Belle’s OT Corner
Belle’s OT Corner
Regulation in Early Years Season: Ep 1: Intro to Regulation
In the next season of Belle's OT Corner we work to equip you with indispensable knowledge and practical strategies to foster regulation skills in early childhood. Through an exploration of self-regulation and co-regulation, you'll gain insights into the development of these crucial skills from a nuanced occupational therapy perspective.
Join us as we break down the complexities of regulation, all the components and building blocks we need to work towards self-regulation. We'll emphasize the importance of co-regulation, demonstrating how adults can be effective guides in helping children manage big emotions and arousal states. This season is designed to be a comprehensive guide, offering you a treasure trove of strategies to support your child's journey towards effective self-regulation. Stay tuned for a wealth of enlightening discussions and actionable advice that will empower you and your little one!
Hello everyone and welcome back to Belle T Corner. Today we are going to dive into Season 3. Now for Season 3, I've decided to have our season all about regulation, co-regulation, self-regulation what all these words mean. But then, when I started to look at it a bit more, that season was going to drag out a really long time and, as I said way back when, when I started this whole podcast, I want these episodes to be not too many. I want these seasons to be not too many episodes, so that these seasons to be not too many episodes, so that you can kind of pick and choose. And then we'll do a second season to get into a bit more detail, as we need to. And so I've decided that this season is actually going to be definitely still regulation skills, but we're going to focus slightly more on early years regulation, so kind of how those building blocks of regulation come to be, what they look like, what they are and how we can support that basis of regulation. And then I'll do a later season where we look at regulation skills in teenagers and regulation skills in older children and how we can support those different challenges where they've already got some of the skills but we then need to learn that kind of next level of regulation as we start to move into the adult world where there's just so many more challenges that we get to face. But for this season we're going to really focus on more of that kind of early years space around regulation and what that looks like, which is super exciting.
Belle:And so my plan for this season in terms of episodes and you guys know I make a plan and then things change and we deviate from the plan but the rough plan, so you guys have an idea of where we're going is we'll do episodes on what is regulation and co -regulation. What do these words mean? We're going to look at behavior from an OT lens. So if I have a child that's coming in and on the referral it might say we're having difficulties with behavior from an OT perspective how we can help and what we might look at and what that behavior might mean to us. We're going to look at supporting regulation through big emotions, so supporting our kities when they have these really big emotions, and how we can help them through those emotions and build their regulation skills so that they can start to move towards that idea of self-regulation. We're going to look at how we can support regulation skills and what these are, and there's so many and it's quite a big topic and so we'll dig into that one in a little bit, but that will be an episode where we go through oSo okay. So what are these skills? What do they look like? Yes, there is some mindfulness in there. There are some sensory strategies in there. There is some emotion skills in there. It's a lot, it's a chunky one, but that way you guys can have some really nice strategies and have that really broad understanding of all the different components that our brain has to do to be able to achieve this idea of self-regulation.
Belle:And then we're also going to look at regulation skills around supporting challenging activities. So not when we've had that big frustration or that big emotion, but actually when we know there's going to be something that's going to be tricky, there's an occupation that's going to be a challenge, how we can use those regulation skills preemptively to help ourselves get through that challenge. And you notice, some of this starts to sound a little bit similar to the sensory season that we did, where we talked about putting in the right sensory supports to allow us to persist through the challenging activity. It's very, very similar and we'll get into why in a little bit, but that's the general plan for this season is we'll go through kind of all the different parts of regulation, what they all mean, and then, from that early years perspective, how we can build in some of those skills, how we can help the development of independence within some of this self-regulation areas, some of this self-regulation areas.
Belle:So when we look at regulation, regulation at its core is our ability to manage and control our arousal state, which allows us to control our behaviors, our emotions and consequently our actions based off the senvironment a I I ea a I in I i I a R i i really big, long winded definition there, but what it means is how much we can take in the information from our environment process that manage the sensations that that brings up within us from a alertness and regulation perspective. So when I say regulation, that sounds, I mean sensory regulation. Do I get worried? Do I get nervous? Do I get anxious? Do I get scared? Do I get frustrated? What are some of those feelings that happen? And then how do I manage that to have an appropriate action within the space? Or when I feel something, even if I maybe don't know why I'm feeling that, how am I then going to turn that into an action that's then going to either deal with that sensation or allow me to seek help when I need it.
Belle:So it's this idea of this constant maintenance of how our body is feeling, based on everything our brain is taking in, and then we can turn that into the so what? of what am I going to do? And sometimes that what am I going to do may look like behaviors. Sometimes that what am I going to do may look like withdrawal. We can see it in lots of different ways and when we have some strategies that may be ineffective or maybe don't actually work to address the problem or the reason why I've had this feeling, this is when our children might need more help or when we can then lead to bigger emotions and meltdowns and withdrawal from situations. So it's quite a big, big idea in terms of our brain is taking on all of this information. We have the sensory components that our brain is taking on all of this information. We have the sensory components that our brain is taking in and if you're not sure on those, jump back into season one, that what is sensory processing episode, and it will give you a lot of information around how much our brain is processing from a sensory perspective.
