When we are calmer, the lower parts of the brain regulated and we feel connected, we get that “Just right” balanced feeling and the top (thinking) part of our brain becomes available to use. This is when we can use strategies that help us to think about what has happened, how it made us feel, what we would do differently (or indeed the same!) next time.

By spending some time reasoning about what has been happening and how it made us feel, we can hopefully work out what went wrong or what would be the best course of action the next time.

Children find it much harder to do this because they have much less life experience than us. They are also programmed (if we’ve made them feel secure) to be curious and explore. This means they are more likely to behave impulsively than us and may also want to try things that look risky and be less aware of the consequences than we are.

That means children often rely on us to do the reasoning bit for them, by “thinking aloud” and helping them to reflect about things after the fact. It also helps if we model how we manage it for ourselves.