Belle’s OT Corner
Belle’s OT Corner
Regulation in Early Years Ep 2: Co-Regulation
Join us in this episode, where we promise you'll gain the tools to support your child through their regulation challenges. We'll start by examining our personal self-regulation strategies—because understanding ourselves is the first step in guiding our children through their own emotional landscapes.
Ever noticed how your mood can influence your child's behavior? That's no coincidence! This episode explores the fascinating interplay between our emotional states and those of our children, highlighting the pivotal role of co-regulation. We offer a deep dive into practical strategies to help calm and support your child during their most challenging moments. From sensory strategies to understanding when a child has "flipped their lid," we emphasize the importance of empathy and timing in effective co-regulation. You'll also learn why self-regulation isn't just for kids—as adults, our ability to manage stress directly impacts our children.
We wrap up with actionable co-regulation techniques that you can start using immediately. Discover the top ten strategies, such as using a calm voice, modeling deep breathing, and the power of physical touch. These methods are designed to make you a soothing presence in your child's life, helping them feel understood and supported. Real-life examples will illustrate how these approaches can transform daily challenges into opportunities for growth and resilience. Don't forget to rate, review, and share the show, and follow Belle's OT Corner on Instagram for more insights and updates.
Hi everyone, welcome to episode 2 in our Regulation in Early Years season in Belzo T Corner. So today we're going to be looking at what is regulation, and we're going to look at what is this idea of self-regulation, what is this idea of co-regulation and what are some strategies that we can put in place to help our kids develop these skills. Now it is a bit of a big topic. I'm just going to start chatting as I do and talking through the background and the building blocks that we need, and if we need to split this into two episodes, we will, so we'll just see how we go. So, as we talked about in episode one, regulation is this idea of how can I get my body ready for the activity that I need to do whilst responding to all the different environmental and internal messages that my brain is receiving to manage everything I need to do to be able to get through the day and engage in the activities within the day. So how can I keep myself in a state where I can manage the stresses but also match my energy level to the activity or task that I'm wanting to do? And so it's this ongoing process that we do throughout the day, where we're constantly checking in with ourselves. And so, before we get into thinking about the kids in our lives and how this self-regulation develops, I want you to take a moment to think about your own self-regulation and what that might look like within your own day. And so for us as adults, we might do things where in the morning I might be a bit slow, my alertness might be quite low.
Speaker 1:I'm going to potter around in my house. I'll make myself some breakfast. Some mornings I'll typically have a cup of coffee. It's a part of my routine, but also what it does is it's helping me get my body ready and get my body going. Now, on flip side of that, if there's a morning where I've woken up late, automatically my response to that external stimuli of I have not woken up and I've snoozed my alarm way too many times is that I get this rush of adrenaline. I'm up, I'm moving fast. I've grabbed my clothes, I'm on, I'm up, I'm moving fast. I've grabbed my clothes, I'm on, I'm not making breakfast and I'm at the door as fast as I can possibly be.
Speaker 1:So my own regulation has shifted to match what I need it to be. Within that moment, when I actually wake up on time, I can potter around quite slowly when I've woken up late, it's that much faster. I get that surge of adrenaline through me because I hate being late to things and I'm rushing between different activities. And then when I'm on the train I might have a few deep breaths and I might need to bring myself back down. And these are those self-regulation strategies, because I'm no longer needing to go at 100 miles a minute, I can actually start to calm down and enjoy the train ride to work, as long as I'm not still running late and going to be late to work, in which case I might be stressed that whole train ride. And so it's this idea of we always are matching what we need our energy levels to be to the activity, but then also being able to respond appropriately to those external stimuli.
Speaker 1:Another example could be if I was at work and I've been doing reports all day, so I don't really need a lot of energy for that. I'm ploddering along, that's fine. But then I have an external stressor of a colleague that comes to me with a complaint. That's happened, and so I need to manage that complaint. I need to be able to sit there and listen and not let my emotional response overrule what my response could be. So I might be quite affronted by this. I might have a big emotional response, but it's this idea that I can still sit there, take on the information and then choose how I'm going to respond.
