Summary
If you are working with kids with anger difficulties, then you do not want to miss this episode of School Behaviour Secrets, featuring Nicola S. Morgan (an expert in anger management).
Join us in this episode of School Behaviour Secrets for practical insights and a step-by-step guide to reshape the way we approach anger management with students. Learn from real-life success stories and gain valuable strategies to help your kids get on top of their emotions.
Important links:
Visit the NSM Training and Consultancy website for courses on anger management
Get your FREE Beacon School Support guide to helping children manage their anger
Get our FREE SEND Behaviour Handbook
Download other FREE SEMH resources to use in your school: https://beaconschoolsupport.co.uk/resources
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Show notes / transcription
Simon Currigan 0:00
If you're working with kids with anger issues, then you do not want to miss this episode of school behaviour secrets because we're going to share how to get a successful anger management programme up and running in your school. Which strategies are most effective at helping kids get on top of their emotions and stick with behaviour change and look at the skills that you will need as an adult to do that, well, all the aim of getting your students unstuck with strong emotions. Let's jump in.
Welcome to the school behaviour secrets podcast. I'm your host Simon Currigan. My co host is Emma Shackleton and we're obsessed with helping teachers, school leaders, parents and of course students when classroom behaviour gets in the way of success. We're going to share the tried and tested secrets to classroom management, behavioural Special Needs, whole school strategy and more all with the aim of helping your students reach their true potential. Plus, we'll be letting you eavesdrop on our conversations with thought leaders from around the world. So you'll get to hear the latest evidence based strategies before anyone else. This is the school behaviour secrets podcast.
Hi there. My name is Simon Currigan and welcome to this week's episode of school behaviour secrets. I like to think of this podcast as the equivalent of teaching country dancing lessons in primary schools. No one's quite sure why it's still going on. But once it starts somehow you can't but stop and watch. Equal parts mesmerising and confusion. I'm joined as ever today by my co host, Emma Shackleton. Hi, Emma.
Emma Shackleton 1:30
Hi, Simon,
Simon Currigan 1:31
You ever teach country dancing in schools or remember having to do country dancing in school as a child?
Emma Shackleton 1:36
Yes, I used to love teaching country dancing. I had a mixed tape of country dancing hits on an actual cassette and we used to wheel out these huge stereo system on the trolley to play the cassette.
Simon Currigan 1:52
This is a big reveal. I wasn't expected it to go in this direction.
Emma Shackleton 1:56
I've got news for you not 21! Anyway, why are you asking me to relive my country dancing teaching days? How is this relevant to today's episode?
Simon Currigan 2:06
It's not in any way shape or form. I'm just going down a rabbit hole and I am so glad I did. So let's start by asking you a relevant question to the podcast. Yes, please write according to a survey by teacher tap what classroom behaviours make teachers the most frustrated?
Emma Shackleton 2:21
Okay, frustrating behaviours from children. The things I used to find really frustrating were when children hurt each other, or when they broke stuff, but also things like shouting out interrupting, telling tales Go on, then what did teacher tap find out from their survey?
Simon Currigan 2:42
So the most common answers were talking, low level disruption, which is an interesting one because that can mean a variety of things, I guess, rudeness and answering back and one person replied, students making stupid noises which you can't pinpoint. So you can't easily sanction. I think, a lot of sympathy in the room for that one.
Emma Shackleton 3:03
I was so tempted to start humming while you were talking. Okay, so tell us Simon What is the link to the show this week?
Simon Currigan 3:12
Well, this week we're going to look at the topic of how to teach students not teachers, anger management strategies with our guests and Nicola s. Morgan will talk about what anger actually is, which anger management strategies actually work, and how to get children to stick with behaviour change programmes like anger management courses, it's gonna be so full of information that you can start using immediately.
Emma Shackleton 3:36
This really resonates with what we see in school as well, doesn't it? So for those of you that don't know, Simon and I work daily with primary and secondary schools across Birmingham and the West Midlands, and a lot of our work is helping teachers to help children to understand and cope with the big feelings that they are having. We know that if kids are not regulated, they're not ready to learn. So if you are working with children who are struggling with their emotions, we've got a free download that can help.
Simon Currigan 4:10
It's called How to help children manage anger and other strong emotions and it will take you through one approach called Emotional Scaling to help your students improve their emotional awareness and better regulate strong emotions like anger or anxiety or fear or frustration.
