What are Self Regulation Skills?
Emotional Self Regulation is the ability to recognize, communicate, and manage emotions and then consciously choose useful and appropriate actions during emotionally challenging situations. Self Regulation skills include:
- Recognizing and naming emotions (demonstrating emotional self awareness)
- Stopping the “ramping up” of emotions by getting oxygen to the brain
- Thinking through the details of an emotional situation in order to make good decisions
- Deciding on the best choice of action for the specific situation.
How Can I Teach Emotional Self-Regulation Skills to My Child?
Recognizing and Naming Emotions: As preparation for self regulation skills, parents, teachers, and caregivers can model how to recognize and then communicate emotions using an emotional vocabulary. Our article, "Child Anger and Frustration: How Self Awareness Can Help," gives suggestions. The ability of a child to name their emotions and communicate their needs and feelings is empowering.
Three Steps for Self Regulation of Emotions
1. Slow the “Ramping Up” of Emotions: Pause & Breathe
In our article, "Emotional Regulation for Children: Help With Tantrums," we discuss modeling the emotional regulation habit of Pause & Breathe, a technique to get oxygen to the brain, which slows the flood of stress chemicals. The goal of Pause & Breathe is to keep emotions “in check” in such a way that emotions are recognized and acknowledged but aren’t “running the show.” In other words, a person does not feel out of control due to big emotions. This is not suppressing emotions, but rather a way to keep the physical response to strong emotions at a manageable level.
Pause & Breathe is “Step One” of a set of three linked self regulation skills that help children develop lifelong, reliable emotional regulation habits. As described above, the goal of Pause & Breathe is to stop the “ramping-up” of emotions by quickly getting oxygen to the brain. The habit of taking a few slow, deep breaths to keep emotions from increasing can have a substantial impact as a person tries to better negotiate an emotional situation.
If you notice your child heading for an emotional "blow up," suggest that they stop and take a few slow breaths, to Pause & Breathe, in order to keep the emotions in check.
With the chemical response to emotions at a manageable level, a child now has the mental "space" to identify their emotions. Once your child has taken a few deep breaths, you can help them understand their emotions by narrating the situation and asking questions so they can verbalize their experience. For example, ask them,
“What are you feeling?” or
“Can you describe how you are feeling?”
Even if the child’s feelings are obvious, verbalizing is important. Any range of emotion is acceptable, for example,
“I feel angry,” or,
“I feel miserable. I will never see the toy again,” or even,
“I feel so mad, I want to hit my friend.”
Simply acknowledge your child’s feelings with a statement such as,
“You are telling me you feel very angry.”
Early childhood educators spend much of their time doing this type of narration as they work to increase a child's ability to communicate their emotions and needs.
2. Think Back Through the Situation: Rewind
Next, ask your child to try and tell you exactly what happened, in a factual way. This step, “Rewind,” helps a child replay the events. A careful retelling may show more clearly what actually happened. Ask for details. An example of a clear, factual answer would be,
“I left to get a drink of water. When I came back, Leslie was playing with my toy in the corner of the room.”
Try to steer a child away from unproven statements such as,
“Leslie hates me, and she saw me leave, and purposely took my toy just to make me mad.”
The Rewind step tries to get rid of assumptions that can often lead to inappropriate choices of action. You might be able to get more clarification by asking,
“Did Leslie know you were playing with that toy?” or
“Is the toy yours or does it belong to someone else?”
The importance of the Rewind step is that reviewing “what actually happened” allows your child to more carefully decide what action to take next.
3. Make a Good Choice of Action: Play
Finally, discuss choices of action. We describe this step as "Play." Now that the emotions have been identified and the situation has been reviewed, your child is ready to make a choice of action.
A well-considered action that addresses a child’s emotional needs and is also appropriate to the situation is a desired result of emotional self regulation and self-management skills.
Hoped-for results from using the self regulation skills listed above are:
- A person recognizes their emotions but is not controlled by them and is, therefore, less likely to react impulsively.
- The person thinks through the facts of the situation that are triggering the emotion(s), trying to avoid personal assumptions.
- And now the person thoughtfully chooses the most appropriate action, taking into account their needs as well as the specific situation.
Summarize the situation and ask your child what they think they should do, for example,
“You are feeling angry because your friend took your toy. What can you do about this?”
Very often, a child’s idea to resolve the problem is spot-on for the situation, they just need encouragement to follow through. However, if a child is unsure how to proceed or suggests an inappropriate action, e.g.,
“I’m going to go over there and push them down,”
You can offer suggestions (modeling). However, try to let your child take the action to solve the problem. Children gain confidence by doing their own bidding. For this example, you might suggest to your child,
“Since Leslie didn’t know you were playing with the toy, can you ask to play with it when she is done?”
Or, if Leslie did take the toy on purpose, you can suggest,
“Use your words to tell Leslie you want your toy back,” or “How about telling your teacher what happened. She will know what to do.”
Another option is to ask your child,
“Do you want to play with a different toy for a while?”
All these choices depend on the situation and your child.
Emotional ABCs and Self Regulation Tools
Emotional ABCs uses a memory device, called The Emotional ABCs Toolbar, to strengthen the emotional skills involved in Self Regulation. The three steps of the Emotional ABCs Toolbar are Pause & Breathe, Rewind, and Play.
Summary: Three Steps for Self Regulation of Emotions
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Pause & Breathe: a skill to help keep emotional responses at a manageable level (self-regulation). This gives a person mental "space" to recognize and name their emotions (self-awareness).
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Rewind: the process of thinking back through the situation as dispassionately as possible
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Play: choosing a course of action that will best meet the needs of the person and also is appropriate to the specific situation
These habits require a lifetime of attention, many adults are still struggling with them!
And, yes, sometimes a wrong choice of action will be made, but the hope is that as a child develops these skills, they will feel empowered to handle their emotions and confident in their abilities to think through situations and make good choices.