Belle:We then have the cognitive demands. So this is everything, from me being able to listen to someone mum, dad, teacher, friend, whoever it might be understand what they're telling me, understand what that means, and understand what that means I then have to do. I have the cognition to understand what is expected of me, and it's not at a level that's too challenging for me to be able to do. Then our brain is processing the social demands of the environment that we're in what is socially acceptable, because the rules within a house are different to the rules at school, are different to the rules at the park, are different to the rules on the road. So where am I and what does that mean in terms of some of those unwritten rules, of what is expected of me? Or if I'm playing with my peers, am I playing with my peers and I'm the leader of this play situation? Or am I playing with peers and they're the leader, and so I need to follow what they're doing? So we have all these social demands that our brain is then processing in the background as well.
Belle:And then for children, we have kind of the play and learning side of space. Now this does fold into that social and cognitive as well. But I just wanted to have it as its own little one because it's really important to think about within school, where we have kids, where we want them to be learning, we need them to be in a state where they are ready to engage in that learning, same with play, and either playing by themselves and doing that learning by themselves within play and exploring different toys and exploring cause and effect and creating these wonderful imagination stories, or play with peers, where we're having more of that social element. There's a lot of thinking that goes on and problem solving that goes on to be able to persist within that play side of things.
Belle:So, just to recap, at any point in time our brain is processing our sensory world. We have cognitive demands, we have social demands and we have demands of learning and playing for children in particular. Adults we learn to play a little bit, but not nearly as much as children learn and play. They're doing it all day, every day. So we have all of these different things that our brain is having to process at any one time. So what does this mean in terms of our regulation? Well, our regulation is the capacity for our brain to take in all that information and therefore manage its arousal state.
Belle:Now, arousal state, and what I mean by arousal state, is essentially how alert our body is. Alert our body is So if you think of first thing in the morning, when you're sleepy and it's just a really tough morning and you're just feeling really slow, your arousal rate's pretty low. You're in that kind of waking up stage. And then we can have times where we're a little bit anxious and we've got that butterflies in our tummies or we're just got sweaty hands, we're feeling a bit off and you know, we're a little bit heightened. And then if you've ever been truly, truly scared or truly, truly stressed and you're in that really heightened space, that flight, flight, freeze, response, where you are adrenaline's pumping and you're super stressed, and so you can see it as a bit of a continuum of how alert is my body to respond to whatever the perceived threat or not threat might be.
Belle:So different environments will lead us to have different levels of arousal and this will be very dependent upon the individual and what their preferences are and what their sensory preferences are, what their capacity is from a cognition perspective and what their capacity is from a social perspective as well. So, if you think back to some of those earlier ones, where which of those areas are tricky for the child will impact upon which environments they find more tricky and therefore may enter into a higher arousal than your e or than a peer,
Belle:e also have this idea of a just right arousal level, and this is where I'm feeling ready to tackle a challenge. I'm not already on edge, I'm not so on edge I can't even think anymore. I'm actually ready to challenge, to tackle something, and I'm ready to focus and I'm ready to do. And so regulation is all about helping us through the ebbs and flows as we go through different emotions, different experiences throughout the day, to help us when we need to get back to that just right arousal level, to be able to then engage in whatever the occupation is that the child is trying to do or wants to do no-transcript Big!.
Belle:Now the little tidbit I'm going to jump in here is we then have these ideas of self-regulation and what we call co-regulation. I'm not going to go into these too much today because this is just the intro episode to give you a bit of an idea of what's to come. But in essence, self-regulation is when an individual can regulate their emotions independently. At its crux, co-regulation is when we use somebody else and you're helping me regulate.
Belle:Now. The fun bit about self-regulation is it requires our prefrontal cortex, and our prefrontal cortex is always developing when we are a child. In fact, it develops well into our 20s. And so when you, when I see goals around a child will be able to self-regulate, I think it's a nice goal, but I think it needs to be within reasons, because if they don't have the part of their brain that they need, if that part of their brain hasn't developed yet because it doesn't develop until they're older, well then we can't expect them to be able to self-regulate all the time. Now there might be some bits of self-regulation skills they can start to develop. They might be able to self-regulate through some smaller emotions, but when we think of true self-regulation, the part of our brain which is the prefrontal cortex finishes developing and maturing in our mid to late 20s, and that is slightly different in males and females as well, and so just keep that in the back of your mind when you start to think about what we expect of children from a regulation perspective and making sure that we have the right supports around these kids. Because even though the part of our brain develops in the mid to late 20s. I know many adults, many adults, that still have difficulties with self-regulation, and so it has definitely become a bit of a buzzword in the past couple of years, which I think is great.
