Emotional Regulation

Thank you for taking the time to look at these resources. The therapy team aim to give parents and carers a focus for each week, with a few helpful activities and strategies that will support your whole family.

This week’s focus is our emotions, and how we react to them. This is such an unsettled time, for the whole country, so it is completely normal if you or your child are struggling. The resources for this week are all around accepting and recognising which emotions we are feeling, how they affect our body, and what we can do about it. 

Allow yourself some time off this week! It can be tempting to leap into a rigid schedule, set high expectations and fill every moment of the day. This week, recognise the significant changes that you, your family and the whole country have had to deal with, and spend some time making sure you are settled and have good emotional habits. This sets a foundation for the following weeks.

Some tips for this week:

• Emotional Check-In: Start a routine of checking in, emotionally. This applies to everyone in the house. You could model this by talking about your own emotions, or set a time for everyone to check in. There is no wrong answer, every emotion is OK! This time is not about fixing anything, it is just about noticing emotions. If your child cannot name their own emotions, start naming them yourself. “I’m really happy right now. You look happy too!” The Emotions Cards provide picture prompts of how people look when they are feeling that emotion

• What Works For Me?: Look at the Resource Handouts file if you are already familiar with the Zones of Regulation. When you and your child are calm, have a go at filling in the boxes for each strategy. Everyone can try the strategies and notice how they feel

• What Can I Do? The Feelings Board is a good way to notice when emotions are out of control, and do something about it. It’s so important to recognise that all zones are OK. Particularly, it is very normal for everyone to be in the yellow zone at the moment, and it’s OK to stay there! But if you or your child want to make a change, here is your opportunity to choose different things to do

If you are new to the Zones, the Sensory strategies and Zones of Regulation page are a great way to get used to the language. Your child will have covered this in school, even if they haven’t told you about it, so now is a great time to start using the language!