TBRI Tip #2: Self Regulation
Have you ever asked yourself, WHY is my child doing this?? It doesn’t seem to make any sense with what’s happening. The behavior comes completely out of nowhere and you don’t know what to do. It could be dysregulation. When a child is dysregulated they can’t think because their thinking brain is offline and instead they are in their fear brain. They have no choice but by responding in what looks like bad behavior -fight, flight or freeze. This is actually a direct response to what their brain and body chemistry is telling them. Understanding self-regulation is essential and is the main concept in the TBRI Empowering Principle.
Self-regulation is calming yourself by yourself. It is something we learn as infants and young kids as part of the attachment dance with a caring, nurturing parent. The interactions between a young child and caregiver mentors the child’s growing brain in a way that lets them know they are safe and will be taken care of. The child’s brain chemistry responds to this and forms a pattern that reacts to stressful times (their stress is ‘I need food’ or a diaper change) with the chemicals in their body and brain, but then they are soothed by a nurturing caregiver by taking care of their need of food, changed diaper, holding them, being burped etc. This is called external regulation. The child is being regulated by the caregiver but is learning how to do it by setting up their chemical brain and body patterns. As a toddler and young child, the child can feel their need (stress chemicals) and tell you what they need, ‘I’m cold, hungry’ but still needs the caregivers help to get food or put on sweater. That’s called co-regulation. As the child grows, they monitor themselves and as stress chemicals come when they are fearful or have a need, they can lower the chemicals themselves because the pattern has been set up. That’s called self-regulation.
Teach and Apply Self-Regulation
Teaching self-regulation can and should be done at whatever age your child is, if they did not receive it as a infant or young child. They are not too old to change their patterns. Our brains are plastic and able to set up new patterns at any age, although it may take a little bit more time if they are older. The first step is to teach about feelings during a calm, peaceful time. It can take extra courage and intentionality to do this when things are calm. You may not want to rock the boat or you may not want to do something with them when they are already content, but if you don’t teach it while they’re calm (regulated) they won’t understand what feelings they have and when they need to self-regulate. One way we do it is with an Engine Plate, created by the Alert Program. An Engine Plate is a tool that can help kids understand how they are feeling. You can tell your child, your body is like a car engine- sometimes it is running too slow and sometimes it is running too fast. The ‘engine’ is how our body or emotions are feeling. In the middle is green and stands for everything is okay or just right. The left side is blue and stands for the engine is running too slow and the right side is red and stands for the engine is running too fast. Use other possible words they come up with for these sections and write them down in the area to help them remember and relate to it later. Use the word regulated to explain a calm state and self-regulation to explain how they can get there on their own when they are stressed or angry. It’s best if you can make an Engine Plate with your child so you can understand and explore together, be in it with them and have fun together. The idea we’ll explain to them later is we want them to be able to get back to the green, that is self-regulate, by using different techniques. For this week, just talk and teach about these different feeling states and try to check your engines together several times a day. Next week I’ll talk about the techniques to get back to the green and learn to self-regulate!