What if each human (young and old) is pulling an invisible suitcase...
In that suitcase, we are carrying all our life experiences.
These life experiences dictate how we will react in every situation.
Now imagine that the bottom layer in the suitcase is childhood trauma that no one helped us process.
And we work with young children who we are supposed to help co-regulate when they are dysregulated.
But our invisible suitcase isn't filled with tools for guiding self-regulation.
It is only filled with the coping mechanisms that got us through our trauma.
But we are told not to raise our voices or get angry. We are told to be kind and de-escalate the situation.
Yet we don't know how to do those things even though we have a lot of life experiences in our suitcases.
If your early childhood program focuses on social-emotional learning for the children but never took the time to focus on it for the educators, don't expect anyone to grow socially or emotionally.
