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Think about a student you have found yourself puzzling over. Maybe they shut down mid-task for no apparent reason. Maybe they explode over something that seems tiny. Maybe they are just… unreachable some days, even when everything looks fine on the surface.
Self-Reg invites us to stop asking “what is wrong with this child?” and start asking something different: “What might this child be experiencing across the five domains of stress?”
Understanding the Five Domains of Stress
The five domains, biological, emotion, cognitive, social, and prosocial, are the framework at the heart of the Shanker Self-Reg approach. Stress does not announce itself cleanly in one area. A child who is not sleeping well (biological) is going to have a harder time managing frustration (emotion), concentrating on learning (cognitive), navigating friendships (social), and feeling empathy (prosocial). These domains talk to each other constantly.
How Stress Shows Up in the Classroom
The entire arc of Day 2 at the symposium is built around this. Each session digs into a different domain, not as a checklist to get through, but as a way of developing genuine fluency. What does biological domain stress look like in a kindergarten classroom versus a high school hallway? What does cognitive domain stress look like when it shows up as “laziness” or procrastination? What does social domain stress look like when it shows up as aggression or withdrawal?
Seeing the Person Beneath the Behaviour
When you start seeing behaviour through this lens, something changes. You stop reacting to the behaviour and start responding to the person underneath it.
This kind of shift does not happen from one workshop. It builds over time, with practice, with cases, with a community of people asking the same questions alongside you. That is what this gathering is designed to offer.
Sessions related to this post:
- July 7, 9:30 AM Block 1: Supporting Big Feelings and Big Energies in Little Bodies, Crystal Carbino
- July 7, 9:30 AM Block 1: What to Do When Big Emotions Take Over in School, Kim Smith
- July 7, 12:45 PM Block 3: When Social Stress Shows Up as Conflict or Withdrawal, Claudio Moschella
- July 7, 1:45 PM Block 4: When Motivation and Perseverance Disappear, Brenda Smith-Chant
- July 7, 1:45 PM Block 4: When Effort Collapses and Children Give Up in the Early Years, Kaitie Westbrook and Joe Persia
Join us for the 12th annual Self-Reg Summer Symposium at Trent University – live in person for the full embodied experience, and online with key sessions live-streamed worldwide – to bust myths, practice five-domain Co-Reg in real cases, and leave re-skilled and re-energized for what kids need now.