Parents Influence In Developing Self-Regulation

Parents and caregivers influence the development of self-regulation in how warm they  respond to children in distress and the ways they model the expression of emotions. Parents who respond warmly when children are angry and talk to their children about emotions are promoting self-regulation skills. They promote self-regulations skills by helping the child work through the emotion they are feeling. For example, a parent can say, "I know you feel sad that you have to leave the toy in the store, but maybe we can come back and get it at a different time or put it on your birthday list." The parent has acknowledged how the child feels and helped them work through it which develops self-regulation because the parent has helped the child worked through the emotion of sadness not just dismissed it. The child may continue to feel sad but the child knows it's all right to feel sad and it has developed self-regulation as the child learns to deal with their emotions is a positive way.

Parents also play a critical role is developing self-regulation by providing social structure, teaching manners and social etiquette and modeling appropriate behavior.  Teaching manners and social etiquette teaches self-regulation as children learn how to behave in social situations and in public and they learn to have the self-regulation not to throw tantrums in social situations or say hurtful comments in social situations. Modeling appropriate behavior when handling disagreements and problems and providing guidance when they misbehave helps children learn not to yell in order to get their way or just take something that someone else is using because they need to use it and it teaches them the self-regulation skills they need to wait and be patient.

One last way a parent influences the development of self-regulation is supporting a child's independence. Parents can use hints and cues to help children gain independence. For example, if a child is learning to tie their shoes a parent can give the hint of pulling the loop through the hole. This gives the child the hint of what to do however, they are the ones who have to do the action of pulling the loop through the hole. A parent guides the child through how to do the task but allows the child to do it and can keep the child calm while the learn how to do the task and develops their self regulation because they keep the child calm instead of getting frustrated.

Self-Regulation and Volition

Self- regulation is influenced by a large component inside a person called volition. Volition of course is the freedom to make choices, on how what to think and how to act. This aspect of personality  drives a person to follow through and finish an activity which is why if parents leave a child alone they will in fact do what was asked instead of needing the parents to nag them about it. For example, if a child doesn't take the trash out right away when a parent asks them, the child will eventually get up and do it. If the child doesn't remember to take the trash out they feel bad about forgetting and then the consequence comes in because where they didn't do what was asked a consequence can be given.

However, most of the time if a parent will leave a child alone they will eventually make the choice to do what the parent asked. Just because they're not making it right then doesn't mean they'll not make it, they will eventually make it. Give children time to make the choice, give them the opportunity to learn. If they don't eventually make the choice to do what was asked, a parent may need to consider a consequence or the possibility that they are wrong. Volition helps explain persistence and why children ultimately make their own choices on how to act even though parents, teachers and friends can give a nudge in the right direction by modeling behavior that is appropriate for the social situation.

I helped develop volition in my daughter by giving her choices and respecting her choices. When she was little I picked out a pair of pants and let her pick out the shirt she wanted to wear. If she was reading or doing homework and I asked her to do something such as take out the trash, I let her finish the page she was reading or get to a place in her homework where she could stop and then take the trash out. It wasn't about her doing it right then and doing it immediately. I didn't care when she did it, I just cared that she did do it and then if she didn't a consequence was given. When she got older and was old enough to drive she would ask if she could take it when she left to go do something with friends or go to her volunteer assignment. I always told her that was fine and I was fine with her doing it then as long as she did do it then. It was when she didn't that a consequence was given. This taught her that her volition was important and something that would be respected and she respected mine in return. By doing this it also developed responsibility in my daughter as she became responsible to do what I asked her to do and for her to follow through on that request even if it wasn't done immediately.

Two Components of Self-Regulation

There are two key components of self-regulation. They are: executive function and effortful control. Executive function is defined as the ability to remember a rule and follow through to complete an action even when something in the environment says different. Executive function is the ability to hold back on impulses in order to respond to a request from someone else.

For example a parent teaches executive functions when they teach their children to clean their room. From a child's perspective they may not see the point of cleaning their room because they aren't done playing with the toys that are out or done reading the book laying on the bed. However, the rule may be that the child has to clean their room before having a friend over so the child has to remember and follow through with the rule of cleaning their room before having a friend over and when they do this successfully they have achieved an executive function. Where an executive function is also the ability to hold back on impulses in order to respond to a request from someone else, an example of this is when a parent is filling a pool in the backyard. A child's first reaction is to get in the pool. However, the parent may tell the child to wait until they have it filled. When the child waits until the parent is done filling the pool as asked they achieved executive function on this task and held off doing the activity to respond to the request of the parent.

Delaying gratification is a component of effortful control and is demonstrated when a person gives up a smaller immediate reward for exchange of a more valuable reward after a period of waiting. For example, when a child gives up having a snack fifteen to thirty minutes before dinner is ready in order to eat dinner. The child has given up the snack ( the immediate reward) for a more valuable reward (dinner) after waiting  the time period until is ready. Whenever a child doesn't do something and it takes effort not to do it because it's something they really want to do they are developing effortful control which develops self-regulation as the regulate their behavior to what is expected or appropriate.

Two Categories of Self-Regulaion

The process of self-regulation has been divided into two categories: social emotional and cognitive self-regulation. Social emotional regulation enables children to follow social interactions in diverse settings. For example, we teach social emotional regulation when we teach our children not to say things such as,"Your outfit is ugly," or "I don't like your hair." When we teach our children not to say things like this we're teaching our children to follow social interactions in diverse settings. This teaches children that in these settings we don't say things like that because in social settings it's not appropriate to say things like that and teach the emotional regulation part of it because we teach children that saying things like that hurts other peoples feelings. It teaches self-regulation as children learn to regulate their impulses so that these types of comments are no longer said in public settings.

The second category of self-regulation is cognitive self-regulation. Cognitive self-regulation enables children to use thinking processes needed to solve problems and make decisions. Self-regulation plays a role in helping children interact and get along with others by following social standards of conduct and making decisions and solving problems that arise. For example, a child may need some soap to go take a bath but the soap is on a shelf they can't reach. Cognitive self-regulation helps a child either get a stool so they can reach it or ask a parent or older sibling for help instead of throwing a tantrum or not taking the bath because they can't reach the soap. The child has used 'the thinking process' to determine that the way to solve the problems is to either get a stool or ask for help and they have 'made a decision' as to which of those to do in order to solve the problem.

Cognitive self-regulation helps children interact and get along with others by following social standards of conduct and making decisions and solving problems that arise. For example, a child may be over at a friends house playing and cognitive self-regulation helps them determine that social standards of conduct dictate out that they both need to agree on what to play. It helps them solve problems that arise because the child can then talk with their friend about what to play instead of demanding that they play what they want to play. For example, one of the children may want to play a video game while the other wants to go outside and play basketball. Having and using cognitive self-regulation helps a child determine that in order to keep the friend that social standards of conduct and problems solving skills help them decide that a solution to the problem is to do one activity for a while and then do the other for a while or play something else entirely and be able to be all right with that and not be sad, mad etc about it.

This type of self-regulation is one of the hardest types of self-regulation to teach a child and takes lots of time and energy and patience to teach.