Why the Education System Is Emotionally Failing Our Children, and What We Can Do About It
- Brainz Magazine
- 2 days ago
- 10 min read
Written by Sheila Marina, Energy Healer
Sheila Marina is an Energy Healer and the founder of Planet of Peace Energy Healing, a holistic practice offering emotional release and energy healing. With over 35 years of experience, she helps others restore balance through The Emotion Code, mind-body techniques, and compassionate leadership.
Emotional literacy isn’t just missing; it’s misunderstood. We expect children to sit still, focus, and “behave,” without asking whether their nervous systems feel safe enough to learn. When a child melts down, shuts down, or lashes out, we respond with discipline rather than compassion. Labels replace curiosity. And in doing so, we miss the deeper truth: a child acting out is often a child crying out.
A system built for achievement, not emotional well-being
For over three decades, I worked in Children’s Services, walking beside families navigating crisis, trauma, and systemic gaps. I’ve witnessed firsthand how the education system, though well-intentioned, too often prioritizes academic success at the cost of emotional safety. In classrooms across North America, children are taught to solve equations, recite historical dates, and pass standardized tests, but are rarely taught how to identify, regulate, or express their emotions.
In my current work as an energy healer, I see the lingering effects of these early emotional wounds. Adults come to me carrying the weight of what they were never taught how to feel, how to self-soothe, how to release what no longer serves. This article is an invitation to reimagine our education system through the lens of emotional wisdom, and to begin restoring what our children and our inner children have long been needing.
The invisible curriculum, what schools don’t teach
There is a hidden curriculum in every school, one that teaches children which parts of themselves are welcome and which must be suppressed. While schools proudly focus on literacy, numeracy, and achievement, emotional education is often invisible or entirely absent. Children may learn how to multiply numbers, but not how to regulate nervous system overload. They may be tested on spelling and science, but not on how to communicate their needs, set boundaries, or process disappointment.
When social-emotional learning is included, it’s typically reduced to a once-a-week lesson or a character trait poster on the wall. These efforts, while well-meaning, cannot make up for the daily emotional undercurrents children navigate, especially in classrooms that are overstimulating, under-resourced, or led by adults who themselves feel overwhelmed.
Many educators genuinely want to help, but they haven’t been trained in trauma-informed approaches or emotional co-regulation. They’re asked to manage behaviors, not to decode them. As a result, children struggling with grief, fear, rejection, or shame are often seen as “acting out” rather than “reaching out.”
I once observed a third-grade student, whom we’ll call Lucas, who was frequently sent to the hallway for “disruptive behavior.” He tapped his pencil incessantly, interrupted during
group lessons, and often stood beside his desk rather than sitting at it. One day, when another student dropped their lunch tray, Lucas flinched so violently that he spilled his own drink. The teacher, frustrated, asked him to leave the room. But what no one paused to consider was this: Lucas wasn’t being defiant; he was dysregulated. His body was responding to an internal alarm system, wired by past trauma. And each time he was sent away, the deeper message reinforced was: “Your emotions are too much. You are too much.”
The truth is, schools aren’t just places of learning; they are emotional ecosystems. Every child enters with a unique energetic imprint. Without emotional tools, both students and teachers are left to navigate these dynamics unconsciously, and the cost is high. Children quickly internalize the belief that their emotional world is secondary or worse, a problem to be fixed.
By neglecting emotional development, we are not simply delaying learning, we are disrupting it at the root. A dysregulated child cannot access higher reasoning. A fearful child cannot engage creatively. An unseen child cannot thrive.
The impact on children’s nervous systems
Beneath every behavior is a nervous system trying to find safety.
When a child enters a classroom, they don’t just bring a backpack; they bring an entire emotional landscape. That landscape may include stress from a chaotic morning, tension from an unspoken conflict at home, or the deep imprint of unresolved trauma. And yet, we expect them to perform on demand, to focus, participate, and meet expectations as though their internal world doesn’t matter.
But it does matter. In fact, it determines everything.
The human nervous system is wired for survival first, connection second, and learning last. When a child feels emotionally unsafe, whether due to sensory overload, relational disconnection, or accumulated stress, their brain shifts into survival mode. In this state, higher cognitive functions like memory, reasoning, and impulse control become less accessible. What we often label as defiance or inattention is often a child’s nervous system sounding the alarm: I don’t feel safe here.
