Self-Regulation in Preschoolers
The early years are a time of extraordinary growth and development. Children’s capacity for self-regulation—how they manage energy expenditure in response to stressors and then recover from the effort—is wired during these critical years. Trajectories are set early and once set can be difficult to change later in life.
Anyone concerned with the healthy development of a young child needs to pay close attention to the child’s self-regulation, helping them feel safe and secure, and calming them when they’re startled.
Unfortunately, there are numerous interpretations of the term “self-regulation” in psychological literature. In particular, “self-regulation” is often confused with self- control. Self-control is not self-regulation. Behaviour modification techniques and programs designed to instill self-control in young children can have short-term success. However, this approach might also lead to additional longer-term problems in mood, attention and behaviour.
Similarly, social-emotional learning (SEL) programs in the education system designed to teach emotion regulation, while promising, have not yet demonstrated robust long-term outcomes. However, there is an intimate link between SEL and self-regulation. Helping children develop effective self-regulation in the early years sets the underlying foundation for successful SEL over their whole lives.
At its core, self-regulation refers to the manner in which a child recovers from the expenditure of energy required to deal with stressors. Prolonged and excessive stress (allostatic overload) can significantly affect “higher” functions such as language, social cognition, executive functions and, indeed, self-control.
A child who is chronically hypo-or hyper-aroused as a result of excessive stress more readily goes into fight-or-flight or freezes.
Recognizing Stress and Stressors
Stressors come from five interconnected domains: biological, emotion, cognitive, social and pro-social. Heightened stress in any or, as is generally the case, several (if not all), of these domains leads to negative downstream consequences. Identifying and reducing stressors is the first step towards easing a child’s stress levels and bringing them back to a calm and focused state, and ultimately improving their ability to self-regulate.
Stressors can vary significantly. What is a stressor for one child may not be for another. Even for the same child, what may be a stressor in one moment may not be in another when the child is in a different physical or emotional state. Some common stressors for children in the early years are:
- The child’s biology—for example, their sensory/motor system
- Poor sleep regime
- Poor diet (high in processed foods)
- Lack of physical activity
- Stressors in the environment—for example, too much noise, light or crowding.
Clinical studies have demonstrated that it is indeed possible to enhance children’s self-regulation and that doing so results in meaningful improvements in any or all of the above five domains.
The Five Steps of Self-Reg
There is no such thing as a “quick fix,” or one solution to help young children to self-regulate. Rather than thinking of self-regulation as a universal program, we need to reframe self-regulation as an educational process. Shanker Self-Reg® has five critical steps that parents and other caregivers can take to understand and address self-regulation problems in children, whether it’s a chronic issue or something that’s happening “right now.”
- Read the signs of stress and reframe the behaviour.
- Recognize the stressors.
- Reduce the stress.
- Reflect: Enhance stress awareness.
- Restore energy.
These steps have proven very successful in helping parents and teachers nurture happier and healthier children. The five steps of Self-Reg can also be applied
to groups of children, or indeed, to the caregivers themselves, and will vary in execution across centres, classrooms, communities and families. With the right kind of support, the results can happen fast.
Learn more with our Self-Reg in Early Childhood Development Certificate Program or with one of our Self-Reg Professional Learning Series.
