Why my child struggles to self regulate

Throughout my career I have heard (and I’m even guilty myself!) or saying ‘They need to learn to self-regulate’ without at the time truly understanding what skills that requires. We would put sensory based strategies in place and then implement perhaps some behavioural approaches in the hope that the child would begin to learn the self-regulation process. If we were lucky the child would!

This continues to be the approach throughout many practices, homes and schools I work into now where it appears a given that the child must learn to self-regulate through for example, time alone. Let me tell you, this alone is not self-regulation and understanding the key components to developing self-regulation is vital in order for any child, young person or adult to self-regulate.

What is self-regulation?
Self-regulation is the ability to manage our energy states, emotions thoughts and behaviours in a way which are accepted and produce positive results as well-being, loving relationships and learning.
It is therefore, a physiological response to life stressors and is fundamental for all other activity. Developing this ability requires understanding their bodies sensations, connecting those sensations to emotions and the ability to seek what their body needs. This includes another person to support calming of their nervous system (referred to as co-regulation) and then further develop these skills to self-regulation.

Therefore, if your child has tried some of the common self-regulation programmes such as ‘The Zones of Regulation’ and the ‘5 point scale’ but they don’t seem to be working, that is because they are far too advanced for your child’s physiological state. No matter how consistent you are with the implementation of such programmes, your child will not be able to apply these approaches. Please don’t get me wrong, they are very good and very effective when a child has the foundational sensory processing needs and emotional awareness to apply these to day to day life.

So you may be thinking, well that tells me why but now what do I do?
My article on ‘Supporting sensory needs in the home with interoception awareness’ will explain more: You can read it here