ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on making brief connections with students and how these brief connections can have long-term impacts and help regulate behavior and improve academic performance. It also focuses on those brief non-verbal and verbal connections that matter (CTMs) when helping students with regulation as well as establishing relationships that are conducive to learning. Research confirms the importance of teacher-student connections related to regulating behavior: "Kids who experience high quality student-teacher relationships in the early years have fewer behavior problems. They show more engagement in the classroom and better performance". The chapter begins with trauma-sensitive teacher beliefs about the learning capacities and needs of anxious and traumatized students. Responding to the challenging behaviors of dysregulated students in ways that are calming, not alarming, obliges teachers to respond from a core set of trauma-sensitive beliefs as to what their students' challenging behaviors may be communicating.