Speaker 1:So we can have self-regulation within that cognitive sense that we were talking about last week. We had the sensory sense that we also spoke about and then that emotional response as well. So it's all these different bits of input that our brain gets throughout the day and then how we help shift that to what our responses are going to be. It can also be things like looking at so I play hockey and when I'm on my way to a hockey game I play absolute pump up music in the car, because I know I'm going to need all of my energy on the field and I'm going to be going and running and I need to get myself ready for that, because even if I'm absolutely buggered as I'm driving to the game, I will play my bangers, I'll get myself up in that mood, get myself all of that adrenaline pumping, so I can then engage in the hockey game. And so you can see how our self-regulation is, both this idea of after the event, but also regulation comes pre-event as well, to match what I need for that activity, pre-event as well to match what I need for that activity.
Speaker 1:So if we think about a bit of the theory behind regulation and this is now going to link more towards some of the kids that we see in our lives and how they build some of these regulation skills there are a couple really nice models and theories that I like to refer to, and one is Dan Siegel's hand model of the brain, and then there's also the Shatner self-reg model, which talks about red brain, blue brain, and they're quite similar ideas and so I'm going to talk about them in general. And so it's this idea of if you make a fist with your hand and your thumb is on the inside of your fist, that is your brain, and your four fingers that are wrapped around the top of your brain, that is your thinking brain, that is your prefrontal cortex, that's where all your decision making and executive functioning skills so your problem solving, your persistence, your attention all of that sits in our thinking brain. Distance, your attention, all of that sits in our thinking brain. Now, if you lift up those four fingers, and inside, underneath all of that thinking brain, is your thumb. That is your feeling brain. This is where we're processing our emotions. We're in fight or flight or freeze. This is where all of our sensory information gets processed. And so what we have is when our brain, when we are regulated and ready to engage in a task, our fingers come back down and our feeling brain and our thinking brain are connected. They're talking to each other. Something might happen, someone might push me over, and I can logically use my thinking brain to reason. What had happened and go oh, it's okay, I'll be fine. And what had happened and go oh, it's okay, I'll be fine.
Speaker 1:What we can see when dysregulation occurs or someone is struggling to remain regulated and use some of their regulation strategies, is what we can call flipping a lid. And so this is when our fingers come up, and so our thinking brain is no longer connected to our feeling brain, which means we're not thinking anymore. We are purely based on feeling responses, and if you've ever seen a kid have a meltdown which I'm sure you all have when they're very, very dysregulated and they're really struggling, there are times where you can talk them out of it and you can reason with them. There are times where reasoning goes right out the window it and you can reason with them. There are times where reasoning goes right out the window and it doesn't matter what you say or what you do, you just can't engage with that thinking. Those are the times where we've flipped our lid, and so this is a really important concept to think about and, if you're interested, I will try to figure out how to link some of these models in the show notes. Haven't done that before. We'll figure it out so that you can then go and read a bit more about these two models, because they're fantastic resources. But the reason I talk about them today is because it's really important to think about.
Speaker 1:Okay, so where is this child?
Speaker 1:Where is this child's brain?
Speaker 1:Are we in our thinking brain and our fingers are down, or have we flipped our lid?
Speaker 1:And in our feeling brain? Because it's going to change how we help this child through it. Because if we're thinking well, then we can do a little bit more of the reasoning side and we can help problem solve and maybe we can persist through the activity that they're finding particularly challenging. If they're in their feeling brain and they've flipped their lid, well, then we're going to be using a lot of those sensory strategies to help their bodies feel better and not do any talking or minimal talking. We're not logically reasoning through the problem because their brain can't do that and obviously all of this is dependent upon the age of the child and where they're at from a cognitive perspective and everything else, and you know your child best for that or the children in your class. But it's just important to have in the back of your mind about okay, well, maybe what's this kid's brain at? How much are they going to be ready to talk, or do we actually need to calm down first and do more of that feeling bearing things before we can then help them figure it out and do that thinking brain? We need to help those fingers come back down all the way down again so that we can think some more. So that's just a really nice model to think about.
