Calming corners and calm spaces are one of the biggest changes you can make to your play/learning spaces that will have lasting impacts on your child’s self regulation and emotional intelligence.
Today, we want to share with you how simple this could be implemented into your home right after reading our article, and why this matters so much.
So let’s start with the why? Why a calm corner or calming space for a little one?
A specific and purposeful calming space created with your child in mind, encourages them to practice identifying emotions, acquire new vocabulary, better manage stress and control their impulses. It provides them with new healthy coping strategies, the ability to begin to understand their bodies, and start to realize when they need a moment away from a potential tantrum or unsuccessful moment.
Sign us up right?
Of course, as with anything else, fostering independence in this area will take modeling, role playing, conversations and consistency. With repeated exposure to this space PRIOR to unsuccessful situations occurring, your child won’t view this space as a punishment, but instead as a safe and welcoming place to quiet their body and mind, and find safe activities to do so.
A great resource, especially if you are just beginning, is generation mindful. They are a powerful, thought provoking company that show wonderful ways to begin implementing the “time in” which is beautifully explained here by Dr. Siegel. Dr. Siegel, clinical professor of psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine and executive director of the Mindsight Institute, says, “Having kids reflect on and talk about their emotions, what we are calling a time-in, has been demonstrated in a wide range of studies to support the important development of emotional understanding. We encourage parents to comfort and soothe and connect with their children during times of distress, and to reflect afterward on their inner experience with reflective dialogue, rather than punitively isolating them in a moment of anger and without any opportunity for reflection and connection.”
How to set up a calm corner in your home
Identify the space that you will use. This should be a safe, quiet space that your child will feel encouraged to visit. It should be away from the excitement and high energy play, but not completely isolated. If you are limited on space, you can transform a corner of their play space. We are using a space right outside the playroom so that there is a natural transition away from where tricky moments would happen.
Source your materials. We’ve researched and learned as much as we can about the importance of exposing children to self regulation strategies, along with building a toolbox of positive coping strategies, so that with time, practice and modeling, these ways of managing stressful or more chaotic situations, will become second nature for them.
What you can include:
We’ve created our product line of a “calming corner” and you can find it here in our shop.
This is based on research-based practices that encourage children to begin to identify and regulate their emotions, learn about powerful calming tools that work best for them, and integrate calming movements to work towards relaxing their body and mind. In this kit, there are 27 printable pages that provide you with movement cards, emotion identification cards, helper friend cards (perfect to build narratives around specific character traits and situations), power thought cards (children friendly affirmations), 5 color theme mats to make this an interactive space and finally calming tools cards.
What would this look like?
We’ve printed and laminated these cards, and have begun to introduce the language to our little ones. It is never too early to begin to expose your child to language.
We placed a few cozy pillows, a warm blanket, a couple of stuffies, and a bin of sensory based items.
You can source sensory based items on amazon, or even find some great options on amazon or target.
We’ll be sharing more on that later this week, so don’t miss that!
Think along the lines of:
Popits
Shakers
Sensory water bottles
Calming music with headphones
Puzzles
Books sharing strategies on listening, thinking, and feelings
Blocks/legos
Kinetic sand
Each morning or even a few mornings each week, take time out of your schedule to spend some purposeful time in this new area. Celebrate the calm corner and build up the power of independence they can have here. If you grab our new product, calming corner resources, you can introduce them to a new helper friend each day and begin to build stories together, strengthening language and building strategies based off of the stories that you create. Model how they can use the cozy items, and the sensory bin kit to calm their mind and body. Have fun with our movement cards and work on deep breathing to regulate their emotions.
With time and practice, this space in your home will become a place of joy, calm and peace. It will provide beautiful opportunities to have powerful conversations that will truly strengthen your little one’s emotional intelligence and provide them with positive and healthy strategies and ways of managing their emotions in trickier times.
Let us know if you grab our set, or how you set up your new calm space in your home! We would love for you to tag us on instagram @wonderandwhimsy_co if you have any fun photos!
The ultimate guide to building a Calming Corner and using time-ins at home. Generation Mindful. (n.d.). Retrieved February 7, 2022, from https://genmindful.com/blogs/mindful-moments/the-ultimate-guide-to-understanding-building-and-using-a-calming-corner-in-your-home
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