The Art of Balance: System Regulation Tips for All Ages
It is essential to learn to self-regulate when we are young to build the skills that allow us to survive as adults. Self-regulation is when a person can manage their thoughts and feelings to reach a goal. (Pahigiannis et al., 2019). When we are young, we utilize our parents to regulate us as we can’t yet understand how to help ourselves cognitively. This is why we use co-regulation, but we develop the skills needed during childhood and can start regulating ourselves (Pahigiannis et al., 2019). When our brain develops, and this skill is taught to us, it allows us to maintain appropriate emotions in childhood and eventually take care of ourselves and others in adulthood. In this blog there are tips and information that can help with regulation at any age from infancy to adulthood!
Infant Regulation:
Children require support in this stage to regulate as they are unable to process this concept in their brains yet. Attention control, means to end behavior, and self-control emerges in infancy and develops throughout childhood (Shonkoff, 2000).
Co-regulation is vital to their ability to calm down due to their brain’s current level of development. As parents, you can help your child regulate by:
Providing joint compressions and mobilizations to trigger the nervous system to calm down.
Practice self-care and manage your own stress as your child can feed off you.
Respond to a child’s cues with eye contact, reassuring words, or physical affection.
Create a strong relationship through play to build trust.
Toddler Regulation:
Adults are essential coregulators for this age group so it is important to remember you may have to help them build these skills of self-regulation.
Name It To Tame It: Notice the Feeling, Name the Feeling, Respond to the Feeling.
Teach alternatives: show your child alternative ways to regulate their energy and redirect it to a behavior that is appropriate for the situation (Zero to Three, 2010).
Build the skills to manage their emotions: explain their actions, their consequences, and what they could do next time. (Zero to Three, 2010).
Help them identify when and what words to use to talk themselves down or about how they feel rather than reacting (Zero to Three, 2010).
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Student Regulation:
Mindfulness (Leonard, 2024).
walking breaks (preferably outside)
relaxing body movements
write your values
Develop emotional vocabulary (Leonard, 2024)
Brainstorm as a class. Think of 20 types of happy or sad.
Have students come up with self-regulation plans that they can refer back to when they need it during school. Reinforce the implementation and continued use of these plans and help students evaluate the effectiveness of the plans with checking throughout the year. (The IRIS Center, 2008).
4 main types of self-regualtion strategies you can recommend to students include:
Self-monitoring: assessing yourself and how you are reacting to situations so you can think about what you may want to change. This requires a higher level of awareness
Self-instruction: self-talk or using your inner voice to talk yourself down or through situations to be able to handle them better
Goal-setting: making goals for how you want to react or handle a situation or feel to remind yourself in moments where you want to be better what your goal is. Having something you are working for actively increases your awareness of your actions and in turn adjusts your behaviors.
Self-reinforcement: setting standards for yourself, evaluating how well you are managing your behaviors, and rewarding yourself for meeting those desired behaviors or adjusting based on what you’ve noticed.
5-Finger Breathing: Have the students trace their hand when it is in a high five position. Have them breathe in when they go up and breathe out when they go down.
Teen Regulation:
5 senses grounding: look around and notice something you see, hear, taste, smell, and are touching. This brings you back to the present moment so you can stop your brain from spiraling.
Bubble Breath with Forced Exhalation (Brukner, 2021)
Slowly breathe in through your nose for 4 seconds, hold it, and breathe out slowly through your mouth for 6 seconds. Repeate and check in with yourself and how you feel after each breath.
Progressive Muscle Relaxation
Label your feeling first and then put it in your shoulders, tense them as you put that feeling there, and think about holding it for 5 seconds, then release the feeling with your shoulders. Then put that feeling or another on your wrists and do the same thing. You can do this throughout the body, including the fingers, knees, ankles, and toes. The feeling should fade or disappear.
Affirmations
Write down a list of 10 things that define you and make you special. Put the list where you see it routinely.
Positive Affirmation and Self-talk are shown to improve executive functioning skills like working memory.
Ask for their “why” when they feel emotional (Lilac Center, 2024).
This discussion can promote self-reflection and introspection, building a child’s self-regulation skills.
Journaling helps gain insight into regulation, emotions and pattern tracking, and trigger identification.
Positive Outlets: hobbies they can go to when they feel intense emotions that help them release them when doing the activity.
Adult Regulation:
Psychological sigh: To do this you just take a deep inhale followed by a short second inhalation and then exhale for an extended period of time. This is shown to lower stress, improve mood, and restore feelings of calm.
Mindfulness practice: focusing on the breath and then on your surroundings. Changing your mind from what you are feeling stressed or emotional about to the present moment.
CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Techniques): decreases the internal thoughts that drive our emotional dysregulation. You do so by replacing unhelpful thoughts and behaviors with positive ones.
This helps with identifying and labeling emotions, looking at distorted thoughts, and preventing catastrophizing.
Self-distancing: observing yourself from the outside, like your thoughts, emotions, and behaviors, to understand your feelings and decrease the intensity of the experience emotionally. This supports constructive problem-solving and decreases ruminating.
References
Brukner, L. (2021, May 24). Emotional regulation activities for tweens and teens. Edutopia. https://www.edutopia.org/article/emotional-regulation-activities-tweens-and-teens/
Catanese, L. (2024, August 8). Self-regulation for adults: Strategies for getting a handle on emotions and behavior. Harvard Health Publishing. https://www.health.harvard.edu/mind-and-mood/self-regulation-for-adults-strategies-for-getting-a-handle-on-emotions-and-behavior
Dalai Lama Center for Peace and Education (2014). 12 self-regulation strategies for young children. https://heartmindonline.org/resources/12-self-regulation-strategies-for-young-children.
Leonard, D. (2024, August 7). 19 ways to help elementary students self-regulate. Edutopia. https://www.edutopia.org/article/elementary-student-strategies-for-self-regulation/
Lilac Center. (2024, February 4). 8 tips on how to help a teen regulate their emotions. https://www.lilaccenter.org/blog/8-tips-on-how-to-help-a-teen-regulate-their-emotions
Pahigiannis, K., Rosanbalm, K. and Murray, D. W. (2019). Supporting the Development of Self-Regulation in Young Children: Tips for Practitioners Working with Infants (birth to 1 year old) in Childcare Settings. OPRE Brief #2019-27. Washington, DC: Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation, Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
Shonkoff, J. P., Phillips, D. A., National Research Council . Committee on Integrating the Science of Early Childhood Development., & National Research Council . Committee on Integrating the Science of Early Childhood Development. (2000). From neurons to neighborhoods : the science of early child development (J. P. Shonkoff, Ed.). National Academy Press.
Siegel, D. [Dalai Lama Center for Peace and Education ]. (2014, December 8). Dan Siegel: Name it to Tame it [Video]. Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcDLzppD4Jc
The IRIS Center. (2008). SOS: Helping students become independent learners. Retrieved from https://iris.peabody.vanderbilt.edu/module/sr/
Zero To Three. (2010). Developing self-control from 24-36 months. Zero To Three. https://www.zerotothree.org/resource/developing-self-control-from-24-36-months/