Self-Regulation and Co-Regulation: Stay Calm, Your Child Can Borrow Your Calmness
Self-regulation, or the ability to manage one’s emotions, behaviors, and body in various situations, is a vital life skill for children. Self-regulation is a developing skill, it grows throughout infancy, childhood, and into adulthood. When we help support self-regulation for children early on, we help them develop skills that they will need to utilize throughout their entire lives. Supporting self-regulation in your child starts with you, this process is called co-regulation.
What is Co-Regulation?
When your child is crying, screaming, etc. - it can be a difficult task to keep yourself composed and support your child’s ability to build regulation skills, but this is what sets the base for them to self-soothe during future challenges. Co-regulation involves patience and practice, and is when a caregiver’s calm and regulated nervous system helps to soothe their child’s nervous system. This is teaching your child how to manage their own emotions by offering them your steady and calm presence. Co-regulation uses safety cues from your nervous system to deactivate your child’s stress response, like calm voice tone, warm facial expressions, and intune body language. It involves regulating yourself as the parent first, because a dysregulated child will never become more regulated when approached by a dysregulated parent. When you are regulated, you are able to be a safe “anchor” for your child, co-regulation is about choosing connection over control, and being aware of your own triggers and stress reactions. With consistency, your child will internalize your calming presence, and build their own capacity for self-regulation.
It is important to note that co-regulation is not about stopping your child’s big emotions, but rather creating a space as a caregiver where your child is allowed to feel the full range of their emotions in a safe space, while you hold space for them to experience emotion. This sends the message “You and your emotions are safe to be here. I can handle your emotions - and so can you.”
What Does Co-Regulation Look Like In Practice?
The first step in co-regulation is for you to take a pause and regulate your own emotions. This might look like a couple deep breaths to center yourself. Once you are regulated, the next step is to validate your child’s emotions, observe their response, and decide how to react next. For example, Penny is building blocks, when she becomes frustrated and starts throwing blocks across the room and yelling “I’m so bad at building!” Monica, Penny’s mom is sitting on the couch and immediately feels herself become anxious - knowing this might turn into a huge meltdown. Before approaching Penny, she takes 3 deep breaths to calm herself down. She approaches Penny, who yells “My blocks keep falling over, I suck at this!” Penny’s mom knows she needs some help calming down. She sits next to Penny and puts her hand on Penny’s back saying quietly and calmly, “I can tell how frustrated and sad you are with your blocks,” validating and holding space for Penny’s feelings. She calmly suggests that Penny take a break from block building and help her feed the dogs in the kitchen. After the break, Monica and Penny can talk together and decide if Penny is ready to go back to play with her blocks, or if she needs some more support calming down with something like a walk outside, a cup of water, or some quiet rest time.
Why Does Co-Regulation Matter?
Emotional regulation isn’t a skill that children are born with. We have to model, teach, develop, and refine emotional regulation for them through repeated experiences of co-regulation - and this is what develops emotional regulation throughout the life span. Co-regulation builds emotional resilience, knowledge that emotions are temporary and safe to express, and the development of appropriate coping skills. Co-regulation also strengthens the caregiver-child bond, which is the foundation for future connections and relationships. Arguably most importantly, co-regulation strengthens a child’s ability to self-regulate and therefore lessens the likelihood for chronic stress and dysregulation throughout your child’s life.
Co-regulation is a long term investment in your child’s emotional wellbeing!
