Belle’s OT Corner
Belle’s OT Corner
Regulation in Early Years Ep 4: Supporting Children through Big Emotions
Unlock the strategies to support young children through their emotional highs and lows as we explore the essential techniques for regulation. We’ll share how to play detective with body language and environment to better understand what a child is experiencing. Just like adults, children can struggle to articulate their emotions, and we’re here to guide you in becoming an effective co-regulator who can help them navigate these overwhelming feelings.
This episode equips you with practical strategies to create a nurturing environment where children feel safe to express themselves. From the calming power of deep breaths and gentle massages to the strategic use of minimal language, we provide you with actionable steps to address heightened emotional states. With insights on observing physical cues and employing activities for emotional regulation, this episode is your guide to helping children navigate their emotional experiences with confidence and care.
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DISCLAIMER:
Whilst I will always make evert effort to share correct information as at the date of the podcast, research is constantly happening and as a profession we learn more everyday. One therapist may have a different way of doing things to another, and every child's needs are unique. By listening to this podcast, you agree not to use this podcast as medical advice to treat any medical condition in either yourself or others Consult your child's paediatrician or therapist for any recommendations for your child.
Hello everyone and welcome back to Belzo Tea Corner. Today we have our next episode in our regulation in early year season. I can't believe it. We're up to episode four already and so far we've talked about a bit of an introduction into regulation and what all the kind of components of regulation are. We've talked about what co-regulation is, and last episode we dove all into that idea of how we can view behavior from an OT lens specifically, and so I talked through kind of what I see when I have those referrals or parents come to me or teachers come to me and they say we've got this really, really challenging behavior, this really tricky behavior that's going on, and how we can actually stop and reframe that to be that okay. So it's challenging, but what is it communicating? What is this child trying to tell us about the mismatch in the situation so that we can help them through that? So we've done a lot already, but today's episode we're going to be talking all about how we can support our kids through big emotions, particularly thinking about how we can support some of those younger kiddies as they start to notice a lot more of the world around them, which is fantastic, and then the world around them gets very overwhelming, and so we start to see all of these really big emotions that come out. So before we dive into all of that, I just want to go back quickly and do a quick recap of some of those building block bits we talked about back in episode one and if you want a bit more information, go back and have a listen on your own time. But the big bits under those kind of building blocks of regulation, those bits that kind of impact upon each other and therefore, when we look at how we can support someone through a big emotion, we need to be thinking about all these different building blocks. So we have our sensory regulation, we have our cognitive regulation, we have our emotional regulation and then we have how all of these that impact upon our capacity to be social or play or learn or whatever the activity or task is that the child is trying to do, and so I want you to think about as we go through this episode with some of the strategies and some of the examples that we'll talk, to See if you can pick out.
Speaker 1:Okay, well, given that situation, we probably need maybe some more sensory supports. Or, given this situation, maybe we need some cognitive supports, or maybe we actually need some help validating and understanding those emotions and some emotional support. And we'll talk them through those emotions and some emotional support. And we'll talk them through. But you'll start to get a bit of a feel and a bit of an understanding for matching how we're going to support, as that co-regulator, for what our child is communicating to us that they need and that can be communicated through their body language, what they're telling us, what happened before, what we know about the child and some of their preferences, the environment. They're in so many bits and pieces that you get to put together as detective when you're helping someone through an emotion to figure out what it is.
Speaker 1:For example, if let's think of an adult situation first, ah, here's a good one. I do this one all the time. So a colleague comes into work. They're running late, they're super frazzled, they're super stressed, they just don't have time and they're talking really fast. I'm not going to tell them that there's five things on the to-do list that they haven't done. That's not going to help the situation. What I am going to do is I'm going to go oh, wow, you've had a morning. I'm taking some big breaths already. I'm being that nice co-regulator for them. Why don't you sit down, have a cuppa the world's not going to end for two minutes have your coffee, have whatever it needs, take two minutes to go through your emails I'll tell whoever it is that you're coming and just take a minute for yourself. So I've noticed, because I know this person well from their body language, what they're telling me. I know from the environmental situation that they're running late for a meeting and that they're probably stressing about that, and so that's the emotional component as well. And so to help in that situation, I know that that person needs a bit of time, needs a bit of space and needs not to be told about all the other things that haven't been done. So we look at putting all of those clues together, playing that detective role and figuring out okay, so how is it that I're going to talk about?
