How To Help Kids In Poverty Adjust To The Stability Of School After Break Faculty Affiliate Ross Thompson quoted at NPR
National Public Radio, January 7, 2016
The first day back from winter break can be restless.
Many children are still coming down from the excitement of the
holidays. Two unstructured weeks away from school — with strange
food, rituals and relatives — can be overwhelming for many
children, especially when it grinds to a halt after the new year
and normality resumes.
But for students whose families are struggling in poverty, time
away from school isn’t an exciting blip on an otherwise calm
school year. For them, it can be a crippling time of insecurity
when it comes to food and shelter.
Chronic stress can inhibit a child’s ability to manage his or her
behavior, says Ross Thompson, a University of California, Davis
professor who studies child social-emotional development. It can
also affect language and memory skills.
Children — regardless of home life — manage behavior by
predicting their environment, Thompson says. After an
unpredictable winter break, teachers need to give students room
to ease back into school — and this might be harder for those
from chronically stressful homes.
“Expecting that young children are going to be capable of sitting
in circle time is probably not the best expectation,” says
Thompson, who added that shortening time spent sitting still and
adding more active lessons into the day might ease students back
into the school routine.