Emma Shackleton 4:26
It's full of practical techniques and gives you the resources to print out and use with your students. So if you want to get your hands on a free copy of the guide, check out the episode description for this episode. We'll put a direct link to the download page there. So all you've got to do is open up your podcast app and tap directly through
Simon Currigan 4:48
And if you're enjoying school behaviour secrets don't forget to tap subscribe in your podcast app so you never miss another thing. By subscribing you'll experience the same level of satisfaction as a penguin used just discovered an endless conveyor belt stocked full of fish and a remote control for the Northern Lights, hit subscribe and prepare for a breathtaking journey of satisfaction.
Emma Shackleton 5:09
And now here's Simon's interview with Nicola S. Morgan.
Simon Currigan 5:14
Today I'm really excited to welcome Nicola S. Morgan to the show, Nicola is an international educational consultant who's just released a TED talk entitled Unfinished Business, delaying the urge to give up. She's also a teacher and author, with over 20 years experience working in a variety of early years primary and secondary settings, including mainstream and special needs schools. During this time, she has developed a reputation for successfully managing the most challenging classes and pupils, as well as motivating and inspiring staff to help implement change and ensure sustainability. Consequently, She now runs training courses for schools and parents, and is often invited to speak at conferences on resilience, behaviour change and effective ways of engaging with families. Nicola, welcome to the podcast.
Nicola S Morgan 6:02
Oh, wow, thank you so much for that intro. Simon. It makes me sound fantastic, doesn't it.
Simon Currigan 6:07
You've already got a range of experience. And what we're going to want to talk to you today about in particular is the subject of anger. But before we get into how we support pupils with anger issues, I want to open by asking what actually is anger? And what is it for?
Nicola S Morgan 6:24
That's a really good question to start off with, well, you know, what is one of our five emotions, so we have sadness, happiness, fear, disgust. And of course, we have anger. And I don't know if you agree or not, but we all feel angry. Sometimes I can probably think of quite a few examples over the summer holidays where I tipped into that area. But there's normally a very, very good reason why we feel about way, and in most extreme cases, you know, we does pull on our emotions, I guess it can drive us into that kind of belief of I need to fight for justice, about whatever it is. And it can also drive us to say hurtful things, not very nice things, and in some cases, to people that we love, and we really care about. So really, anger is perfectly normal, like I said, is one of our five emotions, but it can start to become a problem. When you express it through unhelpful and disrespectful behaviour, that's when it really becomes problematic. And with all my work in schools over the years, and I'm working with teachers now and I've just done a few conferences for the N A, S U W T, I will get it right, for their NQT's during the summer. This is one that normally comes up. It's the disrespect that come from these outbursts that people are really struggling with. But ultimately, when we're looking at anger, it is a secondary emotion. Now, I like to get to the root causes of things. And typically, we experience a primary emotion first, which could be fear, loss or sadness, but because of these emotions, they can start to create feelings of vulnerability, which is not a good place for some children, a loss of control, and it can sometimes make us feel very, very uncomfortable. And one way of attempting to deal with these feelings is to shift into that anger mode. Not always not for all children, but some will shift into that anger mode.
So what purpose does that anger then have? So they experienced sadness, say, and they're finding that hard to cope with? They shift to anger? Is that secondary emotion? Is that correct as you're explaining it? Why does the body do that? What is the point of it?
It's ultimately to protect us, to protect us from danger. And yes, you know, we might think, well, actually, there's no danger around us right now. But that might not be that child's interpretation of their environment and the people in their environment. But also, it can help us know when things are maybe unfair or wrong, and it can trigger us in that way. Now, there's a very good definition to anger that I always hold on to, especially when I'm running training courses on it. And it's reading from the dictionary of Medicine, Nursing and Allied Health. And it goes like this, and I think it just about sums it up. Anger is a feeling of tension and hostility, usually caused by anxiety aroused by a perceived threat to oneself, possessions, rights, or values. Now within the school environment, possessions, mobile phone, pens, pencils, that kind of thing. Don't take them without permission, please. Because again, that could trigger an anger outburst.
