Love
Last week, as I sat myself down at circle time in a new (to me) Horizons for Homeless Children class, chaos erupted. Two kindergarteners started yelling –a and escalated to grabbing, then hitting, one another. The other children stared in alarm. As the teacher separated the two tiny gladiators, I wiggled my fingers in the air.
“Wave Hello! Watch your fingers go!
“Other hand!
“Wave hello . . .”
I extended the activity to use every integrative motion I could think of:
We tapped on our chests to activate the thymus gland.
We made mustaches and beards, with fingers under our noses and mouths, and rubbed them, singing “La, la, la” to power up the celestial circuit.
We yawned. We sent lots of oxygen to the brain so that we could think again. We released the TMJ to let our jaws know that we didn’t need to be ready to bite an attacker.
We stretched to let our fight/flight reflexes know that we were out of danger.
I made lots of eye contact and kept my voice rhythmic and interesting. I rotated and varied the movements fast enough to keep things moving, but kept them going until I felt that their impact had been fully absorbed.
Of course, I didn’t tell the children any of my reasons. We just played the game.
After about thirty seconds, the room was pretty quiet. The little boy who had been throwing punches was sitting on his carpet square, mesmerized. After a couple of minutes, the whole room felt . . . safe. Even peaceful.
“Wave Hello” works because it integrates the freeze response, called The Fear Paralysis Reflex. Every child in that circle had been frozen as their two peers flailed and yelled.
By "waving hello," we activate stress in a more stylized, less scary way. Ritualizing the stress makes this small visual disturbance stick to all the other fear that we we are already feeling. And through the rhythm and the integrative movements, we can release most of the stress we have collected.
A class is an organism – whatever happens to one child happens, to some degree, to all the children. And to the teachers as well. So it is not really possible to isolate problems – the solutions are not more than temporary. Until everyone is in the room feels OK, no one really does.
When small children act out, the most important thing for us to realize is that they are in a state of fear. People in fear don’t function well enough to respond to discipline. Attempts at discipline are “read” as further attacks, and they will be fought off tooth and nail – or tuned out.
When children are in fear, they do not need discipline. They need to feel safe.
“Wave Hello” worked not just because the movements are integrative. It worked because I was not afraid or angry, and the children knew it. I was beaming out love.
The trick, as a teacher, is to create a positive environment powerful enough to overwhelm the negativity we encounter. We can do this, because we are part of the organism of the class. And every organism fundamentally wants to heal and be whole.
Rhythm is a powerful tool for creating a safe environment. Combined with integrative movements, like rocking or tapping or swaying or yawning or stretching, rhythm works really well. Combined with a melody – especially something sing-songy - it works really really well.
Keep the activity going for as long as it is needed – which can be a long long time. But when you are releasing fear, boredom is not usually an issue. You may need to change out the movement to get all the pieces integrated. But when the movement starts to get boring, this can be a positive thing. The children are feeling safe enough to be bored!
But the most important thing is love. To do whatever we do with love.
It sounds corny. But love is both essential, and the most practical thing in the world. And, to heal and to grow and to learn, love is the thing children need most.
For some lyrics to Wave Hello, and a fuller explanation of the Fear Paralysis Reflex, read Too Scared to Come In: Moving into Presence, April, 2012.
Comments
There are no coincidences…
I was browsing thru an old favorite book,
Teach Only Love (Gerald G. Jampolsky MD) and then read
this blog.
When we do Wave Hello I begin with one foot tapping
the beat.
Most of the children can follow and keep a steady/even
beat with me.
Often a child will say, “That’s the big beat”.
I love the space for the rest.
We do a lot of “inner hearing” (audiation).
When we make the rest longer a child will say, “I hear
my voice”.
Then we remind each to be silent at the rest.
Older children suggest different vocables besides
La.
Perhaps the “sound of the week”.
At the tapping, a child will say, “That’s a smaller beat”.
The pace and simplicity of this song gives the
children time to
enjoy, succeed and internalize what is happening in
their physical bodies.
It all comes out in joy.
So fun…Liz Hannan
Kate Kuper Feb 13, 2013
I learned “Wave Hello” from Eve at the CMN conference in Zion, IL and used it recently with 3-5 year olds in a Head Start site while they were ‘waiting’ in line to enter the space for my creative dance class. It had a wonderfully calming effect.