Welcome to Volume 2 of my three part Smore series all about emotional regulation. In this issue, we will talk about what it means for us as adults to be regulated. Since children rely on us to help them to learn how to regulate, it is vital that we ourselves remain regulated. I'll also introduce the concept of "co-regulation" (although we will deep dive into this in Volume 3). If you missed Volume 1, we covered what self-regulation is. It is linked at the bottom of this Smore.

Regulating Ourselves. Co-Regulating with our Students.

The role of the adult is to be a safe space for children to learn how to regulate their bodies and emotions. We do this by:

• Being an effective self-regulator
• Prioritizing connection and relationships
• Modeling healthy ways to regulate
• Practicing coping strategies
• Co-regulating in challenging moments

• It builds our capacity to support others
• It allows us to respond versus react to a situation
• It is mindfulness - the awareness of what is happening in our bodies and our environment
• Our calm state builds trust and safety in children
• A dysregulated adult cannot support regulation in a dysregulated child (Any Office fans out there? Recall the episode where there's a fire in the office. Michael, the leader, did not remain calm, therefore, his staff [followers] were not calm.)

Chances are, if you were born before the 2000's, you were not taught how to regulate your own emotions as a child. Instead, the expectation was simply to behave because an adult said so. If so, perhaps you're learning how to self-regulate as an adult. Let's see where everyone lands with this poll.

Maintaining your overall wellness is one key way to remain regulated as an adult. I like to use the analogy of a "body budget". This is similar to a financial budget. There are withdrawals happening from your body budget everyday. So it is crucial that you work to make deposits into your body budget.

Consider: What are your typical withdrawals? Deposits? What needs added or taken out?

I added a section in the Regulation Padlet specifically for adults! So if you are needing some more support and resources for yourself, check it out!

Self-awareness is the ability to understand and recognize your own thoughts, emotions, behaviors, and how they impact yourself and others. It's also the ability to be aware of your values, preferences, goals, strengths, challenges, and attitudes.

Self-awareness is a key component of emotional intelligence and is considered a cornerstone of personal and professional growth. People who are self-aware can:

• Make better decisions
• Build healthier relationships
• Lead with authenticity
• Manage their emotions
• Align their behavior with their values
• Understand how others perceive them
• Develop a growth mindset and learn from their mistakes

We each hold underlying beliefs and values about the behaviors we find challenging. Self-awareness gives us the means to uncover and examine our beliefs and values, as well as to name the emotions we feel in the face of a child’s behavior. By reflecting on this before an incident occurs, we become better able to acknowledge our thoughts and feelings in the moment, and to respond appropriately to a child.

Consider: What behaviors do you find challenging? Why? What does the behavior(s) make you think and feel about the child? Where might those beliefs and feelings come from? What plan do you have for yourself if you become dysregulated when dealing with challenging behaviors?

Our pre-frontal cortex (the front part of our brain) enables us to observe what is going on, predict what will happen if you take a certain action, and make a conscious choice.

Being able to hover calmly and objectively over our thoughts, feelings, and emotions (an ability called mindfulness) and then take our time to respond allows the executive brain to inhibit, organize, and modulate the hardwired automatic reactions preprogrammed into the emotional brain.

This capacity is crucial for preserving our relationships with others. As long as our frontal lobes are working properly, we’re unlikely to lose our temper when we feel inconvenienced, for example.

Not sure what your current level of mindfulness is? This survey will help you have an idea of where you're at. Just add up your points at the end - the higher the score, the more mindful you are.

While we often think of self-regulation as a skill that a child demonstrates independently, the ability to self-regulate actually depends largely on guidance and positive interactions with caregivers and other adults in a child's life. Supportive interactions between a child and an adult allow the child to regulate their emotions, behavior, thoughts, and state of arousal. This is known as co-regulation.

• Manage our own responses to their behaviors
• Respond with warm predictability and empathy
• Give them language to name their feelings and offer alternative, acceptable behaviors
• Know and see them for who they are, including recognizing their temperament, preferences, developmental stage, abilities, and default stress responses—commonly known as “fight, flight, or freeze”
• Understand and acknowledge their family’s history, culture, language, and values
• Use our understanding of the brain’s response to stress in helping to shape behavior

- Children are watching everything we do (even when they don’t appear to be paying attention)

- Children might be unreceptive to being told what to do (loss of agency)

- Children take cues from adults as to what is appropriate behavior

- Ways to model:

• Narration: “I'm feeling frustrated. I need to take a minute to ___ and then we can talk about it”
• Setting healthy examples
• Sharing stories from your day
• Modeling proper breathing in a student's moment of dysregulation
• "let's take a few breaths together"
• Just doing deep, slow belly breaths on your own - their breathing will eventually slow to meet yours

Click the button below to be taken to the Regulation Padlet... a one-stop-shop for a variety of regulation-based coping skills and tools. I will be updating and adding to this Padlet throughout the school year, so check back in to see what's new!

In Volume 3, we will deep dive into what co-regulation means and how to do it!

If you need more information or have any questions, please reach out!

Sara Joseph, MSW, LSW, C-SSWS

sara.joseph@miu4.org