Speaker 1:Or in today's episode, mostly we're going to be talking about those younger, younger kids, because they don't yet have the capacity to articulate what they're feeling all the time, and I wouldn't expect them to. A lot of adults don't have the capacity to articulate how we're feeling all the time. The other day I was sitting there and my friend's like how are you feeling and my true response to her was blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Because that true response to her was, because that is the best that I could articulate how I was feeling. Now I can reflect and go. It's a bit overwhelmed, I was a bit stressed, hadn't slept well the night before, but in that moment in time I had as how I was feeling. She understood that. Thank you, bless her, love her.
Speaker 1:But adults can't always do it, and so we've got to remember this when we're working with the children in our lives, because they also have strong difficulties with it. So when we think about supporting someone through a big emotion and truthfully, for the first bit of this episode, it doesn't actually matter what that big emotion is. It could be a very, very happy. That's then almost turned us a little bit chaotic. It could be a scared, it could be a stressed, it could be a worried. What the actual feeling is doesn't matter as much. But we're talking about when that emotion gets too big and too overwhelming that my brain cannot process and deal with it anymore. And so when we think of this and if you think back to the co-regulation episode where we talked about that kind of flipping the lid, and our feeling brain and our thinking brain, and if you haven't listened yet, I strongly recommend jumping back and having a listen, because it will just help this episode make a bit more sense.
Speaker 1:But we have that feeling brain and we have that thinking brain and if we're catching someone before they flip that lid and their thinking brain still connected, well, what we're going to do as an adult is going to be different. If that lid's gone and we're just feeling because we can't engage in thinking, and so all those lovely strategies that require thinking and reflection, they're not going to do anything. They'll just, you know, you'd likely end up with an escalation, and then you, as the adult, get frustrated and so you co-escalate and you get up and up and up and up, because regulation and co-regulation works both ways and all of a sudden it's become a really big frustration for the family. Maybe your partner needs to step in, maybe you need to go and take a minute. So we want to think about this idea of playing detective to figure out, okay, is the thinking brain connected or is the feeling brain? And if you're not sure, always start targeting the feeling brain first, because even if the thinking brain's kind of just about hanging on. It's sort of flitting in and out. It's really trying If we say the wrong thing, which I do all the time, that thinking brain's gone. But if that thinking brain's gone, but if that thinking brain's trying really hard to hang on and it's kind of flitting in and out, we're right on that edge and I target that feeling brain and I can help bring us back down. That's going to help that thinking brain hold on a little bit more and we're going to give ourselves a bit more of a threshold to then be able to start to do some of the reasoning. So if you're in doubt, start with the feeling brain. So because of that, we're going to start off by talking about what would I do as a therapist and what can you do as the adult, as mum, as teacher, as auntie, as uncle, as dad probably should have said as mum and dad? How can we help these kids when they are having these big emotions and we're thinking about it from that real feeling brain side of it that flip the lid, no thinking capacity. They can't tell you what's wrong and maybe it's because what was wrong initially is no longer the problem. But now I've really upset myself and I've forgotten about that first problem.
Speaker 1:Prime example for this, one that we can kind of talk through is this episode is imagine a little kid at the park and he really wanted an ice cream, but mum and dad have said, nope, no ice cream today. We're going home and he goes. But I really, really, really want an ice cream. They go no, you know what, we're not buying an ice cream here. But when we get home you can have an ice cream and all the kids heard is no ice cream. And he was really excited about the ice cream. He hadn't told anyone that he was really excited about the ice cream. He's a bit tired because he's been running around the park all day and all of a sudden he gets really fixated ice cream, ice cream, ice cream. I want some ice cream, ice cream. I'm like, nope, no ice cream here. Nope, no ice cream here. And all of a sudden, ice cream, ice cream, ice cream. We get the escalation. Then we get some tears. My dad gets me into the car. He's crying, he's really upset. They get back home, they get some ice cream out and he goes. I don't want that. And it was this big emotion.
Speaker 1:By the time we've finally calmed down or gotten to the solution. We've moved on to something different or we're still so upset I can't even accept the ice cream because I just don't feel okay in my body anymore. And that's the sort of thing that we're looking at. It doesn't necessarily matter what that trigger is, but instead looking at okay, so how can we help, how can we bring that situation back down? And we want to start with this idea of calming first and using our co-regulation to do that supported calming. And this could be through using calming strategies and maybe kind of the different bits that I think of first and then I'll delve into them in a little bit more detail, so we could do things like calming strategies through co-regulation. We want to look at space, we want to look at time, we want to look at safety and we want to look at language. They're kind of our big ones, so there's five big ones. So calming strategies, space, time, safety, language. So we'll talk through all of these in a little bit more detail.