Speaker 1:That kind of encompasses all of the regulation things that we'll talk about, from co-regulation all the way through to self-regulation, because I know I've had moments where I flip my lid and a lot of the time, once I flip my lid I curl up and cocoon and I just don't want anyone to talk to me and I have a bit of a shutdown because I just can't think anymore. I've had a big emotional reaction to something and there is no thinking going on, I'm just frustrated, and I need to be frustrated and annoyed, and I'll calm down eventually and then I'll come back to it, but I just can't. And it's not that I don't want to, I really do want to, but my brain just can't. So have a think and reflect on your own experiences, or maybe, as you know, go about your day to day. Do you notice times where, yeah, you can think through things and times where, oh, that was a lot harder? And maybe I'm coming close to flipping my lid, because this is not just something that happens for the children in our lives, it happens for adults too. It's a fun one. So that's a bit of the background on kind of the model that we can look at. And now we're going to talk a little bit more about co-regulation, because if you listen to last episode I was about to say last week's episode, but it wasn't If you listen to the last episode that we did co-regulation is this kind of foundation process as we start to build self-regulation skills, and I said it last episode, but I will say it again it's really important to know that part of the brain that we need for that true self-regulation doesn't develop until our 20s, and so it's this kind of balancing act of when we need co-regulation and when we're younger we'll need more co-regulation, and as we get older that balancing beam starts to even out and maybe at times they do more self-regulation and at times they need more co-regulation to support that regulation skills and those skills developing, and then eventually we look towards being a little bit more independent with accessing those self-regulation.
Speaker 1:Co-regulation, as a big window definition, is the ability to regulate our emotions and behaviors, to soothe and manage stressing internal sensory input or external situations and associated inputs with the support and direction of a connected individual. So it's the exact same premise as self-regulation of this idea of I am able to manage the inputs from the world around me and from those internal to me. But the add-on at the end is this idea of with a connected individual, and what this means is using an adult or sometimes a trusted peer, but frequently an adult to help guide how I should be feeling. Now this works from a neuroscience perspective. This works because of some things called mirror neurons and this essentially means that when, as human beings, we will start to copy the arousal states or the state of regulation of those around us, and this is because of the mirror neurons in our brain that pick up and go oh yes, this is very stressful, we need to deal with this. Or oh no, you know, this isn't very stressful. And if you think way, way, way, way, way back into kind of an evolutionary perspective, this is that response of is the herd, is the tribe stressed or are we safe? And I'm going to figure that out by the arousal states or the regulation state of everyone else around me and therefore, what do I need to do to keep myself safe? So it's this idea of through using these mirror neurons and through being able to help someone calm by using my own regulation means that I can help their brain start to build the neural pathways and start to wire what regulation feels like. Through these shared positive experiences and what I mean by that is, I can help you calm down so your brain knows what it feels like to go through that process. And it's a positive experience and we did it together. And the more that we can do that and the more that we can engage in these opportunities for shared problem solving and shared regulation, the easier it is for your brain to be able to access that same pathway when you're stressed, and so that's how we then start to see this progression towards self-regulation and less on the co-regulation side of things. Self-regulation and less on the co-regulation side of things so that's kind of the theory, but what does it look like in practice? So, from an adult's perspective, co-regulation occurs for us as well.
