Breadcrumbs Heart-Centered Tools: Helping Children Navigate Life’s Ups and Downs

Children learn by example. This is known as observational learning or modeling. When we’re mindful of the little hearts and minds in our midst, we can make choices about managing our own stress- which serves as powerful examples to children. Of course, it’s unrealistic to imagine that you will never be triggered and wish you’d responded differently. These too are “teachable moments” to reflect on how you may have responded more appropriately using a different set of tools. Asking children for advice and support is often instructive for caregivers and empowering for children. 

Breadcrumbs is about filling an SEL Toolbox with practices designed to respond optimally to life’s inevitable challenges. Ours is not to alter the inevitable waves of ups and downs that are the essence of life. Ours is to offer children tools to navigate the waters with as much ease and flow as possible. Each lesson of the Breadcrumbs Curriculum is designed to help children recognize when they are “Upset” and offer them another tool to return to their natural, peaceful “Pre-Set” with ease and flow.

What Does SEL Stand For?

SEL stands for Social and Emotional Learning. Social-emotional learning helps children develop emotional awareness, self-regulation, empathy, healthy relationships, and a strong sense of self. Effective SEL programs teach children how to notice emotions, how to calm their bodies, and how to choose kind, respectful actions, even during moments of stress or conflict.

The Three Powerful Tools

Breadcrumbs begins by introducing the children to the “Three Powerful Tools.”

• Heart-Centered Breathing - A calming breathing practice that helps children regulate their nervous systems and return to emotional balance.
• Labyrinth Time - A mindful movement practice that supports self-regulation, focus, and embodied awareness.
• Heart-Centered Reflection - A reflective practice that teaches children to trust their hearts as a source of kindness, compassion, and wise guidance. Through this practice, children come to know and trust that their hearts will never counsel them to do or say anything unkind or harmful to themselves or another.

The heart is literally a trusted source of infinite kindness, compassion, empathy, forgiveness, and peace. Your heart is quite literally the Treasure in your Chest.

Heart-centered SEL tools help children:

• Regulate emotions during stress or conflict
• Build empathy and compassion for themselves and others
• Develop internal guidance rather than relying on punishment or reward
• Navigate life’s ups and downs with confidence and emotional resilience

By learning these tools early, children strengthen skills that support lifelong emotional well-being, healthy relationships, and inner peace.

The Stop & Drop Method

Children love the “Stop & Drop” method of making choices and evaluating behaviors.

The Stop & Drop Method is a heart-centered decision-making tool that helps children pause, reflect, and choose kind actions.

How the Stop & Drop Method Works:

1. Stop - Pause before reacting or making a choice.
2. Drop - Bring attention to the heart.
3. Ask:
   1. Is this idea unkind to myself or another?
   2. Is this idea potentially harmful to myself or another?
4. Decide - If the answer is “no” to both, it’s a “GO.”

When children learn to STOP and DROP into their hearts as a way of evaluating actions or exchanges, they develop the ability to make decisions rooted in inner awareness and compassion. (Optimally this technique will be employed before taking action to avoid an unfortunate choice, but it is equally impactful as a follow-up.) 

Example: A child feels like grabbing a toy from a friend. By Stop & Drop, they pause, check their heart, and choose a kind action instead.

Modeling Heart-Centered Behavior

Children learn best when they see adults practicing what they teach. By being mindful of your own stress and responses, you provide a living example for children of how to navigate emotions effectively. Even when triggered, these moments become teachable opportunities for reflection and modeling alternative responses.