Simon Currigan 9:37
I saw some really interesting research on the social side of anger, like when someone threatens your social position in the hierarchy, and they're like pushing you down that hierarchy. We don't like it partly because, you know, 50,000 years ago, we will walk in the savanna in these small groups of 20/25 people. The lower down the social hierarchy were the less likely you were to get opportunities like great food, great water. Anyone else could have you a lower down in the pecking order, and it actually affected your chances of survival. And when you see kids like you can see when they're put down by someone else, you can almost see that ancient reaction being like, don't allow this don't allow this. When we think about pupils in school today, you'll see some kids who are able to manage these emotions more successfully. And some kids who get angry really, really quickly what's happening there?
Nicola S Morgan 10:24
Now, we haven't got a visual here, there. So we're going to use our imagination for this, okay. And this is called a time intensity model. And the time intensity model looks a little bit like a mountain with a sharp peak at the top, and we've got our baseline behaviour, which is nice and calm, it's nice and chilled, but then there could be a trigger. And if there's an additional trigger, the behaviour could escalate. And then they can get to the peak of that mountain, which is crisis point, then they'll gradually calm down, it could take a few hours a day, maybe two days, in some cases, it just depends on the child, they could dip into a possible period of depression, and then they'll go back to that baseline behaviour. Now, then what we're starting to notice, and what I've noticed, to be honest with you, I've been in education for 25 years, but I think since the pandemic and notice it an awful lot more right now. And that is the children, some children are not coming into school at baseline, they're not coming into school relaxed, they are coming in at either being triggered, or the escalation level. So that's not very far off getting to that crisis point where they're getting into that anger mode. Now, we don't know what goes on outside of school, it could be maybe domestic violence within the home, it could be maybe they've got bullied on the way, I don't know what it is. But what I always encourage school staff to do is that you know what we don't know. So this do a blanket approach, and try to reduce those stress levels as much as we possibly can, either at the beginning of the day, or if we're secondary at the beginning of every lesson just to get them as close to that baseline as we possibly can. So if somebody does take one of their possessions without permission, they're not right at the top of that mountain heading into crisis, they've got a little bit more leeway. And we're setting them up for success rather than failure.
Simon Currigan 12:24
What might that look like in a sort of practical sense in the classroom?
Nicola S Morgan 12:27
As far as reducing stress levels?
Simon Currigan 12:29
Yeah, yeah,
Nicola S Morgan 12:30
Well, we can do lots of things there. Like from a primary level, the morning mile is great. Anything to do with brainstem calming activities, running, drumming, walking, that kind of thing is really going to help in this particular situation, lots of schools now, including secondary, bringing in a type of therapy dog, which is great as well, just to have that little bit of time just to calm things down. Also sorting activities naturally age appropriate. So if we were going to have sorting activities, for the little ones, I put in the green blocks in one container, the red blocks in the other sorting activities are designed to calm the brain down. It's a little bit and I don't know about you Simon, but if I've had a pretty hectic week, I go home on a Friday. And I'm pretty stressed. So I'm pretty uptight, I start cleaning the house, I feel great, because again, cleaning the house is a sorting activity, and it starts to calm the brain down. A primary sorting activity could be for example, asking a child to link all the same colour paper clips together. And so they're sorting, sorting, sorting, calming, calming, calming. And for secondary, it could be a kind of jigsaw puzzle or movable puzzle that's related to the learning outcomes of the lesson before. So anything to do with sorting is going to bring those levels down and just to get as close to that baseline as we possibly can. And you know what, I'm going to mention another one now, and it's about seating. Seating for children within the classroom, whatever age group we're looking at here, but I'm gonna give an example now of little ones on a carpet, because I think everybody can visualise this one a little bit more. So I'm sat, sat down, ready to read a story. And I've got a class full of children in front of me sat down, and I've got one particular child that is constantly turning around. And all I'm saying is, you know, you need to look this way. You need to listen to the story, wrong thing to do, that child might be constantly turning around, because they feel under threat. They don't know who's behind them. They don't know what's going on. So in those situations, let's move that child to the back of the room. Because now the only thing behind me is a wall. There's no threat. I can see everyone in front of me. I can see the door of who's coming in and who's going out and I can see my teacher, woof. I can bring those stress levels right down.
Simon Currigan 14:50
And now, now they can focus because that stress has dropped. So when a pupil starts to show a recurrent anger problem not a one off outbursts but an issue that's, you know, coming up more than once, where can we begin to help them recognise that there's a problem and help them begin managing their emotions more successfully?