Speaker 1:If you, if I am in the grocery store and there is a big, big, big line and I stand next to someone that is, or standing between two people and their attitudes are, oh well, we have all the time in the world, this is fine, I will automatically be like, oh, it's okay, no, I'm not in a rush, it's fine. If I stand between two individuals that are, oh, my goodness, I've got to go to here and I don't have enough time, and then I've got to go to there, I will start to pick up a bit of that stress and then start to get frustrated that that line is taking so long. It's the exact same if I walk into a room and everyone is really focused, like at work. If you walk into the office and everyone's heads down really focused, it can be really conducive to my own focus. Heads down, really focused, it can be really conducive to my own focus. But if in that same work environment everyone has reports or things due that week or presentations, whatever it might be, it's not as conducive a work environment because I will pick up on everybody else's stress and then I'll start to stress spiral and I won't be able to focus on what I'm doing as much and I'll need way more of my regulation strategies to actually get my work done than when we're all in that kind of calmer, more focused, regulated state.
Speaker 1:And so in kids this looks like them picking up on how we're feeling and, as I mentioned last episode, this happens automatically. You can't turn it on, turn it. It'd be great if we could turn it on and turn it off, but we can't. And so things like if you're having a bit of a stressful day and you notice your kids are playing up, and then that adds to your stress and that adds to their stress, and then the snowball starts rolling. They pick up on ours and we pick up on theirs and the we pick up on theirs is the big, big, big kicker. Because if you're having a child, or if you are seeing a child that's having a really big emotion, that's really distressed and really struggling with that, automatically we pick up on that stress and you might get a bit anxious, you might get really concerned, you might get quite frustrated that you don't know what to do, or you might feel overwhelmed. So many different feelings can go on.
Speaker 1:And then if we go in to try and help, that can just add to the stress of everybody involved. And so what can we do within that? Well, lots, lots, lots, lots, lots, lots, lots, lots. But the big one first is the importance of checking in with ourself before we do anything. And are you in a state where you are ready to support somebody? Or have the kids been making noise all afternoon while you're trying to cook dinner and then they've broken the new toy and they're screaming at each other? And you're just on your last nerve and you know that if you go into that playroom and try and help, you'd have a tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny amount of tolerance before you're going to get pushed over the edge. This is totally fine. This is the reality of being an adult.
Speaker 1:But what we want to do is start to notice and check in with ourselves first, because, if you can step away and use your own regulation strategies. Have a glass of water, stand outside in some fresh air, put on a bit of music, just walk up and down the hallway. Get some movement, whatever it might be that helps you feel better. Go make your favorite cup of tea or your favorite juice or whatever. Check in with yourself, help yourself feel better first, so you have more of a tolerance, because that's when we then have that capacity to be that calming person, to be that grounding person and to help someone through their own frustration. And so, as we talk about co-regulation a little bit more and in a second we're going to start to talk about what some strategies are and, in the moment, what we can do If we go back quickly to thinking about that kind of hand model of the brain, what we do within a more flip the lid. So what some people might see as a meltdown situation is going to be different to a non-flip the lid or a problem-solving co-regulation.
Speaker 1:And what I mean by this is if your child is getting really, really frustrated, let's say, let's say they're playing and they're playing with a new toy and they're trying to figure it out and it's just not working and they start throwing it and you want to go over and be like come on, we don't throw our toys, but they're not really frustrated yet. But you can see that they're starting to bubble up and they're throwing it and they're getting maybe a little bit stronger with their actions. But they're still thinking well, we can probably go over and, from a co-regulation perspective, be like ah, this toy is not quite working. I wonder what's going on. Should we bang it? Should we drop it? If it's like a ball run, for example, and they're not quite pushing down hard enough, you might model being I'm going to do a gentle push, oh, that didn't work. That's really annoying. I'm going to do a strong push and, oh look, that worked. And so in this problem solving space, we're not coming over and showing them exactly what to do. We're also not coming over and saying just don't throw your toys, make sure you look after your toys.
