Calm, Alert & Ready to Learn – How to help our children self-regulate

Calm, Alert & Ready to Learn – How to help our children self - regulate

Who hasn’t at some time or another been mortified when their child has a complete melt down in a public place?  Personally, I can recall a time when one of our daughters (who shall remain nameless) would tantrum every time I picked her up from the sitter and made a quick stop at the grocery store, or pharmacy, on my way home.  It was embarrassing, people would gather, and because I was a teacher, I felt like people wondered how I could control my students at school, when I couldn’t even control my own child! I should have known that most people weren't judging me, teacher or otherwise as almost every parent has been there but it's hard in the moment when you feel all eyes are on you!

It wasn’t until I calmed down and gave it some thought, that I realized, I was expecting her, (at her worst time of day, when she was tired, hungry and eager to get home to her sisters and her toys), to behave in a calm, rationale manner.  Not fair, Mommy!!!  As adults, it is our job to determine how to help our children succeed, and in this case, it meant re-organizing myself to go directly home; returning to the grocery store, or pharmacy later, once everyone was calm and fed, or leaving these tasks until I could arrange for someone else to stay with the children or pick up what was needed.

Little did I know at the time, what I have described is a child (and her Mommy) struggling with self-regulation!!!  So what is this self-regulation?  Why is it important for children (and their parents to learn)?

Self- regulation is the ability to:

•       attain, maintain, and change one’s level of energy to match  the demands of a situation or task

•        monitor, evaluate, and modify one’s emotions

•        sustain and shift one’s attention when necessary and ignore distractions

•       Understand both the meaning of a variety of social interactions & how to engage them in a sustained way

•       Understand, connect with, and care about what others are thinking and feeling -  to empathize and act accordingly

 During the past 15 years, Dr. Stuart Shanker and his colleagues from York University  have been tracking the increasing incidents of behavioral disorders (ODD, hyperactivity, ADHD, etc).  This worrying trend, as well as the dramatic increase in anxiety disorders in children and youth (ages K-age 24), and a tendency for these diagnosis to occur at younger and younger ages, regardless of income level of the family or gender of the child, have led scientists to conclude that behavioral management techniques, that rely heavily on punishment and reward are relatively ineffective in reducing children’s problematic behaviors.  Dr. Shanker believes in many cases these types of strategies actually exacerbate the problem. 

Recent advances in developmental neuroscience are dramatically altering attitudes toward the possibility of maximizing the educational potential of every child.  Scientists now understand the better a child can self-regulate, the better they can rise to the challenge of mastering ever more complex skills and concepts.

There are 5 Domains of Self- Regulation, which are connected and affect each other:

•       Physical/Biological: managing levels of energy and tension in the body

•       Emotional: understanding, expressing, and managing feelings

•       Thinking: processing information from the senses, paying attention, reasoning, planning

•       Social: communicating and adjusting behaviour to match what is needed in social situations

•       Pro-social individuals engage in behaviours that are positive and helpful, promoting social acceptance, friendship & empathy.  Pro-social functioning is bound up in all the other areas of the 5 domain model, and is a higher level of self-regulation.

 A child who is ‘out of sync’ in one of these areas, may struggle with learning and relationships.  As parents, and educators, it is our job to recognize these struggles and teach children the skills that will help them to cope and ‘head off’ those behaviours we all come to dread!

That being said, there is a difference between misbehaviour and stressed/overwhelmed behaviour and we need to recognize the difference and handle it differently.

 If you want to learn more about self-regulation and how you can best help your child, we are providing a presentation at BELA on January 27^th at 7:00-8:00 or on Wednesday, February 3, at 1:30-2:30.  Please call 501-0019 or email Jody at jody@brooksearlylearning.ca if you would like to attend.

~ Jody Rutherford

Director of Education & Programming

BELA

Emotions Among Preschoolers

Kristen, 4 years old, was with her Mom in a department store to buy diapers for her younger brother. A doll caught her attention, as they were about to pay. Kristen pulled her mom back to the aisle where she saw it.  Her Mom said, “You’ve got lots of them at home, let’s go.”  But Kristen refused to go and insisted on buying it. Her mom on the other hand was firm about not buying the doll.  Kristen, feeling frustrated yelled, “I don’t want to go!” then turned around and started to run away from her Mom.

