by Mark SwartzThe 74
This story appeared first 74A non-profit news site covering education. Sign up for the free newsletter from The 74 Get more like this in your inbox.
For Alyssa Blask Campbell, children’s behavior is not an isolated phenomenon but a symbiotic, ever-changing system. The former early childhood educator has built a body of work around children’s emotional development, including co-authoring two books — “Little People, Big Emotions” and “Big Kids, Big Feelings” — aimed at helping parents and educators recognize the individualized ways in which each child receives, processes and responds to sensory input.
The word “discipline” rarely appears in books, which invite adults to learn more about what drives a child’s behavior and to gain a deeper understanding of how the nervous system works. Campbell’s approach suggests that traditional consequences and rewards used by many parents and educators often address behavior at a surface-level, but lasting change comes from strengthening the adult-child bond, increasing emotional security, and providing consistent supportive experiences that drive growth.
With one of her co-authors, Lauren Stobel, a colleague she met early in her career, Campbell developed a framework called Collaborative Emotion Processing, which helps adults and children navigate emotions together. He describes it as “a way of teaching and learning how to empathize with other people that builds long-term skills for emotional intelligence.” It was designed to help children and their caregivers learn from each other and grow together, she said.
The popularity of her book and the CEP approach led Campbell to create many other resources for caregivers and educators, including Online community For families and educators, a The Parenting Podcast (which elaborates on the book’s themes) and a professional development Certification Program For elementary educators.
In the conversation below, Campbell shares the story behind the CEP approach and why parents and caregivers need to understand how the nervous system works for healthy development.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Collaborative emotion processing is rooted in understanding what is and what is not behavior. Can you describe the procedure?
When we developed the CEP method, we designed it to help us understand behavior as communication, not actually from the nervous system and not a reflection of a child’s character or a choice they are making at the moment. People often see behavior as a choice — that a child is choosing to be defiant or that they’re choosing to throw something across the room or yell something in the moment. And we aim — through the CEP approach — to focus on helping kids with deadlines or things like that, rather than trying to control or modify their behavior in isolation through co-regulation, connection and skill building. And really “How do we stop the behavior?” Moving away from? “What does this behavior tell us about what this child needs right now?”
How did your experience as a teacher give rise to CEP and is there research to support the approach?
Lauren Stubble and I were both early childhood educators at Lemberg Children’s Center outside of Boston. He came up to me at one point and he said, “I feel like we’re doing something different in our classroom than the rest of our school.” We started taking videos of each other teaching and interacting with students to see what we were actually doing. We did not set out to develop the CEP method and then research it. We create a loose framework around how we feel and then set out to explore that framework in the wild. And we got bits and pieces of it in different places. Attachment research indeed informs that children feel safe and seen and supported, relationships and relationships help in interpersonal neurobiology (and research) helps us understand the brain and nervous system. But we couldn’t find anything … that really encompassed what we were doing.
We contacted Brandeis University — which our childcare program was affiliated with — and connected with the psych department there and did the Institutional Review Board process of applying for research and navigating it, which is a beast in itself, as it should be. We weren’t trying to dive head first into research. We were just hoping to find a framework that encompassed what we were feeling. In the absence of a complete framework, we developed the CEP method.
Why do you think the approach resonates? What is this need for parents and educators?
I think it finally explains what they are feeling. So many adults are told to manage behavior and just be consistent and use consequences. And it doesn’t work for the kids who often need the most support. And then we get frustration, burning, feeling like, “Am I missing? What am I not doing?” I think CEP gives them a lens through which to understand behavior and helps them understand a child’s unique nervous system, which helps them see what’s driving that behavior. And this allows you to then move your response from that compliance state to a collaborative state. Recently, I was presenting to a group of parents and educators in Middlebury, Vermont, and afterward, a mother came up to me and said, “I’ve read too many parenting books.” And that’s the first thing I read where I was like, “Oh, actually now my baby makes sense to me.”
What are some things that can help a parent use the CEP method with their child?
Focus on you. Start with you. Everyone (asks), “What shall I do with my child?” And that’s why “Little People” is designed in such a way that you have to go through a part you are the thing And before moving on to part two about the neuroscience and why behind how you respond to your baby.
What does it look like when children choose behaviors modeled by adults?
I had this little girl when I was teaching Pre-K, one of my first years of teaching. He was 3, and this tiny little peanut. And his father was dropping him off one day and he said, “Hey, he said the F-word to his brother last night. Do you know where he heard it?” And I was like, “That’s not a word we use in school, but did you ask him?” And she was, “No”.
I called him and I said, “Hey, I heard you say the f-word to your brother last night when you were feeling crazy. Where did you hear the f-word?” And he was, “When Dad Drives.” And he was like, “Yes, and bye.” What we model is so important. This is why the CEP system has five components and four of them are about adults. When we model this work, when we show our own self-awareness and self-control and empathy and social skills and intrinsic motivation, kids learn from it.
Brené Brown comes up a little in your book. She has done such a great service by helping to infuse the word “vulnerability” into the culture. Is his job your size?
i agree she is my queen I’ve had the privilege of diving into a lot of her work, and I think she’s moved a lot for us with her understanding of vulnerability. The ability to see this as a strength rather than a weakness is crucial to emotional development.
What gives you hope? What are you hearing that should make people feel hopeful?
I’m so stunned that we live in a time when we’re even talking about emotional intelligence … it’s so cool that we’re talking about how the nervous system works. … That it’s part of the zeitgeist gives me a lot of hope.
We just got some data back looking at our work in elementary schools and we’re seeing a 60% reduction in behavior support calls in the first trimester. … It gives me hope that when we talk to kids about how their brains and bodies work, they’re so open, and they’re so curious, and they’re so receptive, and they want it. They are hungry for it. And now we have the tools, the knowledge, the ability to talk to them. We know how to do it. And I feel really optimistic about that.
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This is the story is produced by 74A nonprofit, independent news organization focused on education in America.
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Photo credit: splash