Speaker 1:Because the most important thing we'll talk about in a second is actually validating that frustration and the fact that they're trying and something's not going right, but instead we're modeling. What about this? It is frustrating, it's not working. Could we try that, that? Oh, we figured it out, because this is the process that their brain needs to go through and that our brains go through automatically. I have a problem. What is that problem? Why is that problem happening and what could I do differently? And oh look, I had a success. And the more that we can help their brains go through this process when we're in that thinking brain mode, the more that we can help their brains go through this process when we're in that thinking brain mode, the more that we can help them start to build some of that persistence and start to be able to go take that big breath and try again, or we'll put that one over here and we'll come back to it in a minute. I'm going to take that break and then come back.
Speaker 1:Whereas if we think of that flip the lid and what regulation might look like, then let's say we didn't catch it. They kept on playing with the ball run. They couldn't get it to work. They threw it across the room. They got the ball, they threw the ball and then they're screaming and they're really upset because they couldn't figure it out and they're crying and they're just all of a sudden they rock into the kitchen where you're trying to cook dinner and you don't know exactly what's happened. But they are very upset. We're not thinking here, we're not going. What happened? Where's your toys? What were you doing? Too many questions. My thinking brain's disconnected, I can't think. Instead, oh, my goodness, let's have a cuddle. Something's happened that's made you quite upset.
Speaker 1:We're going to use more of those sensory strategies so we might do some rocking side to side or some up and down. Think back to that vestibular episode that we did. We might give some really big squeezes and some deep pressure. Think back to that proprioceptive episode that we did. And we're going to help them calm down first and then we might, once we get them calm and if you think they can, we then might go. What were you doing? Let's go back over there and have a look at what you were doing and we can try again, and then we'll do it together. But we're not doing that thinking first, because we flip the lid.
Speaker 1:So the first thing we're doing is actually helping them calm, helping them feel safe in their bodies again, to then be able to go back to the tricky activity, which is why, as I said before, we always got to check in with ourselves, because sometimes, if your child has had two or three or four or five, or countless big emotions that day. You may only have so much tolerance, and so you might need to even check in with your partner and be like I can't do this one, can you? I need a minute. And on that as well I know this is the early years episode, but it's incredibly powerful as well to model to your kids needing a minute. And so if your brain can't do it and the guilt starts to kick in because, oh, but I should just be able to, no, no, it's just as powerful to say mum needs a minute or dad needs a minute, I'm just gonna sit over here, I'm here still, but mum just needs a minute to herself for some big breaths. Mum's feeling a bit overwhelmed, mum's got some big feelings going on, and so I just need a minute and then I'll come back and then I'll come and play. And so it's that idea of modelling to them that even adults need that time sometimes and that can be really powerful, because the more they see you doing that, they understand it when they have to do it as well. And so it can be, even if you can't help in that exact moment, it can be really powerful actually to be modeling, taking that time and checking in with yourself as well. Looking at the time, I have a feeling we'll be splitting this into two episodes, but we'll see how we go. It's always the way I get chatting and then I'm chatting away for so long, but it's fine, we can always do another episode.
Speaker 1:So what are some of these co-regulation strategies? So I've kind of talked through a couple in some examples and things, but I'm going to give you a rundown of how many should you want? 10, 10, let's do 10. Mentally running through my top 10, I would say, of what I kind of as my go-to for these co-regulation strategies. Some of them might feel a little bit obvious, but we're going to chat them through anyway.
Speaker 1:So we'll start with tone and volume of our voice and so use of our voice. Use of our voice and what I mean when I say this is things like how loud am I talking? Am I whispering? Am I being really quite direct? And what's the tone of my voice? Is it calming, is it very authoritative that you need to do this and you need to do this? And next, is that what is the tone that I'm placing on my voice and is that matching what I want the response to be in the child. And so, from a co-regulation perspective, nine times out of ten, we want our voice to be a little bit quieter Sometimes we might even whisper and we want it to have that sing-song, gentle tone to it that helps them know everything's going to be okay, without even actually having to say everything's going to be okay, because my voice is telling you that it's not the.
