3 Tasks to Develop Self-Regulation

There are three tasks to developing self-regulation in order to achieve self-control.  They are: brain development, effortful control and emotional regulation. Efforts by adults to assist children in learning appropriate skills need to focus on developing these three dispositions in children.

During the infant and preschool years the brain is making  billions  of connections. These connections depend on the child's experiences, interactions with others and emotions. Brain development through play, exploring nature, interacting with friends and developing important emotional relationships with significant adults increases a child's capacity, attention, learning, memory and reasoning.

I developed self-regulation in my child using these factors by giving her positive experiences. I not only would hug and kiss her to let her know that I love her but I would sit and read and play with her as well so that her experiences with me were positive. I also helped her interactions with others be positive. I would have other children over to play so that she had to learn not to cry or throw a tantrum if my attention wasn't always on her and it helped her to learn to share instead of being upset that someone else was playing with her toys. We went on play dates to parks, museums etc so that she learned the rules of how to behave in public and having to wait her turn to go down the slide etc.

I helped develop self-regulation through emotions as she had to learn how to control her emotions of jealously because my attention was on another child, she was mad because someone was playing with her favorite toy etc. It helped her develop self-regulation skills such as sharing, patience etc. and helped her control her emotions and learn appropriate responses to her emotions.

Next week I'll discuss effortful control in more detail.