Getting Unstuck – Cultivating Curiosity Podcast | #395: Why Are Many of Today’s Students Anxious, Aggressive, and Shut Down?

#395 Why Are Many of Today's Students Anxious, Aggressive, and Shut Down?

Guests

Why are school children more anxious, aggressive, and shut down than ever before? We first heard answers from educators Tamara Neufeld Strijack and Hannah Beach in April 2020. Hannah takes us up to the present in this update episode.

Tamara is the academic dean of the Neufeld Institute, where she develops and delivers courses and workshops that support parents, teachers, and helping professionals around the world in making sense of children through developmental science. Tamara works as a registered clinical counsellor, parent consultant, and sessional instructor for several universities, where she lectures for the faculties of education and counseling.

Hannah is an award-winning educator, author, and keynote speaker. She was recognized by the Canadian Human Rights Commission in 2017 as one of five featured change-makers in Canada. She is a Neufeld course facilitator, delivers professional development services across the country, provides emotional health consulting to schools, and speaks at national and international conferences about the power of bringing more feeling and human connection into the classroom.

Together, they are the authors of Reclaiming Our Students: Why Children Are More Anxious, Aggressive, and Shut Down Than Ever―And What We Can Do About It – a book about restoring the emotional well-being of children. As stated in the book’s preface, “Academics can no longer be divorced from matters of the heart.”

Summary

The core takeaway is this: children today are emotionally overloaded and under-supported, and until adults—especially teachers—reestablish themselves as consistent, caring, emotionally safe anchors, academic learning will continue to fall short.

Tamara and Hannah argue that modern cultural shifts—loss of free play, constant entertainment, diminished time with adults, and the dominance of technology—have deprived kids of the natural outlets and relationships they need to process alarm, frustration, and sadness. Schools cannot “fix” behavior through discipline or curriculum tweaks alone. The starting point is restoring emotional connection, safe expression, and relational leadership in the classroom.

Listen for:

  1. Why are our kids in the position today of being more anxious, aggressive and shut down than ever before?

  2. What has been the impact of children losing time for free play – and of entertainment becoming the substitute for free play?

  3. What are “void moments,” and what purpose do they serve?

  4. How can one teacher make a huge difference in the risk factors of children?

  5. What are the characteristics of the “caring leader”?

  6. Why we need to provide children with outlets for expression, and why are those outlets especially important in the online learning environment we find ourselves in today?

ShiftED Podcast #70 • In Conversation with Hannah Beach Reclaiming Childhood: Inside the Play Crisis and What Schools Can DO

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ShiftED Podcast #70 • In Conversation with Hannah Beach Reclaiming Childhood: Inside the Play Crisis and What Schools Can DO

Action Now: A Developmental Reset for Anxious Classrooms

The state of our schools demands urgent action. We are seeing students who are consistently anxious, aggressive, or shut down. This is a developmental crisis, and our focus must be on the child’s reality, not our wish list.

That is the powerful throughline from our conversation with educator Hannah Beach. She helps us decode the forces short-circuiting a child’s capacity for regulation:

  1. Attachment Displacement: Adult guidance is being displaced by intense peer attachment, robbing children of their primary regulatory anchor.
  2. The Hollow Soother: Devices act as a temporary “attachment soother” that numbs feelings without providing the necessary connection or emotional processing.
  3. The Collapse of Play: The erosion of real, unstructured play has removed the psychological mechanism children need to digest stress, process big feelings, and calibrate courage.

The solution is a return to basics: warm, firm attachment and real, unstructured play bring students back online.

Concrete Moves for Immediate Impact:

  • Play vs. Performance: Guard against performance. Well-meaning praise can short-circuit intrinsic motivation. Play, like a child seeking orphan stories, needs a protected bubble for emotional repair.
  • Frustration Play: Implement “frustration play” with loose parts (crates, tires) to uniquely lower aggression by teaching the brain to stay with difficulty.
  • Structural Shifts:
    • Device-Free Hours: Restore eye contact and conversation.
    • Adult Flow States: A teacher’s focused “flow state” acts as a crucial safety cue, helping reluctant kids drift into independent play.
    • Protect Void Moments: Guard the brief, unstructured times that spark imagination.

If your classroom feels like it’s running on shallow breath, this is your reset.

What’s one change you’ll try this week to rebuild attachment or protect a “void moment” for your students?