Speaker 1:Come on, guys, grab your bags and we've got to get this. Don't forget your lunchbox. Did you put that in your bag from yesterday? Come on, where are you going? You should have your shoes on by now. It's not the time for that voice. That voice has its time and place. Don't get me wrong. But when we're thinking that co-regulation and we're looking at using our voice, it has a huge, huge power in actually just how we're seeing things and not necessarily what we're saying.
Speaker 1:So, thinking about talking that little bit quieter, having that little bit of a sing song to your voice, nice and calming, nice and gentle, everything's okay the other thing that you can do is deep breathing, and I don't mean saying to your child, particularly if we're in that flip the lid state we're not saying come on, let's take some big breaths, maybe if we're in a thinking state, but not if we flipped our lid. But what I am going to do is I been a really big day and I'm going to model some really big breaths and make them quite audible so that the child can pick up on them, because remember how we were talking about they're going to be mirroring what you're doing automatically just by sitting next to them and being in the same space as them, even if I'm not right next to them. Just being in the same space as them and having those deep breaths will start to have an impact on them and their breathing and they will slowly start to match yours. The other thing that we really wanted to do is make sure we're getting on their level. So I'm not coming in and standing over the top of this kid if this child's lying on the floor. Guess what? I'm lying on the floor. If they're sitting on the on the floor, I'm going to sit on the floor and I'm not going to be right next to them always, but I'm going to be sitting on the floor down at their height. I'm going to help sitting on the floor down at their height. I'm going to help build that connection by being close to them and meeting them where they are, and I mean physically meeting them where they are and not just from an emotional perspective as well. It just helps the brain understand that next step of yes, everything is okay.
Speaker 1:I'm also going to think about physical contact, and you know your kids best. Do they like touch? Do they not like touch? But that comforting touch of I'm here and as I start to do a bit of that comforting touch, can I build in a little bit of deep pressure into that? So think back to that proprioceptive episode and if you haven't had a listen, go back and jump on it. But can we have some big squeezes that are just going to help that brain to start to reorganize again and start to figure out what's going on? And if they don't like physical touch and physical contact, then I'm not going to do it, but just having it in the back of your brain of is this something that's going to be helpful or is this something that's going to be harmful?
Speaker 1:The next one that you can think about is that non-verbal communication. So what is my face telling them? What's my body telling them? Are my arms crossed and closed off or are we open and lying on the floor or being close to them in a way that shows that I'm here. What's my face doing? How can we start to match what we want to help them feel and show that through our body and not just through our words? The other one that's really important, that I want you guys to think about as we do this sort of process of calming together, is looking at validating their feelings.
Speaker 1:Now, this doesn't mean necessarily labeling their feelings. So sometimes the most frustrating thing when you're angry is for someone to turn around and go oh, you're a bit angry today, you're a bit cranky today. It doesn't help anyone. Even if you are. It's not really a helpful thing to say, and for some people it can be, but for a lot of people it really can't be. But what can be helpful is you look like you're having a tough day. I'm not labeling what you're feeling, but I'm telling you that I'm acknowledging that there is a big emotion going on here. I can see that you're finding this really hard and if you know your child well and you know that they don't mind it if you label their feelings, then you might say I can see that you're really frustrated. I can see that something's really bothering you. I can see that this is really hard, but I'm not saying, oh, you're really sad or you're really angry.
Speaker 1:Now, sometimes, if they are really sad, we can say, wow, you're really quite upset, you're finding this really tricky. But we're not necessarily saying you're feeling this, so we need to stop feeling this. We don't need to stop feeling this. It's okay to feel this. We're feeling these big emotions and we're validating the fact that they are okay. You are having some really big emotions, that's okay. We're going to calm down together and it will all be okay again, and so it's always a really important one, and we'll talk about it more in later episodes as well. But this idea of validating their feelings If you feel like labeling them and it works, okay, great. If you don't feel like labeling them, you don't have to. If you also don't know what they're feeling exactly, don't label it. Just acknowledge that, wow, something's happened that you found really frustrating and really tricky, and that's okay. That's all we need to say.
