How are you doing?

Often a question we just brush past with a ‘yes, great thanks’ and carry on and if we give a little bit of a negative answer that can be brushed off too or the subject quickly changed. Its not always comfortable for others to sit with your feelings and that is about where they are in their journey.

So at the moment how are you feeling about going back to work or not going back to work, travelling or not travelling, staying in or going out, or about how things may have changed and what you can control or manage to stay safe?

In early years we have a big challenge ahead of us, how to professionally love and educate the children we work with and how to protect them, their families, ourselves, and our loved ones. And that is even before we have set foot out of the door.

If you open your setting doors or you don’t, you will have needed to risk assess the dangers to all who use it and their families. Can young children socially distance? And what happens when you keep them apart or they stay a few weeks longer at home, which is better for their mental health or their physical health?

We do not know the answers to all these questions, what you do know is ‘how you feel’ what is your gut instinct telling you to do? This is very important; you must know yourself so you can be positive in your practice with children. We are teaching the children to be emotionally intelligent, yet we may not be listening to our own emotions. If we are going to practice, we must do it with confidence and security that we have done everything in our power to keep everyone safe. If Teachers and other professionals want to wear PPE as they feel unprotected, then that should be supplied.

Children should have the ability to wear a mask and PPE if they want to. One post we saw this week questioned a practitioner for wanting to wear a mask, the answer to that is because she wants to and feels safe doing so. We must enable teams to see they are individuals with ideas and rights, then the children will follow by their example – we do not want children to follow statements without thought and this also applies to all adults who work with children. We are not training a dog to sit, we are educating and listening to children to enable a growth mindset.

Again, we cannot pretend that schools and early years spaces are so safe that protection is not needed. We are talking about a virus that presents as no symptoms, mild illness, moderate illness, severe illness and death.

These are unusual times and there is not a one rule fits all. The main question remains ‘how are you feeling’ and what will help you move forward? The main point here is be honest with yourself and others, do not feel guilty for thinking differently to others or indeed embracing the time you have had with loved ones in lockdown.

‘It’s okay to be okay and its okay not to be okay’.

The Government guidelines are just that, guidelines, now you decide what you want to do to help re-build the world from its rocky foundations, it gets stronger the more we listen to and understand our own ideas. So, how do you feel?

As always please email into the Beckies at rebecca@thrivinglanguage.co.uk, we can often help and have lots of experience of work with teams and individuals to help grow confidence and understanding. We have also created a podcast on this subject, links can be found on our facebook page and through Apple and Spotify, just search thriving language. Links can also be found on on our website www.thrivinglanguage.co.uk