Nicola S Morgan 15:08
I always like to use the phrase I notice. And I like to give a running commentary I do this, whether they've done something very positive, or whether I'm concerned about something or whether something's happened that's quite negative is I've noticed, because some children, some adults, we just don't sometimes know what we're actually doing and to have a mirror held up to us can be quite helpful at times. So that's the first thing that I would do. And then the next thing that I would do then is and something that we run as far as NSN training and consultancy is concerned is a course called The Explosive Pupil. Now, in this course, we give a 10 session programme. And I always encourage members of staff that if you've got a particular child that you do have concerns over and naturally we want to have a look at more than one child, you know, those that have got potential to maybe be a little bit more triggered than normal, then it is a good idea to just put them on a programme can happen during lunchtime break time or certain times during the day. So what we're doing now is we're teaching the desired behaviour, that's what we're doing, we're noticing where they need some help. And we're utilising a programme such as that to skill them up. And I think that really is the best way to do it. Rather than kind of dipping in dipping out firefighting, troubleshooting, that kind of thing is to just have this programme. Now, some schools will run it for 10 days, others will run it once a week, it just depends on that particular child in that particular situation. But it gives them the ability to reflect it gives them the ability to practice lots of strategies, lots of techniques, and just to notice stuff in themselves and notice stuff in others as well, which I think, well, we've had a massive success rate with it anyway. So it must work.
Simon Currigan 16:56
What strategies have you found are more successful for helping those peoples change their response to strong emotion. So before we were talking about things that we can do as the adults proactively to reduce their baseline stress, so they don't get angry in the first place. But once that child is experiencing that anger, what kind of strategy is going to on the reactive end? Have you found a successful?
Nicola S Morgan 17:18
Well, the one that I'm going to, the one that comes straight to my mind now, the one that has worked incredibly well, and this is with all age groups, and including adults. Because I've used this one myself as well. It's about identifying that initial feeling, they've been triggered, what is that feeling that feeling that I feel in rage, things are boiling up, whatever it is, but the thing is, it's very, very hard to kind of pinpoint that when a situation has happened. So what I tried to get them to do is either draw a gingerbread man or for the little ones they can draw around each other. So we've got a really big life sized version of themselves. And I asked them to pinpoint on that outline, where on their body, can they feel it? Where do they normally feel it now for me, it's in my neck, and it's in my head, so we get them to pinpoint it, we get them to draw them, sometimes they'll just draw a circle around the neck area, or the head area or the stomach area, whatever it is. And sometimes they'll draw something else, that's fine, then what I do is I ask them to give it a colour now then when I feel it in my neck, it deep deep red, that's the colour that I've got. But when I'm working with children, sometimes they'll say green or blue or purple, it's entirely up to them. Now then what we've done now is we've worked out where on their body they feel it when they've got triggered. So now this just gives us a fantastic way in so rather than saying to a child first thing in the morning, Hey, how are you feeling today? You okay? The normal responses? Yeah, right doesn't really give me that much information here at all. And a phrase that I tend to use a lot of is Predict in order to Prevent. I've got no information here in order for me to do this. But now I can say to them, Hey, how's your neck feeling? Or how's your head feeling? What colour is it? How's your belly feeling? Have you still got that green colour, is it a darker green? is it light green? Now we're starting to delve into it a little bit more. We're having a conversation about it. And we're bringing it to the forefront and they're thinking, Yeah, this feeling a bit feel a bit tense or feeling a little bit sticky. So now we can do something about it. Now we can put in additional support.
Simon Currigan 19:31
Behaviour change is hard. So we're talking about running a programme here not doing something ad hoc working through a really structured programme to give them that sort of self knowledge that you started talking about and using strategies? How can we help people stick with that programme or a set of strategies? When the truth is they are likely to experience setbacks along the way to success?
