Education Archives

Summer is here and schools are out, and everyone is ready to have a summer holiday. At this time of the year, most people are ready to shut the door on the year that has been. All I have heard over the last few days (from myself as well!) is how people are just hanging in there, and that they are ready to leave the daily rat race in order to relax with family and recharge their batteries for the coming year.

Planning a holiday can be both exciting and stressful. In South Africa, summer holidays are also Christmas holidays, which means that holidays are filled with loads of activities and dedicated to family gatherings. These gatherings are generally noisy, long, filled with loads of food and sugars, and generally with a large number of people. A quick recipe for a sensory melt-down!

So how do we consider the different sensory thresholds when planning our holidays?

Pick and choose your holiday activities wisely and give family members a heads up regarding outings. Prepare them for new situations and talk them through what they could expect. The easiest way to survive the holiday season is to keep everyone in the loop.
Visit tourist attractions at quieter times and plan ahead with regards to food if possible.
We don’t have to accept every invitation extended to us.
Have clear house rules for every place that you go to – learn the rules of the places that you visit, especially if one is travelling overseas, and prepare your family
Check-in with your family members at events – before going to an event, decide on a sign or gesture that will indicate that all is not okay. This will help reassure your family that you will know when a break is needed and it also helps to keep behaviour issues in check.
Have an escape space – whenever you get to a place, find a spot that will allow for quiet time and a sensory break. Prepare your family for noisy situations, and have a strategy in place if you need to get away from very crowded places. (e.g. markets, beaches, shopping malls, Midnight mass)
Keep a sensory toolbox with you – have a small bag of sensory tools that may help avoid a meltdown. Include headphones, sunglasses, healthy snacks, fiddle toys and comfortable clothing.
Give small immediate rewards – don’t use gifts as bargaining tools. Instead, give small rewards for working together, doing chores, and being a good sport.
Praise children for good behaviour, as this will mean a lot to the child with sensory, learning or attention difficulties.
Give yourself a break and take time to relax. Sometimes it is just okay to stay at home or indoors when things get too hectic.

Family gatherings are the essence of Christmas, but sadly they can become very stressful. Remind everyone to keep calm and breathe…

If you want to know whether you are looking forward to or dreading the holidays… your Sensory Matrix™ self-assessment will help you understand why…

Annabella Sequeira holds a BSc (Occupational Therapy) degree from the University of Cape Town, backed by 22 years of experience in both the public and private sectors. She has extensive practical experience in the area of Sensory Integrative Dysfunction in children and is passionate about empowering others to improve functionality and quality of life.

With just over 8 weeks to go to the end of the school year, teachers are heading into a very stressful and emotional time. Teacher burnout, which happens due to stress and mental fatigue happening more often than not, hits many teachers yearly. Stress and burnout drain the very joy and essence of teaching, and makes it very hard for teachers to manage and accomplish goals set for the classroom. Stepping into a teacher’s shoes is not for the faint-hearted; a teacher’s role moves from being educators to surrogate parents and from being mentors to being disciplinarians in a short space of time. Along with these expectations come paperwork, conferences, meetings, lesson planning, sport obligations and their own home obligations.

Statistics from around the world show that many teachers leave the profession within their first five years of teaching due to stress and burnout. Here are some tips and strategies to help teachers combat stress and burnout, and therefore help them stay in a vocation that they so love.

Know your limits and set them
Pushing yourself to do too much will set you up for failure. When you start feeling out of sync, when confusion or chaos begins to infiltrate into your daily tasks, then that is the time to learn to say “NO” when you have too much on your plate already.

Take time for yourself
This is hard to do if you are a parent too. Being able to take a minimum of 30 minutes of me-time daily to do something for yourself, will help rejuvenate your day. Read a book, listen to music or play a musical instrument, do some shopping or take a short walk. Spend time on a hobby, especially over weekends and school holidays.

Limit the amount of work you take home
Teachers are often overwhelmed with the amount of planning, marking and organizing that needs to be done, so they take it home. Don’t! There will always be work to do. Take the time to do some of this work after school before going home, and if it is not done today, you can finish it before or after school the next day. If you want to do internet research, limit yourself to two hours at the most, and set aside a day every week to do this at home.

Create a small sanctuary
Your sanctuary can be anywhere you want it to be, except for your office or your bedroom. Go to that special place that allows you to be quiet and relaxed, away from the mayhem that is created during your workday. Just sit for 10 minutes, listen to music through earphones, meditate or read something.

Practice healthy habits
Eat for energy – have small snacks to get you through the day. Missing breakfast or lunch is never a good idea. Exercise as often as you can – walk, run, swim, gym, cycle, do yoga – burnout won’t happen if you are busy taking care of your emotional and physical wellbeing. Exercise will also help you to sleep better.
Remember why you became a teacher
The reason you started teaching in the first place was that you love it. Being passionate about your work keeps you focused and energetic for yourself and for the scholars in your class. Teach in the moment, because it allows you to be more proactive and controlled in difficult situations. Laugh because it lightens the mood and gives you time to put things into perspective. Avoid conflict where possible, as it will save you lots of time and energy.

There are so many things that one could add to reduce stress, but at the end of the day, it is all about you. Teacher burnout is not always about the situations we find ourselves in, it is about how we can avoid stress and fatigue. It is okay to leave your classroom for a few minutes when you are overwhelmed. Take 5 – breathe deeply and take a short walk to compose yourself, and then return to your class. If you want to make your stress management personal that works for you in particular, do your Sensory Matrix™ to get your wellness blueprint.

The ability to grab hold of the rewarding and energizing career that you really want is in your hands – grab that power and never let it go.

Category: Education

Easy tips for happy holidays

Reducing teacher stress and burnout

Who has benefited