Speaker 1:And this is, again, remember, targeting that feeling brain, not a thinking brain. So when we think of some of these calming strategies and we think about this from a bit of a co-regulation perspective, we're thinking about what is it that I can do with my body, or what is it that we can do together to help bring everything down? We can take some big breaths, and that can be just sitting there and making a really big emphasis on your own breaths. It doesn't have to be come on, let's try some big breaths. I'm actually just going to stand here and oh, that's a big feeling and take some of those big breaths. It might be looking at things like big cuddles, that deep pressure hitting, that proprioceptive input, doing some squeezes.
Speaker 1:Now, this depends on the child, of course, and you know your child the best and teach them your class. You know those kids that don't like touch, and actually getting into their space is going to be too alerting for them, and so you're going to sit at a distance. But for those kids that do like that comfort and do like that deep pressure input, you can just have some hugs. But I'm going to double whammy and I'm going to give you a hug and at the same time we're going to have some deep breaths. I'm going to say it's okay, we're okay and bring that down a little bit. I might look at doing some massage maybe if they don't like touch, but I can hold their hands. I can just do some little massage and give them something else to focus on. Maybe a little bit strong massage. I can push against the muscles of their hands a little bit. Or we can squeeze our hands a little bit and then we shake them out. Then we squeeze them and shake them out.
Speaker 1:If they're starting to calm and they want a drink of water, maybe we could have a drink of water. Maybe we can look at putting on a song that's going to shift that focus a little bit. And I'm not saying we're going to put on the most upbeat dancey song. We're not pulling out Baby Shark. It's not the time for Baby Shark, unless Baby Shark happens to be your child's special interest song. We're not. We're not pulling out baby shark. It's not the time for baby shark, unless baby shark happens to be your child's special interest.
Speaker 1:But I'm more thinking. Maybe we can pick a nice calming song to sit there and listen to and we can just rock side to side. Think back to that vestibular input. As we're having a cuddle, we can just sway side to side and help calm it down a little bit. Maybe we can blow some bubbles. Bubbles are my go-to. So either the adults blowing bubbles and the kids can just watch them and then maybe, depending upon the age, the kid might want to have a try, because what are bubbles going to do? They're going to go as they try to blow bubbles. I realize that might have made an awful sound in your ears to the microphone, so I do apologize for that. And so we're looking at how we can use some of those sensory supports, use some of those calming strategies to really help bring a child down. Now, what could we be doing at the same time as that?
Speaker 1:At the same time as that, I'm thinking about space, and I'm thinking about space in a couple of different ways. I'm thinking about space from a idea of the physical space that we're in. Has something in this environment been a stressor or a trigger for this child? And so do we need to physically move ourselves somewhere else? Is that possible, for example, if there's something really noisy going on, if there's an individual that they've had a bad past experience with? Is there a dog around? And this kid doesn't like dogs. Let's just come into the space. Is it in the classroom? And all of a sudden it's getting ready for assembly and everyone's gone to line up and the corridor is chaos. And then we're seeing this kid get really stressed, thinking about the physical environment that we're in, and do we need to move away from that environment so that we have more capacity to engage in calming? And I'm also thinking about space from the perspective of does this child need space?
Speaker 1:Sometimes the most powerful thing we can do is sit next to someone and just be there. You don't have to solve all the problems at once and just be there. You don't have to solve all the problems at once. Sometimes, allowing that feeling and allowing that time and allowing that space can be really powerful. We can just be I'm here, it's okay, we're going to be okay. Or I'm here, I can see your body's telling me that this is tricky. I'm going to sit here and I'll just be here and you're safe. And so you can hear those pauses between each statement that I'm making. I'm not talking really fast, I've got some deep breaths going on in between, so I'm mimicking that and I'm just holding the space for that child or for that individual, because, particularly when we've just had something that has stressed our brain, stressed our sensory system, stressed our cognitive load, sometimes all we need is everyone just to go away for a second, and sometimes, even if you have the best intentions, if you come in and try and tell me what to do, it's just not going to go well, and so we give that time and we hold that space. So's our calming strategies, that's our space. Now we have time.
Speaker 1:Now time is a really interesting one when we look at supporting someone through a big emotion, because, particularly if we think about that flipping the lid, what you'll see is that lid will start to come down, and sometimes it could take a really long time for that lid to start to come down, and sometimes it can come down quite quickly. But if it's just come down, we've got to remember that's not secure yet and if we start to place too many demands on that child, the likelihood is is is that lid's going to flip again and so it's allowing time to calm. And then that little bit of time and that pocket of time afterwards to calm a little bit longer or to do an easy activity that's super predictable, that the child really likes doing, and then we can fix the problem and then we can talk about the problem, and sometimes that might just be. We're just going to sit and I can see that their breathing's calmed down. I can see there's no more tears. I can see that they're starting to just relax a little bit. Their muscles aren't tight. But I'm just going to do it a little bit longer, just going to give us another couple minutes and then we'll move on, because we want to make sure they're feeling really secure in that feeling of calm before we move on to the next thing, even if the next thing is what they wanted in the first place. So, thinking back to that example earlier, even if that next thing is getting ice cream from the freezer, we're just going to hang here for a little bit longer to make sure that we're really okay and then we can move to get the ice cream. So that's our calming strategies, our space and our time.