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Ellipses Thinking Podcast – Play is where we discover ourselves with Hannah Beach

In her daily life and professional path, Hannah Beach has always been drawn towards the bubble of play. She is deeply committed to the idea that “play is where we discover ourselves”.  

Travelling the country, as educator, author, emotional health consultant or keynote speaker, Hannah channels her heart’s wisdom to share the power of relationship and play in children of all ages. Her best-selling book Reclaiming Our Students: Why Children Are More Anxious, Aggressive, and Shut-Down than Ever—and What We Can Do About It, co-authored with Tamara Neufeld Strijack, has been adopted by school boards across Canada. 

Hannah was recognized by the Canadian Human Rights Commission in 2017 as one of five featured changemakers in Canada. Her bestselling I Can Dance book series, supporting the emotional health of children through movement, play, and expression, won a 2017 Gold International Moonbeam Children’s Book Award.

Building Emotional Resiliency in Children with the Dandelion Approach Video – January 25, 2021

Island Health just released a short video of me working alongside teachers, librarians and the Aboriginal Infant Development Program with the Snuneymuxw First Nation, as they took workshops on the Dandelion Approach™. I founded The Dandelion Approach™ as a way to create change for children and youth through relationship, play and experiential discovery.

Although this specific grant is over, I am still supporting schools and community organizations to facilitate this approach to emotional health. In this time of great stress and disconnection, this training is being requested more than ever. For those of you that have our book, you will find all the activities you see in the video, in the Inside-Out Guide that comes free with the book. You might enjoy watching teachers, early childhood educators and librarians trying the activities out before they facilitate them to the children in their care. It was so beautiful for me to see these educators coming together and exploring how to support students and build community through this approach.

Better Leaders Better Schools podcast- August 25, 2021

Aug 25, 2021 | 0 Comments

with Daniel Bauer Listen Here: https://www.betterleadersbetterschools.com/066-hannah-beach https://open.spotify.com/episode/3EvlC5O7fiPrpvL7IeoQ5x The BETTER LEADERS BETTER SCHOOLS podcast is a show created for RUCKUS MAKERS in education -- those out-of-the-box school...

Emotional Health and School Webinar – September 24, 2020

Sep 24, 2020 | 0 Comments

Neufeld Institute Webinar Panel on Emotional Health and School, with Tamara Strijack, Deborah MacNamara, Eva de Gosztonyi and Hannah Beach. Join the Leadership Team from the IDEA Centre for Educators as they discuss Emotional Health and School...

Creating Playgrounds for Emotional Expression Webinar – May 22, 2020

May 22, 2020 | 0 Comments

Webinar presented by Hannah Beach and Tamara Strijack on Creating Playgrounds for Emotional Expression (https://reclaimingourstudents.com/) When emotions stop moving, we start to see the signs of problem behaviour. Expression of emotion is the first step in emotional...

I Can Dance Sad and Happy Video – April 16, 2020

Apr 16, 2020 | 0 Comments

During this challenging time - many children (well, all of us!) are filled with many, many emotions. We need to make room for all of children's emotions, even their very tender feelings. Understandably, it can be hard to see our kids or students sad. We might want to...

Emotional Health and School Webinar – September 24, 2020

Sep 24, 2020 | 0 Comments

Neufeld Institute Webinar Panel on Emotional Health and School, with Tamara Strijack, Deborah MacNamara, Eva de Gosztonyi and Hannah Beach. Join the Leadership Team from the IDEA Centre for Educators as they discuss Emotional Health and School...

Let the Kids Play This Summer

Jul 21, 2025 | 0 Comments

Let the Kids Play This Summer   Over-scheduling and screens are making kids anxious and aggressive. They need to let loose.   Read the full article here: https://macleans.ca/society/let-the-kids-play-this-summer/

Let the Kids Play This Summer

Jul 21, 2025 | 0 Comments

Let the Kids Play This Summer   Over-scheduling and screens are making kids anxious and aggressive. They need to let loose.   Read the full article here: https://macleans.ca/society/let-the-kids-play-this-summer/

Let the Kids Play This Summer

Jul 21, 2025 | 0 Comments

Let the Kids Play This Summer   Over-scheduling and screens are making kids anxious and aggressive. They need to let loose.   Read the full article here: https://macleans.ca/society/let-the-kids-play-this-summer/

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