RESOURCES

• Watch the full webinar here
• Join our newsletter! Earn your Professional Development hours with FREE sessions delivered right to your inbox every week
• Check out the producer of ECI, Playground, the Child Care Management Software

Every classroom moment carries emotional weight. When a child melts down, refuses, pushes, cries, or shuts down, it’s easy to focus on compliance or quick fixes. But what if behavior is not a discipline problem, but a stress signal? In this dynamic and practical session, you will learn how to shift from reacting to behavior to responding with clarity, steadiness, and intention.

Emotionally Responsive Practice (ERP) offers a research-informed, classroom-ready framework that helps you understand behavior through a nervous system lens—both in children and in yourself. You will explore how your own regulation shapes the emotional climate of your classroom and why your presence is often more powerful than your words.

You will walk away with a clear three-layer strategy model that moves beyond “What do I say?” and into sustainable practice:

• Proactive Layer: How you design environments, routines, and expectations to reduce stress before it escalates.

• In-the-Moment Layer: How you regulate yourself and respond effectively during dysregulated moments.

• Reflective Layer: How you process challenging situations to support long-term growth and prevent recurring patterns.

  
  

Rather than offering surface-level behavior tips, this session strengthens your capacity so your responses feel grounded, confident, and developmentally aligned. You will leave with practical tools you can use immediately—and a deeper understanding of how connection and regulation transform classroom culture.

Learning Objectives

By the end of this session, you will be able to:

1. Understand behavior through a nervous system and stress lens rather than a compliance lens.

2. Recognize your personal stress signatures and how they show up in classroom interactions.

3. Apply the three-layer ERP strategy model (proactive, in-the-moment, reflective) to real classroom scenarios.

4. Use practical regulation tools that can be implemented immediately.

   
   

Shift from managing behavior to guiding children with connection and clarity.

RESOURCES

• Watch the full webinar here
• Join our newsletter! Earn your Professional Development hours with FREE sessions delivered right to your inbox every week
• Check out the producer of ECI, Playground, the Child Care Management Software

What if the daily pressures you feel in early childhood education are not a signal to do more, but an invitation to examine the conditions more closely?

In this interactive, research-informed webinar, you will step into the role of a “Play Scientist” and test a powerful hypothesis: when pressure increases and play decreases, learning, connection, and well-being are compromised.

Through real-world insights, reflective play experiences, and brain-based research, you will explore how the current demands of the field—including compliance, documentation, challenging behaviors, and limited time—are influencing educator well-being, nurturing relationships, and children’s outcomes.

Using research and practical data points, this session will examine how stress increases cortisol, reduces patience, and disrupts connection, while play boosts dopamine, supports motivation, deepens engagement, and strengthens learning. Rather than adding more strategies to your already-full workload, this session invites you to challenge your thinking in order to change your practice.

You will discover how small, intentional moments of play can restore engagement, support regulation, and transform classroom dynamics without requiring extra time or additional resources.

The conclusion is clear: play is not an extra; it is essential. You’ll leave with a renewed perspective and practical strategies to play smarter, not harder, boost your impact, and reconnect with the joy and purpose of your work.

Learning Objectives

Participants will be able to:

1. Examine how current pressures in early childhood education, including compliance, documentation, challenging behaviors, and limited time, affect educator well-being, relationships, and child outcomes.

2. Describe how stress and play influence the brain, including the impact of cortisol on patience and connection and the role of dopamine in motivation, engagement, and learning.

3. Recognize how decreases in play can compromise regulation, connection, and deeper learning for both educators and children.

4. Identify small, intentional moments of play that can be embedded into daily routines without requiring additional time, materials, or resources.

5. Apply practical “play smarter, not harder” strategies to support engagement, regulation, classroom connection, and educator joy.

RESOURCES

• Watch the full webinar here
• Join our newsletter! Earn your Professional Development hours with FREE sessions delivered right to your inbox every week
• Check out the producer of ECI, Playground, the Child Care Management Software

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You’ve said it before:

“They’re not listening.”

“They’re overreacting.”

“They know better than this.”

And yet, the behavior keeps showing up.

What if the behavior is not about defiance or choice at all, but about a nervous system that needs something different than what we are offering?

In this session, you’ll learn how to differentiate between sensory-driven and emotionally driven behavior so you can respond in ways that support regulation instead of escalating the moment. We’ll walk through the nine sensory systems and explore how they show up in the classroom, often in ways that are misunderstood or mislabeled.

You’ll begin to recognize the patterns beneath the behavior and better understand what a child’s nervous system may be communicating in real time. From there, we’ll shift into practical, in-the-moment strategies you can use right away to support regulation, connection, and learning.

This work is not just about children. As educators, your own nervous system plays a critical role in how you respond, teach, and connect. You’ll leave with tools to support not only your students, but also yourself and your team, helping the classroom feel more manageable, connected, and sustainable.

Learning Objectives

Participants will be able to:

1. Differentiate between sensory regulation needs and emotional regulation needs in real classroom moments.

2. Recognize how the nine sensory systems influence behavior in children and adults.

3. Identify behavioral patterns that may point to underlying nervous system needs.

4. Use practical, in-the-moment strategies to support regulation, strengthen connection, and reduce escalation.

5. Reflect on how their own nervous system shapes their responses to children, colleagues, and classroom stressors.