Preschool Educators

Supporting a Preschooler

At the preschool age, preschoolers are limited in their ability to understand things that are happening around them and to express their feelings and needs. Hence, after a potentially traumatic event, preschoolers need protective adults to observe any changes in their behaviour, feelings or body (e.g. aches, pains), and help them understand their emotions and develop coping (i.e. self-regulation) skills.

Besides home, school is the other place where children spend a large part of their time in. Therefore, as an educator, you play an important role in supporting preschool children through such difficult periods in their lives. Here are some things an Educator can do:

Creating a Safe Environment

When children who are exposed to trauma perceive that they are physically and emotionally safe in an environment, their brains are less likely to remain vigilant to potential sources of danger or threat. This means that they will have greater capacity to learn and regulate their behaviour and emotions. Here are some things that you can do to create a safe environment in school for children exposed to traumatic events:

Develop or resume consistent routines and structure

• Maintaining and resuming normal and regular routines at school helps to reduce stress for children and increases a sense of predictability and safety. These include start of school day, meals and nap, circle time, and packing up routines
• Some children may require some temporary accommodations to help them get back into the routine. This can include accompanying and scaffolding the child to re-join a peer group during play time until the child is comfortable to play with others independently
• Having structures in place for children to know what to do or where to place items. These include the use of visual schedules, and clear labels for different activity areas (e.g. circle time, play corner)

Offer choices within regular routines, when appropriate

• Often, traumatic events involve chaos and a loss of control. You can help children regain a sense of control and feel safe by providing them with choices or control when appropriate. This could look like choosing which play activity they would like to do during play time, or choosing the paper colour to use during art activity

Provide time and space for self-regulation

• Creating a designated safe space for children to take breaks when emotions become overwhelming, can be helpful to support children’s regulation within the classroom. The safe space can be demarcated in various ways (e.g. use mats, tape, have a beanbag or rug, table or chair). You may also consider creating a calming kit or bag with age-appropriate calming items (e.g. soft toys, cushions, books, bubbles/windmills, stress balls) that is placed in the area
• Set structure and consistency for regulation breaks and use of the safe space. For example, write or draw up a break routine for children so that they know what to do. This can look like:
  • Set the timer for break time
  • Use the “calming box/kit” to do a calming down activity
  • Timer beeps. Check how I feel
  • Join class if ready. Ask teacher for more time if not ready

Note that the routines and use of the safe space has to be practised with children when they are in a calm state, so that when children are overwhelmed by strong emotions, they may be better able to use the safe space, while guided by an adult.

Read more about creating safe spaces here:

• Providing safe spaces in preschool classroom
• Steps to consider in creating a safe space in classroom

Consider possible environmental triggers

Sometimes, features in the environment that previously did not cause distress may now become a reminder to the traumatised child of the traumatic event and cause a reaction in them. These are called “environmental triggers”. For example, a child who was involved in a car accident might have a reaction when they hear the wheels or sound of a large vehicle (e.g. when the school bus or a truck drives by school), while a child who has been physically abused may become easily aggressive if others raise their voice at him or her.

Preschoolers may not be aware and may not be able to express to others about the challenges they face with triggers that arise. As such, you may need to anticipate situations that may arise based on your understanding of the child’s experiences and observations of their behaviours. You can do so by:

• Looking out for possible environmental triggers. These are usually features that share some similarity with certain features present during the traumatic event
• Preparing the child if you will be doing something out of the ordinary, such as turning off the lights or making a sudden loud sound in class
• Anticipating difficult times and be prepared to provide additional support during these times. For example, a child may become moodier, emotional and find it harder to cope around the time of a loved one’s death anniversary; or a child may be reminded about a car accident if he comes across a worksheet with the word “car” in it
• Coming up with an action plan on what the child or others in the child’s environment can do to support the child during these times. For example, allow the child to rest at the back of the class or designated safe space for a while

Read more about environmental triggers here.

Build Connections

You can play an important role in building connections with children by getting to know the child, and providing support to the child through everyday interactions. Safe, predictable, and consistent relationships that a child has with yourself can also help to bring their brain, emotions, and behaviours back into regulation; enabling children to have more capacity to learn too. Below are some tips you can take note of when building connections with preschoolers in school.