Belle:I think it's really good that we're starting to acknowledge that we can help kids through these regulation strategies. We can help them to build some of these skills, to build a bit of independence. But we need to be mindful that we're not working towards complete independence by the time they're 15, because it's just neurologically not possible. They don't have all of the hardware in their brain yet. Their brain is not finished developing, and so I'll come back to this a couple of times throughout this season. But it's just to be aware that there is always a limit in terms of when we're looking with, when we're working with childre how much we expect them to be able to do independently from a regulation perspective.
Belle:So what are our kind of building blocks of regulation? How does our regulation kind of come together? We have so, if you think of, like regulation as an umbrella. Under this umbrella we have our sensory regulation. So how can I meet and manage my sensory needs? We have our emotional regulation. So this ties in a little bit to sensory, because we need to recognize those emotions, and so that does link into kind of our interoception. That does link into kind of our interception. And if you haven't listened to the interception episode, jump back and have a listen, because it will make more, a bit more sense.
Belle:But then, once we've noticed this feeling, can I label it and can I make a choice in terms of am I going to stay feeling like this or am I going to do something to change how I am feeling? And then we have our cognitive regulation, and so this comes into that kind of problem solving persistence and persistence, sorr. So if I have a challenge, do I have the cognitive skills to know that I can keep trying to try something different, to come up with a different idea? For example, at a really, really young level, it might be that if I pick up like little nesting cups and someone's showing me that I can nest them together, but if it's not fitting exactly right, because maybe I'm holding it in a way that my fingers are blocking it from going in, can I keep going to put it in a different way or will I just throw it? nd then as we get older, if you think within the classroom, if I had difficulties following the instructions, can I problem solve? To ask the teacher for help so that I can then keep going. Because if I don't have those problem solving skills and I don't have that confidence within that cognitive regulation side of things, well then I'm going to get frustrated and then my emotional regulation is going to throw out and then maybe I'll be on edge a bit more and so I might be more heightened to notice different sensory inputs, and that's when we can then see the whole thing start to crumble and fall apart and that's when we can see some regulation difficulties.
Belle:But I want you to think about it as this idea if we've got the sensory regulation component and it's definitely a component within our regulation we have our emotional regulation component, our ability to label and understand our emotions and then do something about it, make those action plans about it, and then we have our cognitive regulation. This is where we build our skills in terms of persistence, problem solving, asking for help. All of those strategies fall under here, and so that's kind of our umbrella of what regulation is, of our umbrella of what regulation is.
Belle:Now, as we think of a baby, for example, and what this sort of progression looks like for a child initially, regulation is just I am a fussing, something is wrong and I don't know what's wrong. . Something in my bod, like, if you think of, you know, a one-year-old or less than one-year-old, for example, they start crying and it's up to the parents to guess why are they fussing? Why are they crying? And they tend to have different cries of oh, I'm just a bit unsettled to no, this is a serious cry. I need. I need serious help. I'm in pain and so and it's very, very initial the child goes, something is wrong, so my response is to cry, and then I get help and my problem is fixed. And this is where us regulation starts to develop, and this is what we call co-regulation. I am using somebody else to help problem solve my situation so that I can feel calm and safe again. I am noticing from them how they're feeling so I can judge if this is a big problem or a little problem.
Belle:You might see a baby or a toddler that starts to fuss, but as soon as mum, dad, teacher, whomever goes, «&nbspoh, it's okay, ready, we're going to do this and this and this, they go oh, it's okay, it's not a big problem. But if mum or dad go, oh, my goodness, what are we going to do? Are you okay, are you okay? Then all of a sudden the child goes whoa, this is a really big problem. I need to really start crying and really be quite stressed here, because I'm picking up from those around me how much of a problem this is, because I don't know yet.
Belle:This is our co-regulation. Co-regulation then helps us build the skills to start to move into some self-regulation and it's kind of that really important building block. It helps us build different attachment and trust. It helps us develop our emotional awareness from a very, very young age. It can really help with improving and building relationships between child and caregivers and child and parents. So it has this huge ongoing impact.
Belle:But it's all about this idea of parents consistently modeling and teaching self-regulation strategies over time, and helping children through this regulation process is what our co-regulation is, because, as we said before, they don't have all the hardware in their brain yet, so they can't do it by themselves yet. We'll get them there, but when they're little they need help to navigate the world around us. And when I say little teenagers are included in this, it just looks different. So that's kind of the building blocks of what our regulation is and what those components of regulation are and how we kind of move from co-regulation into co-regulation with self-regulation and then into more of the self-regulation with less of the co-regulation required. It's kind of this, They go together always and it's always this idea of building that trust so the child can seek help when they need it, but starting to build the skills so they can be confident to start to manage some of those emotions themselves.
Belle:Well, it's sort of short and sweet 20 minutes, not too bad. That is our intro episode into what's going to be coming for this regulation in early years season. So I can't wait to dive into it. Next time we're going to be diving a little bit more into this kind of co-regulation side of things, what it is, what that means and what are some strategies that we can do to help support co-regulation, and then we'll go a bit more into regulation after that. But I hope you will have a lovely, lovely week. Can't wait to chat soon and I cannot wait to dive into this season. I'm super excited about it. Chat soon, guys. Bye!