you can do it!

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you can do it!
By Jenny

Good for you! Congratulations on the new job! I will reply strictly as a gen ed teacher who has had emotionally disturbed kids in my intermediate classroom several different times. My greatest frustration was that there was
no emotionally disturbed program in my district anymore, nowhere for these kids to go. They had decent academic skills, although those were of course lagging due to missed instruction when they were not engaged in learning--too swept up in their emotional stuff. Anyway, after finishing this past year with a particularly challenging student, I think it's great to know there are teachers

like you out there that will work with these kids. And I think it's excellent that you're not being pressured to teach academics. I strongly believe that behaviors need to be addressed before real academic learning can take place.

I imagine a classroom that is exceptionally calm (as calm as you can make it of course), consistent, structured, with unconditional positive regard for each child. There would need to be a protocol in place for children with escalating behaviors so as to minimize the disruption to the larger group, although clearly the other students will need to be taught to ignore a lot.

Can you have a daily community circle? Activities to both help the kids connect with each other, but also teach social skills? You'll want lots and lots of fidget items I'd guess, lots of center time--structured play.

Best of luck. You can do it