For many children, understanding and expressing emotions can be a challenge. They may struggle with recognizing their own feelings, reading emotions in others, or knowing how to respond appropriately in different situations. The good news is that emotional awareness is a skill that can be taught, modeled, and practiced with the right strategies.

In this conversation, we discuss the best ways to teach emotions to kids. We dive into how to assess a learner’s baseline and where to start teaching. We also discuss how to reduce rigidity in our teaching, teaching across operants, and generalization techniques.

What’s Inside:

• How to best teach emotions to children
• How to assess a learner’s baseline and where to start teaching
• Helpful generalization techniques

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Leanne Page is a mom, a BCBA, and the founder of Parenting with ABA. When she became a mother, Leanne realized how her training and education in behavior analysis gave her a leg up on discipline issues. She’s worked as a special education teacher in self-contained to inclusive settings, from elementary to high school. She also managed a center providing ABA services to children in 1:1 and small group settings.

Through Parenting with ABA, Leanne leverages her extensive experience in school and teacher training, therapist training, parent training, and providing direct services to children and families in a center-based or in-home therapy setting. Today, she spends a lot of time writing and creating trainings to help disseminate ABA and make it easy for all parents to digest and apply in their own lives. Leanne’s goal is to save parents’ sanity every day!

Here, Leanne shares her strategies for working with parents and her thoughts on emotional regulation. We discuss the risks of not acknowledging parents in our work as BCBAs, common mistakes we make, and tips for supporting parents better. Leanne also shares the benefits of incorporating mindfulness techniques with parents, the importance of self-compassion, and advice for newly minted BCBAs.

What’s Inside:

• How Leanne works with parents through Parenting with ABA
• BCBA tips to better support parents
• Advice for newly minted BCBAs

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Parenting with ABA

Self-regulation is a challenge for many of our learners. Having a personalized regulation toolbox makes a huge difference in a child's ability to navigate their emotions and daily challenges. This toolbox is made up of a set of calming strategies tailored to each person’s unique needs. Here, we discuss how we can help learners develop the skill of self-regulation and a set of tools that works for them.

We start by talking through the importance of having an emotional regulation toolbox and how to help learners identify their triggers. We discuss how to look at functions of behavior and introduce replacement skills. We also discuss what to avoid when building a toolbox, how to foster independence in our learners, and how to tailor a toolbox to individual needs.

What’s Inside:

• How an emotional regulation toolbox helps learners navigate life’s challenges
• How to identify functions of behavior and introduce replacement skills
• How to tailor emotional regulation toolboxes to individual needs
  
  

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Calming Activities List