Blog
Check out our blog feed for the latest news in Self-Reg, or read articles by a specific author.
Authors
Stuart Shanker
Susan Hopkins
Aviva Dunsiger
John Hoffman
Self-Reg Community
Articles
When Self-Reg Matters More: Thinking And Learning On The Day I Was Alone
Last week, I knew that my teaching partner, Paula, was going to be away on Wednesday for an appointment. She booked the supply in advance and all was well until her supply had to unexpectedly cancel on Tuesday night, and the job remained unfilled. Driving to school on...
The Pervasiveness of the Self-Control Paradigm
By: Betsy Lamberson If you were to take a typical scroll through my Instagram feed it would consist of a pretty even mix of posts from people I know and care about to varying degrees, various advertisements and a healthy mix of posts about parenting, spirituality and...
What is Self-Regulation—Really? Part 2: Different Definitions, Different Lenses, Different Strategies
On a practical level, the way we define self-regulation drives the way we work with children (and adults) who exhibit self-regulation challenges. Here are some examples of the difference the broader, more holistic, stress-focused definition of self-regulation, as...
What is Self-Regulation—Really? Shared understandings and language matter
Did you hear the one about two psychologists and a philosopher who searched The Google for the true meaning of self-regulation and found 447 definitions? This is not the first line of a bad joke. It actually happened. Back in 2014, Jeremy Burman, Christopher Green and...
My Doorway View: A Self-Reg Strategy That Works For Me
The other day, I had a period 4 prep. It's only one day in a five day cycle, where due to the timing of my prep, I will be re-entering play when I return. This period 4 prep is an interesting one, as my teaching partner, Paula, is also on her lunch during this time,...
Restoration, Homeostasis and Growth: Important but uniquely challenging for first-time parents
Restoration was a key central topic at SRSS 2021. In fact, throughout this entire year, Stuart and Susan have been really banging the drum for Practice 5 of Self-Reg. They even changed the name from Respond to Restore. And that’s because, to oversimplify, if we are...
Irrational Folly and Wisdom: How a primal childhood fear is helping me learn and understand more about residential schools
By John Hoffman When I was a child the worst thing I could imagine was to be taken from my home and put in a place where harsh, demanding adults had complete control over me, and my parents couldn’t help me. I had no idea that such experiences, and frankly, worse...
When A Trip To The Hairdresser Leads To A Lesson In Self-Reg
The other day, I went to get a haircut. I'll be heading back to school soon, so I wanted to book a haircut and highlights before going back. I've gone to different hairdressers over the years: from drop-in places to those where I book appointments. When COVID first...
Remove Your Email Or Let It Stay? My Self-Reg Look At Email Communication.
The other day, I was doing some work for camp on my computer and I noticed this email icon at the bottom of my screen. Nine thousand five hundred and thirty-one unread messages?! Thank goodness this is an email address that I just use for junk mail and not my Board or...
When NO Blog Post Becomes THE Blog Post: Self-Reg At The End Of The School Year
Once a month, I write a post for The MEHRIT Centre blog. I usually know what I'm going to write about early on in the month. I let the ideas percolate, and then I blog. This month though, I'm stuck. My mind is empty, or maybe, it's full. Full of year-end tasks to do:...
What a Smile Once Taught me about Self-Reg… Four years later
By: Kapila Love Have you ever been struck by a smile? By how it made you feel? I’m guessing that the answer is yes. Allow me to tell you my story of being awestricken by a smile. For the first time since my son’s birth, I had to leave him in the good care of my...
Could COVID Restrictions Have Supported Self-Reg?
In August when I learned about all of the COVID restrictions for this upcoming school year, I broke down into tears. How are we supposed to keep kindergarten students in their own spaces all day long?How do you eliminate hugs from kindergarten?How do you enforce...
Self-Reg Reset 2021: My Goal For This Year’s Symposium
I love the theme Susan and the team have chosen for this year’s Self-Reg Summer Symposium: “Calm, Kind and Capable, A Self-Reg Reset for Educators and Caregivers.” So much of our work is infant, child, and teen oriented that it is all too easy to overlook our own...
Reframing Ontario’s Six Essential Learning Skills (a.k.a. “I KNOW, Mom!)
By Casey Burgess, Ph.D. When my children hand over their report cards, they always point to the self-regulation section, roll their eyes, and say, "I KNOW, Mom. That isn't what self-regulation is.” They sure are learning. One time, my youngest child surprisingly...
What Happens When We’re All Caught In A Stress Cycle?
Before we left school for the April Break, I had a really interesting conversation with my teaching partner, Paula. Our conversation had us wondering: right now, are we all caught in a perpetual stress cycle? In Ontario, the Coronavirus numbers are currently out of...
Ellen’s Story: Stress Behaviour Is Not Just For Kids
A couple of weeks ago, I reached out to an acquaintance (let's call her, "Ellen") through email.** I had a question to ask her, and I thought that she might be able to provide some insights to a query of mine. This is not a colleague or a good friend, but it is...
Five Midway Lessons From the Self-Reg Foundations Course
By Kapila Love I found Self-Reg via Facebook posts, and was intrigued enough by the pretty infographics to look further, to Stuart Shanker’s Self-Reg book. From there, it was a rather lovely, slippery slope into the Foundations Course, which commenced in the Fall of...
Good Stress? Unexpected Insights From A Kindergarten Child
On Friday, my teaching partner, Paula, was away. After we cleaned up at the end of the day, I thought that we would discuss some highlights to share with Mrs. Crockett. Many children had stories to contribute, so they took turns talking. Little did I know that one of...