Self-Care Tips
for Early Childhood Educators Author: Annie M. Brown Early Learning Coalition of Hillsborough County
As early childhood educators, working with young children can be rewarding, but also comes with challenges that can be exhausting and take a toll on your spirit, mind, and body. Because educators are encouraged to focus so much energy on taking care of and educating others, and so little on themselves, self-care is necessary to maintain good physical and mental health and avoid burnout. Self-care means you are mindful of your own needs, and that you are implementing strategies for meeting those needs so you can be healthy, help and care for others, function well on your job and are better able to support the people you care about. Self-care can be a great way to prevent or treat teacher stress. Approximately 30% of teachers report feeling levels of stress at any given time during the school year (Blazer, 2010). When left unattended to, teacher stress can lead to burnout and play an adverse role in teacher turnover. Self-care is crucial for teachers. It helps teachers maintain an adequate quality of physical, mental, and spiritual well-being, and reach full potential in the classroom, which will positively affect student’s outcome. Below are some tips that may help you as you consider your thoughts for self-care.
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