Nicola S Morgan 19:53
Oh definitely. And coming back just to say about the TED talk, because the TED talk I did was about resilience. Now, one strategy for resilience is to encourage them to make mistakes, not stopping mistakes, but constructive mistakes. So when we do get setbacks, that's fine. That's how we learn. That's how we develop. So we want to embrace that. But one successful strategy that I have used, and I've got teachers up and down the UK to use as well as the check ins, let's get those check ins done. Now, then on average, if we're concerned about a particular child, we need to do about three check ins a day one in the morning, when around about lunchtime, one sometime in the afternoon. And with these check ins, we need to cover a few things. Number one, we want to get them in the right mindset. So I always say, what's the one thing that put a smile on your face so far today, so we're getting them to focus in on the positives of their life, rather than the negatives that could trigger anger. So we're practising a little bit of that kind of positive mindset. The other thing that I do is I reinforced the strategies that we've already gone over to allow them to manage some problematic situations that could come up during the day. Now, maybe the problem starts to happen in maths or literacy, or whatever it is. Okay, so now we've got a set of strategies for that. Now, I don't just want to give them a set of strategies, I want to reinforce the house of the house every day, every day, we're going to reinforce it. Because at the end of the day, if we're consistently doing something, it's going to become so much easier as habit formation really, isn't it? Now the third thing that I do is I get them to rate themselves on a scale a scale of one to 10, because I need to get a little bit more of an insight into how they're feeling right now. And I also need to allow them to have the insight on how they are feeling right now. So I'll give them a scale of one to 10. And I'll exaggerate the one and the 10. And I'll say, right, you know, how are you feeling right now, number one, you just want to hide under a desk, if that's what they tend to do, or number 10, you just want to be out there with your friends having a really good time. And they might come and say something like, wow, I'd probably give myself a six miss, okay. And there's nothing wrong with wherever they put themselves on the scale. But here is the leverage for growth. And it is this, that's fine. So you're a six. So what do you need to do? What do I need to do for you to make that a 6.5? What do we need to do together? So we're not looking at changing everything, we're not looking for perfection, we're looking at that element of growth. And that's doable, and not just doable in relation to what we're talking about here with anger. This is a scale that is so good when we're looking at improving school attendance. It's so good when we're looking at improving mental health, we can use it in so many different areas. It's a very powerful tool.
Simon Currigan 22:50
It makes it achievable, doesn't it?
Nicola S Morgan 22:51
Yeah,
Simon Currigan 22:52
As I'm listening to you talk about this approach. It sounds to me it's coaching, it's bursts of input over time, keeping the ship steady, helping the kids rehearse, and keep those strategies in mind and talking to them about potential roadblocks, you know, coming up ahead and helping them around those obstacles. It's that input over time, do you think that's sort of the secret sauce, really, that kind of helps them develop and stick with the programme,
Unknown Speaker 23:17
I think is one of them, I think is a very successful method to be using the problem that we've got in schools is time,
Simon Currigan 23:24
yeah,
Nicola S Morgan 23:24
it's time to be able to do this. But the way that I always see it, I've got a choice where I invest my time, either invested into something that we've just been talking about here, or I've got to invest it by dealing with a situation that's literally just exploded, so it's my choice. And at the end of the day, you know, as a member of staff, the only thing that I can control is me. So I need to control where I invest my time. But as well as that as well. And I always say I do an awful lot of work with engaging parents engaging families. And when we're doing these interventions, we do need to be working with the families as well. We need to be working with the parents as well and just a tiny strategy, you know, this doable, that's all we're looking at here or just to get them to notice and to celebrate, and this is really powerful stuff. I really, really good and I'm gonna kind of wave the flag now for this one. A very, very good parental Intervention Programme is the Solihull approach. I don't know if you've come across it before. Very, very powerful used in the NHS in Solihull, Birmingham. This is a very, very good programme. And I would say that if you're looking at working with parents, this is a very, very good starting point to get some training on.
Simon Currigan 24:41
What sort of skills, we've talked about the work that needs to be done and effective strategies. But then what kind of skills would I need as an adult to develop to help my pupils manage their anger more effectively?
