In a rush? Here’s the quick run-down.
“Stop that!” I heard the shout from across the classroom.
I took a deep breath and headed across the room. I was confident I knew what happened.
Four-year-old Charlie yelled at other children a few times a day. The reasons varied: someone was too close, someone was using a toy that he wanted, or — in this case — someone was looking at him.
I could simply tell him that other children will look at him sometimes, and there is nothing he can do about it. But I knew that wouldn’t work. Charlie was yelling because he was mad, not because he didn’t know children might look at him. What Charlie needed was help calming down.
And to best help Charlie calm down, I knew this situation called for co-regulation.
At its simplest, co-regulation is when you help a child self soothe. It's a building block for self-regulation, and a big step in learning how to handle our own feelings.
To look at it more in terms of child development, co-regulating is about sharing space with a child as they move from a dysregulated state to a regulated state. Emotional regulation is having the right energy or stimulus level for a given situation.
When you are playing with children, you should be active and socially engaged. When you go to bed, you want a calm body. When children struggle with this, it's likely because their stimulus level does not fit the situation. It often shows up as fight, flight, or freeze.
You might have read about self-regulation on the Famly blog before. Self-regulation is what the child does, and the co-regulating focuses on the adult’s role. But self-regulation skills don’t happen overnight — children need supportive adults.
In the case of Charlie, he often became dysregulated in ways that were hard for me to understand. So before I could figure out why he was dysregulated, I had to help him self-regulate. He wouldn’t be able to tell me why he was upset: when someone is dysregulated, they have difficulty using the rational part of the brain.
And before I can help Charlie gain control of his own emotions, I need to make sure I am calm, too.
Children will often match and reflect your own energy, so in these situations it’s important for you to be calm. Only a regulated adult can help a child regulate — after all, you can’t give what you haven’t got.
This can be difficult, as a crying, screaming, or hitting child will cause us to be stressed. It's important to pay close attention to your own stress, and perhaps start with some deep breathing.
To help children problem-solve their own big emotions, you need to ensure your own body language, facial expressions, voice and demeanor are gentle and supportive. Then, and only then, can you help address a child's distress.
You can think of co-regulation as sharing space and relationship children, working through strong feelings and helping them self-regulate their emotional state.
Here are the steps for co-regulation:
When you first start using co-regulation, it’s easy to jump right to trying to fix the problem by trying to get the child to stop crying.
This is where that impulse to say “You’re okay” comes in — but that doesn’t make the problem go away.
Instead, the first step is to always label the child’s emotions. You need to put words to what the child is feeling.
You can do this by naming the emotion and describing how it is showing up in their body: “Hey Charlie, I can tell you’re mad. I hear you yelling and your fists are clenched.”
Children's distress can be overwhelming, and a child may feel there's no way for them to regain control. But it’s a lot easier for children to separate themselves from their overwhelming feelings, once you give those feelings a name.
Describing how these big feelings show up in their body allows them to notice how this feeling is affecting them, so they can start self soothing.
Children can use many coping strategies. Some will work better than others, depending on the child.
You can help them learn what works by offering a variety of techniques:
Of course, overstimulation of the senses will have the opposite effect. Bright lights or loud sounds can be stressful for anyone, but for some even moderate light or sound can be too much.
Each child has to find what amount of sensory stimulation is calming and what is overwhelming. Over time the child will learn which of these works for them and add them to their skill set.
As children calm down, they’ll reach a point where they are ready to try a new activity. They may still be recovering from their frustrations, so moving on to something new can help. There is no easy way of knowing exactly when it’s time to help the child move on. All you can do is suggest an activity.
Here are three common suggestions you could make:
If a child gets more agitated when you suggest other activities, that’s a sign they need some more co-regulation — so you should continue to rely on their coping skills.
Like I mentioned at the beginning of this article, I found myself having to co-regulate with Charlie a few times a day at first.
After a few days, I noticed that he was able to self-regulate quicker. At the same time, I started to notice a pattern of what was making him upset: he seemed unsure of how to read non-verbal social cues.
When children walked near him, he worried they were coming to take his toys or hurt him. At the same time, he didn’t have the skills to ask a for a toy he wanted to use. At this point, I found times to join Charlie in play.
I would notice when Charlie was just beginning to get stressed. I saw him clench his fists as he watched another child playing with a toy boat. “Did you want to play with a boat? Let’s go ask him where he found the boat.”
Charlie didn’t pick up the skills immediately, but I was now catching many situations before he ran into emotional distress. I was able to help Charlie with these skills because I focused first on his emotional needs. It helped me bond with him and helped me identify skills to work on when he was regulated so he would be more prepared the next time he got upset.
The child is not the only one who learns from co-regulation — it teaches emotional intelligence to both children and caregivers.
All of us become dysregulated at times. There is no way to avoid it for yourself, or the children you care for. What you can do is co-regulate, by sharing space with them while they regain their ability to self-regulate.
In doing so, you show that you love and accept them no matter what emotions they are experiencing.
Please note: here at Famly we love sharing creative activities for you to try with the children at your setting, but you know them best. Take the time to consider adaptions you might need to make so these activities are accessible and developmentally appropriate for the children you work with. Just as you ordinarily would, conduct risk assessments for your children and your setting before undertaking new activities, and ensure you and your staff are following your own health and safety guidelines.
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