Self-Regulation in Early Years | Sue Asquith Consultant

Self-Regulation: What is Self-Regulation and why is it so important?

Sue Asquith, Early Childhood Consultant and author of Self-Regulation Skills in Young Children defines self-regulation and offers some practical tips for practitioners working with young children. This blog has been signed off by the Department for Education (DfE) to feature on the Foundation Years website, so you can be reassured about what you are reading!

What is self-regulation?

Self-regulation is complex, but to put it simply, I describe it as: the ability to understand and manage your own energy, emotions, behaviours and attention in a socially acceptable way.

Why is self-regulation important?

Self-regulation skills help to lay solid foundations to support children’s emotional, social and academic success. They can help us:

to recognise and react to stressors, identify the triggers and find appropriate coping strategies.
to adapt to change and control impulses which in turn help us to interact appropriately with others.
with executive function skills which help us to focus, follow instructions and complete tasks; these are critical life skills and aid future academic success and help to achieve to their full potential.

Research also suggests that self-regulation skills are a predictor of short and long-term outcomes such as with ‘school readiness’ skills, academic achievement throughout school and adult educational attainment, which may lead to feelings of higher self-worth.

Self-regulation and executive function skills are closely linked but when applied together they can help children to gain greater control over their thoughts, actions and emotional responses.

If we do not help children to build strong self-regulation there may be an increase in emotional outbursts and social conflicts; children may struggle to focus, listen and attend, which in turn may hinder their learning and development. It also hinders the learning environments throughout the early years and school life; if the teachers are always reacting to ‘behaviours’ they are unable to support children’s learning and development and teach.

If teachers and educators are not trained to understand self-regulation, they might take a behaviour management approach reacting to children’s behaviours. Understanding why a child might be displaying a certain behaviour helps us to be proactive, where necessary we can make small adjustments to our routines and environments to help children to remain regulated. We can help children to understand their feelings and emotions offering strategies to help them to self-regulate. In turn this empowers children to understand their feelings and apply coping strategies creating emotionally and physically safe environments allowing them to participate in the learning opportunities on offer.

Links to the EYFS prime areas of learning:

The statutory framework for the early years foundation stage (EYFS) highlights three prime areas which are particularly important for learning and forming relationships. They build a foundation for children to thrive and provide the basis for learning in all areas.

Personal, social and emotional development:

Babies are not born with the ability to self-regulate but they are born with the ability to learn. Positive relationships play a crucial part in early childhood; babies and young children need the security of familiar adults to co-regulate when they are feeling dysregulated. Adults responding to a dysregulated baby or child in a timely caring way and offering their support is called co-regulation. This might include providing comfort if they are lonely or fearful, changing a baby’s nappy, feeding a hungry baby, offering a toddler a snack or a drink, etc. Through these caring relationships, babies and children learn that uncomfortable feelings do not last and that their bodies can return to a more comfortable state. Through co-regulation, children can learn the more advanced skills of self-regulation.

Communication and language:

Children needs lots of age and stage appropriate opportunities to learn about their emotions. It is important to acknowledge children’s feelings to help them to understand more about the sensations they are experiencing and then learn the words to identify and name their emotions. This helps them communicate their feelings more effectively and reduces frustrations and misunderstandings. It also helps children to express themselves without resorting to physical ways of expression or things escalating into overwhelmed or meltdown.

Emotional literacy is the ability to deal with your own emotions and recognise their causes. Emotional vocabulary and emotion literacy helps us to understand our triggers, express emotions effectively and helps build empathy.

Physical development:

There is a long-established link between physical activity and better mental health. Exercise releases “feel-good” chemicals such as dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, and endorphins. Exercise can also improve brain health and cognitive function, reduce anxiety, aid better sleep, increase levels of self-esteem and social connection. ‘Children who are more physically active in the early years are better at regulating their emotions and achieve better in primary school’ (Ofsted, 2023).

Giving children opportunities to move, crawl, pull, push, climb and carry things enhances body awareness. However, did you know that movement also provides them with proprioceptive input? Proprioceptive input to the muscles and joints can also have a calming and organising effect on the nervous system which can help them to calm down.

I also read an email from the OT Toolbox recently which likened self-regulation skills to a gymnast. Gymnasts need:

strong and stable core muscles to perform the movements and maintain positions
self-control
to have practised the individual skills and movements required to perform a routine
to shut out distractions and noises from the audience to focus
the executive function skills to remember and sequence the performance
the emotional knowledge and resilience to bounce back if a manoeuvrer did not quite work
to maintain concentration, attention and composure during their performance.

Although the above examples are gymnast specific, these are all essential life skills for us all to apply in daily life.

What can I do to help?

The key person approach helps to establish consistent, positive relationships and opportunities for adults to help children to co-regulate.

Help children to build agency so that they can make choices and decisions, learn to problem solve, build self belief and a strong sense of identity.

Make time for child-initiated play where children can make choices and follow their own interests.

Early years settings can help children to reduce their screen time, spending less time scrolling and more time for movement and time outside.

Time for rest as well as activity is important. Every child will have their own body rhythms in terms of food, drinks and sleep. We need to encourage children to make healthy eating choices and to drink water to stay hydrated.

Time for music movement and age and stage appropriate games can help foster self-regulation skills too.

When we think about self-regulation strategies, our thoughts sometimes automatically turn to calm down strategies such as Yoga, deep breathing, grounding exercises, mindfulness techniques and soothing sensory input. However, sometimes people need extra movement and sensory input.

Sensory experiences can also help to build self-regulation skills and sensory organisation. For example, sensory bottles provide weight (proprioception), physical input as they shake the bottle as well as visual input as they watch the contents float and move around. Multi-sensory input can be a useful strategy when a child (or adult) is dysregulated.

You can access my Sensory Processing webinar and Self-regulation skills in young children training as recordings under the pay to view session via my website (please email me if you would like a multi-staff bundle, live on-line learning delivery or a face to face delivery for your staff team).