Care Courses Blog

Work­ing as an ear­ly child­hood pro­fes­sion­al is very reward­ing, but it can also be very stress­ful. Many ear­ly child­hood teach­ers (and chil­dren) expe­ri­ence over­whelm­ing and over­stim­u­lat­ing sit­u­a­tions through­out the day. In this blog we share 6 ways to reduce over­stim­u­la­tion in child­care. By imple­ment­ing these strate­gies, you can help cre­ate a more pleas­ant atmos­phere in your child care envi­ron­ment and improve the qual­i­ty of children’s dai­ly learn­ing experiences. 

What is Overstimulation? 

The first step to reduce over­stim­u­la­tion in child­care is to under­stand and define the prob­lem. Over­stim­u­la­tion is a feel­ing of sen­so­ry over­load. A busy child care set­ting is a place filled with a pletho­ra of sights, sounds, smells, and oth­er sen­so­ry stim­uli. Com­plet­ing tasks while pro­cess­ing all of these sen­so­ry stim­uli can be chal­leng­ing for both adults and children. 

Sources of Overstimulation

One of the most com­mon sources of over­stim­u­la­tion men­tioned by our stu­dents has been: “too many sounds.” This cer­tain­ly makes sense. Just imag­ine how many sounds a teacher must process in a day! Doors open­ing and clos­ing, toi­lets flush­ing, sinks run­ning, toys bang­ing and clat­ter­ing, chil­dren chat­ter­ing and squeal­ing with delight, oth­er chil­dren cry­ing or express­ing frus­tra­tion, par­ents and oth­er adults attempt­ing to com­mu­ni­cate, phones ring­ing, and more! Of course, a teacher can­not remove the sounds from the envi­ron­ment, but these 6 strate­gies may help reduce the feel­ing of overstimulation.

6 Strategies to Reduce Overstimulation in Childcare

1. Set the tone with your own atti­tude and behavior
2. Stage the envi­ron­ment thoughtfully
3. Estab­lish rou­tines and expectations
4. Teach the chil­dren about dif­fer­ent vol­ume levels 
5. Incor­po­rate gen­tle back­ground music or oth­er sounds
6. Cre­ate a calm­ing corner 

We will dis­cuss each strat­e­gy in more detail in the fol­low­ing sections. 

Reduce overstimulation by setting the tone

First and fore­most, a teacher’s atti­tude can help set a calm, gen­tle tone in the child care set­ting. When a calm and gen­tle tone is set by a teacher’s atti­tude and man­ner of speak­ing, chil­dren will be more like­ly to behave calm­ly and gen­tly. Of course, the chil­dren will still make joy­ful nois­es and express frus­tra­tion imma­ture­ly, but con­sis­tent­ly set­ting an exam­ple by com­mu­ni­cat­ing calm­ly helps chil­dren even­tu­al­ly learn to do so. Always remem­ber to lead by exam­ple and to keep your cool! 

Reduce overstimulation by staging the environment

If you find your­self feel­ing over­stim­u­lat­ed by loud noise and activ­i­ty, do not react by yelling. When you yell, that sets an exam­ple that yelling is an accept­able way to com­mu­ni­cate in your child care set­ting. Some teach­ers use a chime or oth­er gen­tle tone as a sig­nal to get the group’s atten­tion when there is too much noise. Oth­ers hold up a sign and walk around to be sure every­one sees it. Exper­i­ment with what sig­nal works best for your group. Prac­tice using that sig­nal reg­u­lar­ly to help chil­dren devel­op the  habit of respond­ing appropriately. 

Care­ful­ly stag­ing the fur­ni­ture in your child care set­ting can help pro­vide struc­ture and may also reduce the feel­ing of being in an envi­ron­ment of chaos. For instance, it can help to locate your noisy learn­ing cen­ters like blocks, dra­mat­ic play, and music near each oth­er. This can keep the loud­er sounds in one area of the room and can reserve anoth­er sec­tion of the room for more qui­et activ­i­ties such as read­ing and art. 