Check-in with children if you notice behavioural changes in the classroom

• Children often display changes in their mood and behaviour after a traumatic event. As preschoolers may not have the awareness and may not always be able to express to others about their experiences, it is especially helpful for you to monitor for behavioural changes. If you notice any changes in mood and behaviour, check in with the child to understand about what may be happening for the child
• Ask about needs and concerns. As each child is unique, asking about children’s specific needs and concerns can help you to determine the best way to support them. For example, some children may be worried about the safety of their family members while they are at school, while others may be worried about being away from caregivers. Besides speaking verbally, it may also be helpful to use other ways such as drawing or pictures (e.g. emotion cue cards) to support children in expressing their thoughts and feelings with you

Have in mind a trauma-informed understanding of behaviours

• If challenging behaviours surface after exposure to a traumatic event, keep in mind that the display of such behaviours is a symptom of a problem rather than the problem itself. Find out from the child, or people close the child (e.g. teachers, other caregivers) the possible reasons or triggers for such behaviour. Having a trauma-informed understanding of the behaviour can help caregivers respond supportively to their child. This might include reducing the behaviour by meeting the underlying need, reducing triggers in the environment, implementing appropriate consequences if necessary (e.g. loss of privileges), and reducing the use of punitive disciplinary actions

The picture shows a few examples of challenging behaviour, what it means to have a trauma-informed understanding of the behaviour, and how caregivers can respond supportively

Let children know it is okay to talk about feelings with you

• If the child chooses to share about their feelings and worries, listen and acknowledge those feelings, and show understanding that these reactions make sense after the traumatic event (e.g. “That was really scary for you.”). Refrain from dismissing their feelings (e.g. don't be sad / scared)
• If the child declines to talk about the incident at that moment, reassure them that you will be around anytime they feel ready to talk. Check with them about the activities they usually do to feel better, or the people they usually go to for help

Supporting Self-Regulation

Preschoolers are still developing their abilities to regulate themselves. As such they can still be easily overwhelmed by strong emotions and will need external support by way of consistent soothing by adults in their environment. Besides family, preschool educators can play an important role in supporting children’s development of self-regulation abilities through 1) modelling calmness and co-regulating with them, and 2) helping them develop skills in expressing and regulating emotions appropriately.

Modelling calmness and co-regulating to manage and regulate big emotions

You can help to soothe a preschooler's big emotions by modelling calmness through their responses to the child, and co-regulating with the young child. Here are some steps to effectively co-regulate with a child: 

First, Self-Regulate. Try to be aware of changes in your own body and feelings in that moment, and to regulate yourself, so that you can respond in a calm manner.

Then, Co-Regulate. Respond in a way that meets the child’s needs by:

• Keeping your tone of voice calm and neutral. Having an open posture and gestures (e.g. having your arms open instead of crossed)
• Using touch to help soothe the child (e.g. holding the child’s hands, patting their arms or shoulder) could also be useful for some children. However, it is also helpful to be mindful that some children may prefer not to be soothed by touch
• Recognising and labelling the child’s emotions. Let child know that expressing feelings is okay
• Getting the child to engage in activities that help them calm down

Young children learn by observing adults self-regulate and co-regulate with other children. They also learn from instructions and real-time practice. Repeated practice builds children's capacities to self-regulate, and shows them that they have support and that their strong emotions can be soothed.

Over time, such repeated experiences of the adult co-regulating with the child and frequent opportunities for the child to practice self-regulation with the support of the adult, enhance children’s neural network control systems of emotional self-awareness and self-management. In turn, this enables children to develop their own capacities to self-regulate. 

Find out more about co-regulation from

• Coregulation from birth through adulthood
• Teacher co-regulating with toddler (ALIGN framework)

Identify and validate the child’s emotions

The first step to regulating emotions is to be aware of them. This starts with being able to put a name or label to what the child is feeling. When you label a child’s feeling, you are also helping the child feel understood and validated. You can support pre-schoolers in learning how to identify their own feelings, and validating their experiences by:

• Naming emotions for them (e.g. when the child is crying and appears sad, you may reflect to the child his emotions by saying "it looks like you are feeling sad")
• If a child has difficulty identifying emotions, use tools, such emotions picture cards or emotions chart, for children to point out their feelings
• Use validating statements to help them feel that their emotions are understandable (e.g. "that’s a really difficult situation to be in”)

Help them develop self-regulation skills

Children can learn self-regulation skills by watching how other children and adults cope with stressful situations. As preschool educators, we can help to complement their learning by explicitly teaching some of these skills in the following ways:

• Teach and practise self-regulation activities with children when they are in a calm state
• When children are dysregulated, prompt the child to do activities that help them to calm down (e.g. using items in a 'calming kit', doing belly breathing)
• Create a 'calming kit' by putting together a box of tangible materials that can help a child to self-soothe (e.g. stress ball, bubbles, windmill, soft toy, putty, bubble wrap)
• Positively reinforce and acknowledge their efforts whenever they have tried using a strategy to calm themselves down. (e.g. "good try with belly breathing!”). This helps increase their sense of empowerment and motivation to continue practising the strategy
• When an emotion regulation strategy fails to calm a child, reassure the child of their efforts made, and remind them that they are still on the right track

Help identify sources of social support

An important part of developing a child’s ability to manage their emotions better is to help them understand that they can reach out to others for emotional support. You may do so by:

• Helping the child identify all the safe and trusting adults in their life (e.g. at home, school, religious institution)
• Identifying how / when to reach out to these sources of support ("I can talk to Aunty Amy when I feel scared.")

The chart below can be a useful tool to prompt a preschooler to identify different forms of social support he or she might have.