Speaker 1:Then we have safety and so, particularly in these moments when our lid has flipped, these kids, their brains, are telling them we're not safe, I don't feel comfy, I don't feel safe, I feel a bit off, and so it can be really powerful as an adult to sit there and validate that and provide that sense of safety for them and explicitly telling them it's okay, I'm here, you are safe. We're going to take some time, you're safe and I'm here and just those simple, really simple reaffirming bits that helps that child go. Okay, I can have my big emotion, I can scream, I can shout, I can do whatever I need to do, because I trust this person to keep me safe while I do it. And then we have our language and language here. I mean in terms of how we choose to use our language. We don't want to be saying a lot in these moments. This is not the time to use big words. It's not the time to use lots of words. It's the time to really pare back our language or, in fact, in some situations, say nothing at all and just be there. So, if anything, we're going to be doing those really simple bits of language I'm here, you're safe, it's okay. And then maybe, as they start to calm down a little bit yeah, I can see your hands are really tight, I can see you're breathing really fast, but it's okay, we're going to calm down together and so we start to be really considerate about the language that they're using.
Speaker 1:The other caveat I'm going to put in here particularly when we flipped our lid, it's not the time to tell someone they're angry. It never really goes well, only sometimes do kids really like it. If I have a kid that's starting to identify some of their emotions a little bit, if they've still got their brain down, they're showing me they're angry I might mimic that. So if they're stomping their feet, I might stomp my feet too. I can see you're angry, but that kid's still got some thinking brain. Once that's gone, I'm not going to be telling that person that they're angry. I might comment on what they're showing me. If they're sad, I'm going to say I can see that you're sad, or I can see that you're frustrated, I can see that you're upset. But we just want to be really careful about labeling those emotions for for somebody else, because the truth of the matter is we don't ever truly know what someone else is feeling inside their body. We can guess, we can look at what their body is telling us, but it's just something to think about in those moments is how much do we actually want to be telling someone how they're feeling as opposed to helping them through that feeling? So those are the big ones to think about when we think of that lid's flipped and I need to help someone through this feeling. So those calming strategies and that co-regulation, giving space or thinking about the space around you time. How am I going to allow time for this, making sure we have that feeling of safety and thinking about the language that we use. So that's when we've kind of flipped our lid. What about when that thinking brain is still a little bit engaged? Again, I'm going to hold the space. I'm going to say this is a feeling and we're going to have this feeling. We're not going to try and suppress this feeling and run out the door to something else. If I have the time, we can feel this feeling.
Speaker 1:I cannot tell you the number of sessions that I have done where I have had a session plan in mind and the child's come into session and something's happened at school that day, or something's happened in class when I went to go and grab them, and they're just. You can tell, they're just not feeling right. I can't. Sometimes, you know, I can't tell if. Are we frustrated? Are we anxious? Are we worried? Are we stressed? Was there something that happened in the playground that was socially demanding? Are we cognitively fatigued? I don't know, but we're just a bit heightened and a little bit stressed.
Speaker 1:And so then I have to look at what I've got and typically in therapy at least, when the kids come to see me for AT, they know that it's fun but it's hard work. But it's fun but it's also really hard work. And so I look at what I've got and I go well, why not doing that? Because that's going to be too tricky for a kid. That's this heightened at the moment and so I need to flip it and I need to allow time to go. Oh, let's have a check-in. How are we feeling? He goes? I don't know Cool. What are we feeling? The kid goes? I don't know Cool. What do we feel like doing? Do we feel like getting some play-doh? Do we feel like just going for a run, seeing if we can preempt and put some of those strategies in place to help us calm back down, to give that time before we then go into the tricky task.
Speaker 1:And these are times where I will always validate what the child's feeling. So if they tell me they're really sad, and I look at them and I go I'm pretty sure you're angry. I'm not telling them they're angry. I'm going to go oh, are you? Oh, I'm sorry to hear that you're sad. What happened? Or if they're telling me that they're fine, but they're really not fine. I'm like, okay, I can see that your breathing's going really fast. I can see that you're pacing backwards and forwards. Would you like to go outside and play a game outside first?
