shanker has shared this quote:

And I responded:

And in another instance of serendipity, I found Nancy Niessen's blog post: Reframing is Ageless yesterday when I was reflecting on this link with self-regulation and my dad.