What if classroom management didn’t start with charts and systems — but with something soft, weird, and surprisingly effective? Meet the emotional-support pickle: a small, sensory tool that helps students reset, refocus, and get back to learning. Sometimes the simplest solutions really do work.
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You can purchase emotional-support pickles online—just search for “emotional support pickles” and “plushy”. |
Everyone’s out here talking about fancy classroom-management systems and color-coded behavior charts and the newest acronym-of-the-week. And I’m like: listen. Get some emotional-support pickles. Put them in your classroom. Especially if you teach sixth or seventh grade like I do.
Kids love sensory stuff. They love something tangible. And if a plush pickle helps a kid settle their nervous system and get back to learning, then fine. Call it “emotional regulation.” I call it: the pickle works.
First, you’ll have your Velcro students—the ones who will attach themselves to that pickle like it’s a life raft. They will want it all day. Forever. In perpetuity.
Second, you’ll have… let’s call them the tiny chaos scientists. One or two. The ones who look at an emotional-support chicken and think, What if I took this apart and learned what’s inside?
So yes: you are the therapist in this situation. You are also the bodyguard. You have to protect the emotional-support pickle at all costs.
Note: I don’t make any profit from the sale of these plushies. This post is simply based on my own experience.
And honestly, you can substitute any school-appropriate plushy toy and get the same effect: an axolotl, reindeer, oyster—whatever works for your kids.
