Teacher Ideas

Is it really a problem?

I was constantly bombarded with kids coming to me with what I perceived to be small problems that they wanted me to deal with on a daily basis. It got to be so much, that I made a slip of paper and encouraged students to write down their issue and check a box indicating whether they would like to talk about the issue with the entire class or with me, as the teacher. At the end of the day, I'd read the submissions and ask the student if he/she'd still like to talk about it. The vast majority of the issues were no longer problems. I found that the students who had difficulty regulating were the ones who still felt the need to talk about the issues.