Was her emotion valid? Was her reaction acceptable?

Frustration is an emotional reaction when a goal is blocked and is commonly related to anger.  Like adults, young children express emotions everyday and we witness a variety of these in a preschool setting. Joy, fear, anger, surprise, sadness and disgust are universal emotions, expressed similarly in all cultures and are already present at birth or in the early months (The Development of Children, 2009).  A person’s characteristic pattern of emotional reactions is a basic element of personality (A Child’s World, 2008). Children of Kristen’s age may use hitting, biting, or pushing as a way to solve conflicts. They simply don’t understand the difference between appropriate and inappropriate interactions yet.  Although 3-year-olds begin to understand the emotions they are feeling, they have very little control over them. If they feel something, they will likely act on it. This may mean snatching away a toy from another child if they want to play with it. They get upset when told to wait  for something they want to do right away. If they find something funny, they will laugh wildly. If they get excited, they will jump and yell uncontrollably. When children are extremely happy, they giggle almost endlessly and wrestle each other. If they feel sad or angry they will burst into tears.

As adults, we know how it feels to be frustrated or upset and we should know how to appropriately react or express such feelings. On the other hand, these feelings present special challenges to children’s self-regulation abilities. Between 2 to 6 years of age, children develop a number of strategies to help them keep their emotions under control (Grolnik, McMenamy  Kurowski, 1999, Saarni, 2007, Gross & Thompson, 2007). Emotional self-regulation helps children guide their behavior (Laible & Thompson, 1998) and contributes to their ability to get along with others (Denham,et al, 2005).

Emotional understanding becomes more complex with age. Preschoolers can talk about their feelings and often discern the feelings of others (Saarni, Mumme, & Campos, 1998). By about age 3, having acquired self-awareness plus a good deal of knowledge about their society’s accepted standards, rules and goals, children become better able to evaluate their own thoughts, plans and desires, and behaviour, against what is considered socially appropriate. This is when they develop self-conscious emotions such as embarrassment, empathy and envy, and the self-evaluative emotions of pride, guilt and shame.

What Can Adults Do to Help Preschoolers in Understanding, Regulating and Controlling their Emotions?

Parents, teachers, and other adults can help children understand and control their emotions (Havighurst, Harley, & Prior, 2004; Thompson, 2006; Thompson & Lagattuta, 2005). They can talk with children to help them cope with distress, sadness, anger, or guilt (highered.Mcgraw-hill.com). Shame, guilt and pride depend on internalization of parental standards of behaviour (A Child’s World, 2008).

Modelling appropriate behaviour is still the most effective way of showing kids how to respond appropriately. As noted by Berk and Shanker (2006), by watching adults handle their own feelings, preschoolers pick up strategies for regulating emotions. Warm, patient parents, who use verbal guidance to help children understand and control their feelings, including suggesting and explaining strategies, strengthen the child’s capacity to handle stress (Gottman, Katz & Hooven, 1997). In contrast, when parents rarely express positive emotion, dismiss their child’s feelings as unimportant, and have difficulty controlling their own anger and hostility, children have continuing problems managing their emotions,  that may seriously interfere with psychological adjustment (Calkins & Johnson, 1998; Eisenberg, et. Al, 2001; Gillion et al, 2002; Katz & Windecker-Nelson, 2004).

Accordingly, to be competent members of society, children must learn how to control their emotions in addition to controlling their thoughts and actions (The Development of Children, 2009).  In fact according to Dennis (2006), the ability to understand and regulate, or control one’s feelings is one of the key advances of early childhood.  The emerging ability to control emotions help the preschool-age child deal with the disappointments, frustrations, and injured feelings that are so common at this stage.

Clearly this is a complex topic that requires parents, caregivers and those who interact with a child on a regular basis to work together. Modelling behaviours, teaching strategies to help cope, as well as working on language with children to help them express their emotions are key to supporting the child and family and are of utmost importance at BELA

-Cecila Parenas