This dysregulation can look like many things:
A child who fidgets endlessly, unable to sit still
A child who seems “checked out,” lost in daydreams
A child who cries easily, startles quickly, or lashes out in frustration
A child who clings to routines or resists transitions
A child who disrupts the class, not to annoy, but to release pressure from within
In my energy healing practice, I’ve worked with children and adults who still carry the imprint of these early nervous system imbalances. Through modalities like The Emotion Code, we uncover trapped emotions like fear, helplessness, or dread that became embedded during moments of dysregulation. When these emotional imprints are gently released, people often describe a return to calm, clarity, and a sense of grounded presence.
If we want children to thrive in school, we must understand that learning does not happen in a vacuum. It happens in bodies. In breath. In regulated nervous systems that feel safe enough to engage.
When we overlook emotional safety in the classroom, we unintentionally create environments where only the most regulated or best at masking succeed. The rest are left to flounder in confusion, internalizing failure not as a sign of stress, but as a sign that they are somehow broken.
They are not broken. They are overwhelmed.
When the system pathologizes emotional pain
When a system lacks the language of emotional truth, pain is often mistaken for pathology.
Rather than asking what happened to this child, the system too often asks what’s wrong with this child? And so begins a cycle of assessments, labels, and interventions, some helpful, others deeply wounding.
Emotional expressions such as sadness, anger, or withdrawal are quickly interpreted as symptoms to diagnose. A child who zones out during lessons may be flagged for ADHD. A child who resists authority might be sent for behavioral testing. A child who cries easily is told they’re too sensitive. In many cases, the underlying emotional wounds, grief, fear, humiliation, and heartbreak remain unacknowledged.
Once a child is pathologized, the focus often shifts away from support and toward control. The goal becomes managing the behavior rather than healing the cause. This can lead to a subtle, but profound message: You are the problem. Your emotions are in disorder. Your struggles make you defective.
I’ve sat with parents in despair as their child was handed a list of diagnoses, often accurate in a clinical sense, but incomplete in an emotional one. These families weren’t looking for a label. They were looking for help. For hope. For healing.
It is not that diagnosis is inherently wrong for many; it can be validating and clarifying. But without emotional context, diagnosis alone risks reducing a child to a file, a plan, a label instead of honoring the full human being within.
In my practice, I often work with individuals who were labeled as “problem children” and carried that narrative into adulthood. Their inner dialogue is still shaped by old report cards and disciplinary notes. But once we begin to release the trapped emotions tied to those early school experiences, such as shame, confusion, or rejection, something remarkable happens. Their sense of identity begins to shift. They remember who they were before the label. They reclaim the wholeness that was always there.
When we pathologize emotional pain instead of meeting it with compassion, we miss the opportunity to heal it at the root. But when we truly listen to what a child’s behavior is trying to express, we open the door to deep and lasting transformation.
What children really need to thrive
Every child is born with a blueprint for connection, creativity, and curiosity. But in order to access that potential, they need more than lessons and tests; they need to feel safe.
At the heart of thriving is one simple, powerful truth: a regulated adult helps create a regulated child. Children do not need perfection. They need presence. They need to know that their big emotions won’t scare the adults in the room. They need to feel seen, heard, and soothed again and again until safety becomes internalized.
Thriving children are not molded through pressure and performance; they are nurtured through attunement and trust. This means:
Safety over compliance
Connection over correction
Co-regulation over control
Validation over dismissal
They need environments that honour rest, relationship, and rhythm, not just productivity. Time to breathe. Time to integrate. Time to just be.
They need adults who know how to hold space for sorrow and silliness alike, and who model healthy emotional expression. They need role models who aren’t afraid to say, “I’m feeling overwhelmed, and I’m going to take a moment to breathe.” These simple moments teach far more than any worksheet ever could.
In my healing work with children, parents, and educators, I often encourage micro-practices of emotional safety, a hand on the heart before a lesson, a breath together before a transition, a check-in instead of a reprimand. These small acts recalibrate the nervous system and help rewire the belief that “I am not safe” into “I am supported.”
And when we begin releasing trapped emotions using tools like The Emotion Code, children start to respond in beautiful ways. I’ve witnessed children who struggled with sleep suddenly rest peacefully. Children who were riddled with anxiety begin to smile with ease. The shift is not because they’ve “learned to behave,” but because their bodies have remembered how to feel safe.
We don’t need more control in our classrooms. We need more calm. We need more consciousness. We need adults who are willing to heal themselves so they can truly support the healing of our children.
