What is Self-Regulation?

Self-regulation is known as the awareness of emotions in day-to-day activities and how to manage emotions and stress in order to maintain calmness (Slater, 2021).  Self-regulation is an important skill for kids to learn at a young age to that they can carry those skills into adulthood.  It is not a question of one will face stressful situations in life, but a question of how one will manage those situations.  It is important for educators and parents to teach their children, of all ages, self-regulation skills.

Some ways teachers can encourage and model self-regulation in the classroom are:

• Giving brain breaks for students to step away from their school work and focus on their emotional needs instead.  Offering students to step outside when needed could help students who are overstimulated.

• Do daily check-ins with students.  Ask students how they are feeling, if they are ready to have hard conversations, and greet students with a check-in to see how they are feeling coming into school (Slater, 2021).

Parents can also encourage and support their child's social/emotional development within their home.  Some ways parents can do this is by:

• Infant: use words like "happy" and "sad" to help babies identify what emotions are (Honig & Wittmer, 2017).

• Toddler: Encouraging children to use "I feel... when you..." statements.  This encourages healthy problem-solving that helps them recognize their emotions and what caused those emotions.

• Adolescence: Encourage children to help around the house.  Giving children responsibilities helps them develop independence.  Reassure them if they do something incorrectly that they are capable and that it is normal to make mistakes.  Let them try activities on their own and let them fail at those activities so they can learn how to do it right.

Honig, A. S., & Wittmer, D. S. (2017). Infants and Toddlers: What Have We Learned from Research on Social-emotional Development? Exchange (19460406), 233, 51–56.

Slater, A. (2021). Self-Regulation in the early & later years: Understanding it and helping educators to teach it. Educating Young Children: Learning & Teaching in the Early Childhood Years, 27(3), 22–25.

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