Speaker 1:You can also look at as they start to calm down. You can look at some of those calming together strategies. So things like having a drink of water, getting some fresh air, going for a bit of a walk, leaving the room just to get a bit of a physical break away from whatever it was that was frustrating. That's where we can then start to use some of those strategies to help them calm down a little bit together as well. Sometimes it can be getting a new toy to help distract and move on to something different and then checking back in in a minute to see how they're feeling. All of these sort of strategies, things that you guys will do, and if you want to list, have a little bit of a Google. There are heaps and heaps and heaps online. Or if you're stuck, just reach out and I but this idea of we're going to calm down together, I'm going to help you feel better and then we're going to figure it out.
Speaker 1:And this is my last top tip in terms of our regulation strategies and it's not always possible but if there's been a clear trigger that you've noticed and something that can be solved, noticed and something that can be solved, so if the game that your child is playing with or a child in your class has been playing with has been really incredibly frustrating for them and that has been what's triggered them, let's say a piece wasn't fitting or something wasn't going right or the block tower kept on falling over, whatever it might be. Once we've helped them calm down, once we've used all of our co-regulation I've taken some big breaths, maybe we've done some deep pressure we're feeling better. You can see them. You can feel them starting to calm a little bit. That's when we can go.
Speaker 1:I could see that this game was really tricky. Let's figure it out together, because I could see that it was falling over. Let's say it was building blocks. Why don't we try? Could we do holding it like this? And then, oh, look, that worked. And so if, if, we can get them back to having that thinking brain connected again, well then, we want to help them solve their problem. We're back in that more thinking brain space where we can engage in that problem solving. Yeah, every time you picked it up, it fell over. I wonder, could we use two hands? What else could we try? Could we go slower? Could we make a smaller tower, whatever it might be? Or it could just be that in that moment, you just get them to tell you what they were trying to do, or they show you what they were trying to do and then you just do it for them so it ends in success.
Speaker 1:But this idea of we've calmed and we're going to solve this problem together. We're going to figure it out and we're going to have that success at the end, so that we can then have that confidence to keep going, start to build some of those problem solving skills, start to build some of that persistence skills, start to feel really confident in that what's next. And so this whole co-regulation idea is this something's happened. I'm going to help you sort of start to calm down. We're going to help ourselves feel better first, but before I help you, I'm going to help you sort of start to calm down. We're going to help ourselves feel better first, but before I help you, I'm going to check in with myself, make sure that I have the capacity to move into this with you. We're going to calm together.
Speaker 1:I'm going to lead you through that process. I'm going to model some big breaths. I'm going to model validating your feelings. I'm going to maybe use a little bit of deep pressure. I'm going to get down on your feelings. I'm going to maybe use a little bit of deep pressure. I'm going to get down on your level. I'm going to think about my tone of voice. I'm going to make sure that my posture is nice and welcoming All of the things that you automatically do when you go to comfort someone.
Speaker 1:We're going to use all of those tools to then be able to help the child calm back down, help that thinking brain start to tick back into place, and if it does tick back into place, well then we're going to solve the problem together. If it doesn't, and we're still a little bit on edge, that's fine. We can leave the activity and go and do something else. That's not a problem, because we're still learning that I'm not ready or the child is not ready to do this, and so we're not going to force it, because we want them to be able to learn what ready to come back to a problem is and what not ready to come back to a problem is All right. So I'm definitely splitting this episode into two. So that's going to be the end of our part, one where we focus more on that co-regulation side of things what co-regulation is and what are some strategies to start to support it and what that looks like with our kids.
