Help Babies Shine

This Spring we put on our solar glasses and watched the phenomenon of the moon moving in front of the sun and blocking most of it’s light. While we didn’t have a total eclipse here, it was still incredibly cool!

The wild thing is that a total solar eclipse will only happen 12 times in the 21^st century! It’s a pretty rare thing to experience.

During a solar eclipse, most of the light from the sun is blocked out, causing it to be dark (or dark-ish) in the middle of the day.

Even though this seems harmless, the eclipse can cause ripple effects like a drop in temperature, winds coming to a stop, animals acting funny, and some scientists even observed microbes changing shape (not proven yet!*).

This is similar to situations in an early childhood education center.

When a child presents with “bad” (what adults might call it) behaviors, it can also lead to a ripple effect.

Teachers are ready to quit, directors are lost for what to do next, attention is taken away from other children, and there is even talk of expulsion.

It’s easy to look at this situation and think the child should just stop hitting, crying, throwing things, (insert behavior), etc.

But, with a proper understanding of infant and early childhood mental health, we quickly realize that these “bad” behaviors are often rooted in something more serious.

**Note: We call these challenging behaviors, not bad behaviors, but they certainly feel bad when caregivers are experiencing them. 

Maybe you have experience and trainings on childhood development, but have you really studied the complicated issues surrounding infant and early childhood mental health (IECMH) and the long lasting impact it has on children?

We've noticed that most early childhood professionals are still seeking to learn more, especially post Covid. 

Since you’ve been doing this work for a while, you might be feeling like there has to be more you can offer children and families. Their trauma, history, and concerns are often so much to process. 

Maybe you’ve felt:

• Ill-equipped to deal with the issues you’re seeing in young children
• Discouraged when solutions don’t seem to fit the needs of your families and children
• Isolated and alone in this work
• Like you want more to offer families

This is where we come in.

We don’t want the big, challenging behaviors to eclipse what’s really going on in a child’s life, but it happens a lot, especially in SC.

Did you know that SC has the highest rate of preschool expulsion in the country?

This is abysmal and must change.

One common issue we are hearing is that professionals working with children are seeing more challenging behaviors and are feeling overwhelmed and under-supported…and this can lead to the high rate of expulsion we are seeing.

At SCIMHA, we are here to change this. And that starts with training the early childhood professionals across the state.

We’d like to introduce you to our infant and early childhood mental health training, Foundations Certificate.

After completing the Foundations Certificate Training, professionals can face their caseload or children in their class with an infant mental health lens to show a deeper understanding of the social and emotional development of babies as well as what they need. 

As the only infant mental health organization in the state, we provide comprehensive training from infant mental health specialists that will broaden your approach to babies by helping you:

• Articulate core concepts around infant and early childhood mental health.
• Identify ways to apply these concepts into your professional role.
• Integrate a diversity, equity and inclusion lens while conceptualizing work with infants, young children and their families.

With Foundations, you can help babies thrive!

Click here to learn more about the training: Foundations Training

The solar eclipse is a beautiful spectacle, but young children being eclipsed by a lack of mental health knowledge is not.

Let’s work together to help young children in SC shine and not be blocked by their past!

-SCIMHA

PS: Learn more about how you can help babies thrive here: Foundations Training

PPS: If you’re looking for resources for preschool expulsion, please contact Help Me Grow SC