Nicola S Morgan 24:52
Well, it's coming back to what I just said really? And that is the only person that we can control is ourselves and we've got to get it right. We have to get it right. We We need to make sure that we're calm. We're confident, we're empathetic when we're walking into a situation, because they are going to be scanning us subconsciously, and working out, am I safe with this person now, if they don't feel safe with us, then it's just going to escalate even more. So we need to really, you know, make sure that we're there. And we're that solid individual. Now, a really good technique to use for this one, if you don't feel confident, if you don't feel assertive, if you don't feel that calm, is to take a little bit of advice from a wonderful speaker called Amy Cuddy, who did the power stance, she did a TED talk about it years ago. And she said, just go into the power stance, and it will help you feel more confident, more assertive. But also, research has shown that going into the power stance will reduce your stress levels. So naturally, you're going to feel a lot calmer when you walk in. And I think the key thing here is as well, for members of staff is yeah, you got to get yourself right. But it's also good to have an understanding of where that child is at. And going back to that time intensity model. And that crisis point that peak that I mentioned, when they hit that peak, their ability to communicate, to reason and to listen as woof is gone right down. So we need to be in a position where we can give them that space, we can give them that space, just to reengage that cortex part of their brain. So when they do go back to baseline, now we can have those conversations about a way forward. And those conversations, I always visualise them as being a road and we're on this road and sometimes like us, or we veer off the road, and we just need those gentle nudges back onto that road. So we've got a straight line to our destination. And those really are what the conversations are about. And do I need to skill them up a little bit more? Are they missing something here? But one phrase I always hold on to when I'm working with staff and, and I've been there before Simon when I've got a child and and it's a really difficult situation. And I can feel my heart rate rising. And I can feel myself starting to want to argue or justify myself to especially where maybe whether they're five years of age, 12 years of age, 14 years of age, and the phrase that I always hold on to is this. Don't get drawn into the chaos, but bring them into your calm. You cannot afford to step into whatever that chaos looks like. You have to stand back. You have to pause, you have to be confident, you have to be assertive, you have to stay calm, because they're going to be picking that up from you.
Simon Currigan 27:42
Well, that's really powerful. Don't get drawn into their chaos, bring them into your calm. I love that. Tell us about success story that you've had using these techniques to support student who has been struggling to manage their anger. I suspect you've got many.
Nicola S Morgan 27:54
Ive got loads. I've got loads. I've got so many. How long have we got? Do you know what one particular child really springs to mind. And it was when I was working at a pupil referral unit quite a few years ago now actually. And this particular child was here seven
Simon Currigan 28:09
I can just explain for listeners outside the UK. The pupil referral unit is a small school where children will go when they're permanently excluded or expelled from school,
Nicola S Morgan 28:19
Beautifully put. So this particular child, he was gorgeous, so lovely. so charismatic. He was wonderful. But he did get triggered often. And normally his behavioural pattern would be with get triggered, he would swear you would run out to the classroom. And he would run out to the school building as well, which is incredibly dangerous. So I worked with him a lot of the strategies that we've already spoken about one in particular were the check ins, and there were more than three during the day. And sometimes they were just conversations, just chit chats, but still just you know getting over those elements of strategies of what you need to do in this particular situation. So this went on for quite a few months. I was very patient. And then one day, one day I was in the classroom, I saw a child take his pen without permission. I saw he got triggered. I saw those fists clench, which clearly says, I'm going into fight mode. I'm going in I'm going up to that crisis point. But he got up and he told me I'm gonna go and see Mr. Williams. And he went there for a couple of hours. And he came back then and he carried on with the lessons bingo success. But Mr. Williams wasn't just the random person within the school far from it, because what I did with him as well, I got him when he was calm when he was back at that baseline. I got him to identify three key members of staff that he felt he had a good relationship with know who I felt he had a good relationship and who he felt he had a good relationship with. One of those was Mr. Williams and each one of these members of staff I said, Listen, I want you to champion this pupil. I want you to wave your flag every time he does something really positive. He does something really good. Sometimes he's going to come to you when he just needs that little bit of support. Please be there for him. And it worked. And I'll always remember, it always puts a smile on my face
It sounds like small things. But actually, they're massive victories, aren't they?
Yeah. And I think it's the same with when you're working with children, young people, parents, even members of staff, we've got to celebrate those small successes, because the small successes lead to big successes. But we have to celebrate the small ones first.
Simon Currigan 30:29
If you're a teacher, or a school leader, or a parent, actually, we've we've started the discussion about parents, and you're listening to this podcast, and you're working with a child who is struggling with her anger, we've talked about a lot of different things. What's the first step you could take today to start helping them achieve success
Nicola S Morgan 30:47
For me, as a member of staff. And if I'm talking to other members of staff, and to parents, I would say be reflective and conscious of your own emotions, including anger. How do you respond? How do you feel when you get triggered? And also, how long does it take you if you've really got triggered if you've gone into that anger mode? How long does it actually take for you to actually be in a position that you can say, sorry, for example, now, I don't know about you, but it can take me up to three days, and maybe I shouldn't have admitted to that. But it does happen. And I think the more aware we become of our own emotions, the more equipped we are then to deal with the children and young people we're working with.