Speaker 1:So I'm just observing what their body's telling me and giving them those clues of what we could do instead, which could be a regulation strategy for that child. Observing what their body's telling me and giving them those clues of what we could do instead, which could be a regulation strategy for that child. But we're looking at noticing and helping them notice what their body's doing, because sometimes they're using all of their effort to hold it together to be fine that they might not be noticing what some of those body cues are and what some of those interceptive messages are that are coming up to their brain, and so, by all intents and purposes, they're fine. So we're going to hold space, we're going to validate those emotions. We might label what we're seeing their body doing. We're going to always acknowledge what they're telling me, particularly if it's around a frustration. I can see that you're telling me that this happened and that was really frustrating and it was really tricky. Should we? Should we problem solve that? And this is where we can move into that space of shared problem solving.
Speaker 1:And so if we think about our younger kitties and let's say it's time to pack away an activity, the kid's really enjoying it, but it's time to pack it away. I've gotten a bit upset and they're crying. I know I can see you're really sad. I'm upset too, but let's pack it away and we'll play it tomorrow, because right now this is what we've got next. So should we pack it away really, really fast so we can get ready to that one, or should we make a game out of packing it away and so we can still hold the idea that it has to pack it away? But we can problem solve together how we're going to pack it away. Do you want to pack it away all by yourself, or would you like some help and we can start to give some of those ideas and some of those suggestions, because our thinking brain's still there so we can engage in some of that problem-solving together.
Speaker 1:We can do the same when we see someone who might be super, super, super energetic and they're having a really big positive emotion and they've just got so much energy. But we really need to come and sit down to do an activity, or maybe it's time to sit down for dinner. And they're just bouncing over the walls and you go whoa, I can see that you have so much energy and you've had such a good day. That is fantastic and I know you're really excited. We need to sit down for dinner. So how can we help your body get ready to sit down for dinner? Because then I want you to tell me all about it. So I'm validating that I've heard, but I'm also telling the child what the problem is or what the challenge is here, that his body is not matching what we need to do. And so then he might go and jump on the trampoline. Maybe I might say can you jump up and down 10 times? Maybe I might say all right, we're going to play Simon Says and Simon Says is going to say sit down and stand up and sit on the floor and stand up and lie down and roll over.
Speaker 1:And I'm going to build in all of those heavy work, those proprioceptive activities to help him get some of that energy out, to help him feel a little bit more calm and settled in his body. So this is where we can kind of give that comfort, validate what they're feeling and then together in that co-regulation, create a plan. So all of those comfort strategies we talked about before with the flip lid, they work here as well. We're giving that comfort, but when we've still got our thinking brain, we can do that extra little bit of how are we feeling? What's your body telling me, what's the problem. So, therefore, what's our plan going to be? What are we actually going to do about that?
Speaker 1:And the process of doing that shared problem solving is most successful when we combine it with some of those comforting strategies and some of those sensory strategies to help bring that body down, or help bring that body up to feel safe again and to feel ready to engage in whatever the activity is. And that's kind of what we'll then talk about a little bit in our next episode is how we can help them get back to that activity and manage through the frustrations in that activity. So a little teaser, but we'll talk about it next episode. Things like how, as adults, we can model frustration and moving through frustration things, how we can create frustration in play in a really playful, silly way so that we can practice getting through it without it being a really big frustration. But we'll talk more on that next episode, but that's kind of where we're building towards.
Speaker 1:So we've got the building blocks now of okay, there's a big emotion you can suss out. Do you think they've got thinking brain? Or if they flipped and they've just got feeling brain, not sure we're gonna go feeling brain. We're gonna put those calming strategies in, we're gonna bring it down, we're gonna give that space, we're gonna use minimal language and then, once we've brought it down, well, then we might solve it together and we can do some of those thinking brain strategies.
Speaker 1:Wow, bang on. Well, just over 30 minutes. About to say bang on 30 minutes, I always have a rough idea of how long my episodes are going to go and then they always end up going a bit longer. But that is it for this episode and if you have any questions at all, please send me a message on instagram. Um, I might do a q a session coming up soon. So it'd be great to have any questions, any burning questions you might have, um, about regulation and particularly regulation in those early years. Otherwise, send the podcast around to anyone, go give it a rate, go get a review. It really, really helps me. Guys, and a really big shout out to everyone that's done one, thank you, thank you, thank you. It makes a world of difference. But otherwise, have a fantastic week and I will chat to you guys soon, hopefully next week, if my week goes to plan, hopefully there'll be an episode next week. All righty guys, have a great week. Bye you.