A new way forward, reimagining education with emotional wisdom
The time has come to reimagine education not just as a place of instruction, but as a space of restoration.
What if schools became sanctuaries of emotional safety? What if classrooms weren’t just filled with desks and whiteboards, but with soft lighting, calming rituals, breathwork moments, and tools for emotional regulation? What if every child were greeted each morning not just with attendance checklists, but with attuned presence?
This isn’t fantasy. It’s possible. But it requires a shift not just in policy, but in perception.
We must begin to see children as emotional beings first and academic beings second. We must train educators not just in curriculum delivery, but in trauma-informed care, nervous system awareness, and emotional co-regulation. We must support families, empower healers, and elevate the conversation around what it truly means to learn and grow.
Energy work offers a meaningful bridge. Modalities like The Emotion Code, created by Dr. Bradley Nelson, help us identify and release trapped emotional energy that can silently shape a child’s behavior, stress response, and self-concept. I’ve witnessed clients, young and old, undergo profound shifts simply by clearing emotions they didn’t even know were stuck.
Imagine if emotional healing wasn’t just a private practice offering, but a universal right. If every school had access to practitioners, sensory sanctuaries, and mindfulness integration. If children learned to tap into their body’s wisdom, name what they feel, and let it move through with grace.
We can build that future. We are already building it.
And it starts with each of us, the parents who choose to model emotional honesty, the educators who pause to co-regulate before they correct, the leaders who dare to ask not “What did you do?” but “What do you need?”
As a healer, I see time and again that once emotional energy is freed, lightness follows. The same is true for our schools. They, too, can become places of light if we’re willing to bring the wisdom in.
A call to wake up and rethink education
If we are to raise a generation of emotionally well children, we must first become emotionally awake adults.
Our education system was not built to hold the full complexity of human emotion, but it can evolve. And the evolution begins with us. With each parent who chooses connection over correction. Each educator who dares to see beyond behavior. Each healer who brings emotional wisdom back into the conversation.
This is not about dismantling what exists. It’s about remembering what’s been missing and gently weaving it back in.
As an Energy Healer and former Children’s Services caseworker, I carry a vision that is both personal and deeply practical:
A future where emotional well-being is not a luxury or an afterthought, but a foundation.
Where every school has access to emotional healing tools like The Emotion Code, mindfulness practices, and somatic awareness.
Where educators and mental health professionals are supported with training in trauma-informed care, energy regulation, and holistic co-regulation strategies.
Where parents are invited into spaces of healing, reflection, and empowerment, not just to support their children, but to reconnect with their own inner child.
Where healing isn’t siloed but integrated.
I envision a world where this kind of work is not only welcomed but woven into the fabric of school communities, parenting programs, and mental health agencies. Where the energy body is understood as a vital part of human development. Where children grow up not just literate, but emotionally fluent. Not just high-achieving, but deeply at peace.
I strive to share this vision in schools, parenting circles, and professional spaces around the world to remind us all that healing is not separate from learning. It is the soil from which all true learning grows.
This article is only a beginning, an invitation to remember that every child’s nervous system is asking the same question: Am I safe? And when the answer becomes yes, the future changes.
For that child. For that classroom. For all of us.
Ready to begin your healing journey?
At Planet of Peace Energy Healing, I work with clients around the world to gently release trapped emotions, restore nervous system balance, and reconnect you with your natural state of clarity, ease, and self-trust. Each session is a personalized, sacred space designed to support your unique path forward.
If this resonates with you, I invite you to take the next step.
Sessions are offered in-person in Bowmanville, Ontario, or virtually over Zoom, making emotional healing accessible wherever you are.
Book your session today and step into the freedom that’s been waiting for you.
If there’s room for a sidebar quote:
“When children are seen, heard, and emotionally supported, they don't just learn better, they live better.”
Read more from Sheila Marina
Sheila Marina, Energy Healer
Sheila Marina is an Energy Healer with over three decades of experience guiding others toward emotional freedom and inner peace. Rooted in 35 years of service in child and family support, she founded Planet of Peace Energy Healing, a sanctuary for healing, release, and renewal. Blending The Emotion Code, Body Code, Belief Code, and Reiki, Sheila offers a path to transformation that honors both the wisdom of the body and the whispers of the soul. A former Area Director with Toastmasters and Group Facilitator with Sashbear.org, she brings a compassionate presence to every step of the healing journey. Her mission is to help others reconnect with their truth and move forward with clarity, peace, and purpose.