Simon Currigan 31:33
I think that's really powerful as well. It's about the empathy, isn't it?
Nicola S Morgan 31:36
Absolutely.
Simon Currigan 31:37
How can our listeners find out more about your TED Talk, your anger management programme, tell us where we can find out about your resources?
Nicola S Morgan 31:44
Well, the anger management programme, the 10 session programme that's on the website, NSM training and consultancy, and it's called the explosive pupil Anger Management for Schools and Colleges, or they can just email us or email you, and you can put them in touch with us, which will be great. So that's a really, really good one. And I would definitely ask people just to check it out, check us out on social media, because you can see all the feedback from that particular course this there as well. So that's a really good starting point. And what I think when we're dealing with behaviour, it's nice to have a framework to start with some sort of structure that we can then develop ourselves. As far as the TED talk is concerned, please, please, please watch it, it will be great is based on Unfinished business delaying the urge to give up now I gave one or two resilience strategies during this podcast or on the TED talk, I give three more very powerful, resilient strategies that are very transferable to in the classroom as well. And also for us to use as adults coming back to what you asked earlier assignment. So if you can take a look at that, that will be great. Or if you just type into YouTube, Nikola s Morgan, I'm not going to tell you what the S stands for Nikola s. Morgan, then the TED talk will come up.
Simon Currigan 32:57
And what I'll do is, I'll put direct links to all of those resources in the episode description. So if you're on a run, or at the gym or out for a walk, and you can't get your phone out and type for whatever reason, all you need to do when you when you finish listening is look in the episode description and you can click straight through with your finger.
Nicola, we ask this of all of our guests, who is the key figure that's influenced you, which key book that you've read, that has had the biggest impact on your approach to working with kids?
Nicola S Morgan 33:23
I'm gonna give two actually, well, in fact, I'm gonna give four but the two are for me, the other one's for a child and the other one's for a teenager. So I'm just gonna give you a few reference points here. The one that I would recommend is the whole brainchild by Dr. Dan Siegel, absolutely brilliant book. And he talks about key key things like Name it to tame it, engage-don't enrage, move it or lose it. Really kind of quirky approaches, and also the flipping of the lid, which is connected to what we've been talking about here. Absolutely brilliant. Check it out. And he's also got a workbook that goes with the book. So again, if you are going to do the 10 session programme for anger management, this could be something that you include in this those 10 sessions as well. The other one I'm going to mention is I blame my brain by a lady called Nicola Morgan. And that's why I've been emphasising the s in the middle of my name because it's not me. And incredible lady brilliant book, she updated it, I blame my brain. Very, very good if you're working in secondary school. And again, if you work and you're concerned about a child's anger, this is a very good book to take a look at. A book that I'm sure you've got in your library in school for younger children is a volcano in my tummy. And that's a very, very good one and one for teens is keeping your cool. A teen Survival Guide. I like survival guides.
Well, I'm sure people will be looking those books up as we speak. Nicola, I've really enjoyed talking to you today. You've given us so much practical information. Just want to say thank you for being on the podcast. We really appreciate it.
Thank you so so much
Emma Shackleton 35:01
Wow, what a practical episode Nicola was so good at explaining step by step, how to run an effective anger management programme. Lots of good stuff that we can all pick up and start using to support our students straightaway.
Simon Currigan 35:18
Yeah I really enjoyed that interview, Nicola was so knowledgeable. I'll put direct links to her website and courses in the show notes. So all you have to do is open up your podcast app and tap through. And you'll also find a direct link to her TED Talk in that if you haven't seen it yet, definitely worth a watch.
Emma Shackleton 35:33
If you found today's episode useful, please don't keep it to yourself, pay it forward and share it on your socials so that other people can benefit from the strategies and ideas that Nicola shared. It'll take you just 20 seconds. Open up your podcast app, hit Share, and send a direct link by email messenger WhatsApp or however you like to message your friends. And don't forget to subscribe while you've got your app open.
Simon Currigan 36:01
That means it's game over for this week's episode.
Emma Shackleton 36:04
We hope you have a calm serene and anger free week and we really looking forward to seeing you on the next episode of school behaviour sequence. Bye for now.
Simon Currigan 36:15
Bye
(This automated transcript may not be 100% accurate.)
