A 5th grader taught me something about nervous system literacy.
...
Years ago, when I was working as a school counselor, I met a fifth grader (I’ll call Elliot*).
He was being sent to the office almost every week for pushing or hitting other kids. When I tried to explore what was happening for him, he couldn't.
At one point, he explained he was just 'angry' at ___ (whichever kid it was he pushed that day). .
He couldn't find any other way to explain it. When he was angry, he was just… angry.
Around that time, I had been learning about interoception, our ability to notice our own internal signals coming from the body.
Although I didn't use that word with Elliot. I could tell it wasn't the labels about emotions or feelings that was going to help him navigate what was happening.
He needed anchors in his body.
Because “anger” is still a 'concept'.. it's a word we use to attempt to describe something fluctuating inside our mind and body.
And 'anger' is a big idea.. a big feeling
When I asked him what he noticed when he was angry or upset, he couldn't identify anything specific.
He said it just felt like a cloud.
So instead of asking him to understand or explain the whole feeling, I started helping him look for something he could actually observe in his own body.
Was there anywhere he could feel it? Did anything change in his body?
We would slow down and imagine situations that had upset him, and see if he could detect something happening inside.
At first, he couldn't.
We kept practicing, and sometimes I would come up with my own scenario and describe to him everything I could sense and observe in my body.
And then one day, something clicked.
He thought about a student in his class who had been bothering him.
He looked down.
He looked up at me in surprise and then told me he could actually see his fist was clenching.
Then suddenly, again with a look of surprise, he said he could feel tingling and hot in his chest.
And suddenly he looked at me and said:
“Miss Stefanie! I have an indicator!”
(I hadn't taught him that word.)
But it was exactly what he had discovered.
His body had given him an anchor.
Something he could notice and recognize when the feeling itself still felt too big and amorphous to navigate.
The next day after school, he came up to me with a huge smile.
Another student had been bothering him.
He had started getting angry.
And then...
he noticed his fist.
He recognized his “indicator.”
And that tiny moment of awareness gave him a little more space between what was happening inside his body and what he did next.
Instead of hitting her, he told her he didn't want to fight and walked away.
And something changed after that.
Elliot had been getting detention almost every week.
For the remaining months I was at that school, he didn't receive a single one.
I still think about this story when I teach nervous system regulation.
Because sometimes a feeling is too big, too fast, or too difficult to put into words.
But the body can give us something to anchor into.
A fist tightening, a hot spot in the chest, feeling our breathing change in pace or which part is rising and falling, a clenched .
A sensation that becomes an anchor for awareness.
And with practice, we can begin to recognize those signals earlier.
Before the impulse becomes an action, and the big feeling completely takes over.