Reduce overstimulation by establishing a routine

Estab­lish­ing a rou­tine can com­fort both you, and the chil­dren. Chil­dren like to know where to go, and what is expect­ed of them. A well estab­lished, famil­iar rou­tine can reduce children’s anx­i­ety and frus­tra­tion which may also reduce their need to express their over­stim­u­la­tion by cry­ing or scream­ing. Teach the chil­dren about your dai­ly sched­ule, post a pic­ture sched­ule that they can look at when they get anx­ious  and need a reminder about when their par­ents will be returning. 

Teach the chil­dren about bound­aries and expec­ta­tions in your learn­ing cen­ters. Help them under­stand that run­ning laps, climb­ing, and jump­ing are activ­i­ties that can be done out­doors, but not in the classroom. 

Reduce overstimulation by establishing a routine and teaching children about volume

Some­times chil­dren resort to run­ning around, scream­ing, and throw­ing things because they tru­ly do not know exact­ly what else to do. Many chil­dren also come to child care with lim­it­ed expe­ri­ence play­ing con­struc­tive­ly and inter­act­ing with oth­ers. They need guid­ance to learn how to com­mu­ni­cate with peers, extend their atten­tion span, and build per­sis­tence when using new mate­ri­als appro­pri­ate­ly. Act as a mod­el or a play part­ner to show them how to choose a cen­ter, begin an activ­i­ty, and stay engaged with that activ­i­ty for sev­er­al minutes. 

Addi­tion­al­ly, teach the chil­dren the dif­fer­ence between “loud” and “qui­et” through fun inter­ac­tive activ­i­ties and songs. Help them learn the dif­fer­ent vol­ume lev­els that are accept­able in dif­fer­ent loca­tions. Demon­strate that it is fun to shout across the play­ground, then dra­mat­i­cal­ly reduce your vol­ume when you step back indoors.  Explain that it helps everyone’s ears feel bet­ter when peo­ple use inside voic­es inside, and save out­side voic­es for outside!

Reduce overstimulation in your child care setting with gentle background music

Anoth­er way to help reduce over­stim­u­la­tion in your child care set­ting is to incor­po­rate soft back­ground music into cer­tain parts of your rou­tine. Instru­men­tal acoustic gui­tar or piano melodies can help cre­ate a relax­ing atmos­phere that inspires chil­dren to use soft­er voic­es as they inter­act. Dif­fer­ent types of music bring dif­fer­ent ener­gy into a learn­ing envi­ron­ment. Exper­i­ment with dif­fer­ent songs until you iden­ti­fy a few that help you to feel at ease, but not sleepy. 

Apart from that, try lis­ten­ing to dif­fer­ent songs with the chil­dren in your group until you dis­cov­er the best back­ground playlist that encour­ages them to focus, engage, and play as calm­ly as pos­si­ble.  Some groups enjoy lis­ten­ing to well known children’s songs and nurs­ery rhymes dur­ing play time. If your group prefers that, vis­it The Ella Jenk­ins web­site to access hun­dreds of children’s clas­sics per­formed by Ella Jenk­ins, “the first lady of children’s music.” Hap­py lis­ten­ing! 

Reduce overstimulation in childcare with gentle background music and a calming corner 

Last but not least, a strat­e­gy that can help reduce over­stim­u­la­tion for both chil­dren and adults in a child care set­ting is cre­at­ing a calm­ing cor­ner. In a set­ting with a well estab­lished rou­tine and learn­ing cen­ters, a  calm­ing cor­ner can be a place for indi­vid­u­als to sit or lay down, take a break, and relax. Includ­ing soft tex­tured mate­ri­als and some sen­so­ry fid­get items can help those who feel over­stim­u­lat­ed to pause, calm them­selves, and become recen­tered by acti­vat­ing their oth­er senses. 

Fur­ther­more, teach­ing the chil­dren the pur­pose of a calm­ing cor­ner can help them to reduce their noise and activ­i­ty lev­el near that area. Some of our stu­dents shared that they estab­lished a calm­ing cor­ner in their child care set­ting for the chil­dren to use, and end­ed up enjoy­ing the com­fort of that space them­selves from time to time! 

Want to learn more strate­gies to help you cope with the stress you expe­ri­ence as a child care provider? Take our course, Car­ing for Your­self and Achiev­ing Your Goals. To learn more about how to help cre­ate a calm­ing envi­ron­ment and reduce children’s stress, take our course Ear­ly Child­hood Stress: Seri­ous Stress in Children’s Lives. 

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