Developing Self-Regulation in Children: Making Sure It’s Done Right

Emotions are a tricky concept to understand, manage and work through. Learning how to take what we feel and process those feelings in an emotionally healthy way takes time and practice. The take away here are the concepts of TIME and PRACTICE. Time and practice are what differentiates self-control and self-regulation. What often complicates is that many times self-control and self-regulation are often confused with one another.


Self-control focuses on the ability to control oneself, specifically heightened emotions and desires when it would be so easy to act on especially in difficult situation. While it is important for a child to learn to keep feelings such as anger controlled; the results is only half of what needs to be done is accomplished. The alternative is for these emotions to be simply tucked away in the back of a child’s mind until a point when the child in question erupts like a volcano.


Unfortunately, it is often the case that emotions are dealt with they are simply buried away with the hope of never having to be dealt with directly. This is doesn’t lead to an emotionally intelligent adult...ever! That is self-regulation skills are so important.


In the end, a child who is feeling that sense of anger needs to learn to find a way to calm themselves down on their own. In this senario, a child has learned to get a handle on their emotions and can hopefully resist doing something like punch one of their classmates. The child no longer needs the adults around them telling them how to behave. Self-regulation skills have been learned instead of expecting the child to control their emotions.