Speaker 1:And so the one final bit that I'll do before we wrap up is I'm going to give you one more little example of what I might do in a situation, and I'll kind of talk it through with you as well. So let's say um, what example could we use? Oh, let's say a child was learning and starting to become a little bit more independent in dressing and at that stage where they want to do it all themselves, but they don't quite have the skills to do it all themselves yet, but they're really determined to be independent, but finding it incredibly frustrating every time they can't be as independent as they would like. And so let's say, I'm helping a little girl and she's trying to do her zipper. And she knows that she can do the zipper because she pulls the zip up and can do that bit, but she cannot nest it and she's getting really frustrated. And I can tell that she's frustrated because she's starting to use a bit more strength and a bit more force, her breathing starting to get a bit faster. And then she just goes and pulls off her jacket. But we need to get the jacket on because we need to leave.
Speaker 1:And so I might say, whoa, that was really tricky. You were trying to put the jacket on and it just it wouldn't work. Wow, wow, that was. That's really hard. So I'm taking some big breaths. Oh, I wonder what we could do. We need our jacket on because we're going to go outside. I can help. Should we help and try it together? And she's going no, no, no, no, no. Okay, that's fine, we can wait, but we still need to go outside, and so it's not like we're playing with a toy in here, but we can wait, and then I might you know, see how she's going.
Speaker 1:I'm going to take some big breaths. I'm going to sit here with you. Oh, are you ready now? Nope, okay, that're not ready. We can wait, because when you're ready and I'm going to start telling her when you're ready I can help you and we'll put your jacket on together and then we can go and we can play all the fun games outside and it'll be great and we can run around, but it's cold out there, so we need our jacket. How are you feeling now? Are you ready now? Perfect, let's put your jacket on, and then I'm going to help her put it on.
Speaker 1:And then, as we're getting to the bit where it's really tricky, I might say now last time you were pushing this really hard I wonder see this little hole here. See this little slot. I wonder if we're really careful, if we can make it fit. Oh, it did fit. I'll hold this bit nice and strong and you can do the last bit because you're so good at this bit. Up it goes, happy days.
Speaker 1:And so it's this idea of acknowledging that it's frustrating. Allowing that time, I used some deep breaths, I used my voice and my body language to help communicate that it's allowed to be frustrated. She tried, I verbally explained what had happened because she wasn't completely flipped her lid, she could still think a little bit, and so I could talk her through. You tried and you tried again and it didn't work and it was really frustrating, and that's okay. It was really tricky, it was hard. Are you ready to try again?
Speaker 1:And honoring that when they're not ready to try again, I'm not going to force it. We'll use a little bit more of our co-regulation strategies, we'll take a little bit longer, we'll give that brain that time and then we'll come back again in a minute to help with the what's next. And then, once we were ready, I'm going to sit there and I'm going to very explicitly talk you through and I know, I know that it goes in the little slot for the zipper. But I'm using statements like I wonder, could this go here To help her start to engage in some of that thinking as well? So there is our crash course in co-regulation and what it is and what that looks like, and I challenge you to start to observe the behaviour of your children or children in your class and have in the back of your mind this idea of where are they. Are they in their thinking brain, are they in their feeling brain? And then start to try some of these strategies around how we can help them persist through challenges and how we can help them calm down a little bit as well.
Speaker 1:That's all from me for today. I hope you guys have a fantastic week and I will catch you guys next time where we go into co-regulation not co-regulation. We'll keep diving into some of our self-regulation skills and we might even start talking about how I view behavior from an ot lens. But that's for next time. I always forget, actually, before I let you guys go, I always forget to say please rate the show, review the show any bits that you can really, really help and please do share it with any friends, family, anyone that you think that might enjoy having a listen. It really really helps me on my end and also go give us a follow on Bell's OT Corner on Instagram. There are some exciting things happening there very, very soon. Okay, that is actually all for now. Have a great week, guys. Bye. Okay, that is actually all for now. Have a great week, guys.