To understand how to co-regulate with your child, take a minute to envision this scenario. Your child is having yet another meltdown.
What started as a small upset over the potato chips being gone has turned into a full-scale screaming session about all the injustices of the day. It’s late in the afternoon on a busy day and you’re already tired. In response to the screams, your heart rate quickens and you feel the urge to banish them to their room for losing it over “something so little.”
And then you recognize your own dysregulation. You notice your heart rate. You notice that you already were annoyed by something that happened at work that you haven’t been able to let go of yet. You notice that your muscles are tense and your tone has shifted. And instead of losing your cool — you take a deep breath and calm yourself. You’re present. You look at your kid and think (with the most compassion you can muster) “kids do well if they can.” You think about all the ways that your kid has tried to move through the world without losing it today and how hard that must be.
You don’t demand them to stop crying. You don’t use verbal language to try and reason with them about why the potato chips are not a big deal. And after some tears, your child calms down enough for you to offer a different snack. This ability to calm yourself — so you can help them through an emotion — is what co-regulation looks like.
In reality, helping your child through a meltdown like the scenario above is like the Superbowl of co-regulation abilities. You need to train for it in many moments of co-regulation throughout everyday life.
So keep reading to learn how to co-regulate with your child during big emotions and everyday moments.
Co-Regulation Lingo Explained
Before we dive deeper into the tips for co-regulation. Let’s have a quick recap of some of the key ideas you’ll need to understand the practical tips.
Human nervous systems influence each other.
That’s right, your nervous system impacts your child. And your child’s nervous system influences yours.
Co-regulation is how caregivers (or humans in general) respond, support, and problem-solve with each other to adjust emotions or energy to meet the needs of a situation¹.
In simplest terms, co-regulation is all about matching your child’s present state (while staying regulated yourself) and helping them to navigate the emotions of a situation.
For more information on what co-regulations is — and why it matters, go visit part 1 of this series.
Self-Regulation
Emotional regulation is how to become aware of, and more importantly, react to situations and emotions². It’s how you calm yourself down, delay gratification, manage disappointment, or work through conflict with others³.
Kids learn self-regulation through co-regulation with an adult who can self-regulate. It is a skill that is learned, over time, with practice. And think long-term skill development here. Self-regulation skills are just emerging and being practiced in the elementary school years and continue to fluctuate throughout adolescence as the frontal lobe develops⁴. It really is a big skill to master. That’s why even adults continue to benefit from education and practice around self-regulation.
Dysregulation
Dysregulation is when your nervous system is out of alignment with the demands of the situation, task or environment. This is when your nervous system is in a fight, flight, or freeze state and less available for learning or connection with others. This can feel like being irritable, distracted, on edge, frustrated, or super silly. Now on to the practical tips for co-regulating with your child!
Get To Know Your Own Sensory System
First things first, co-regulation starts with understanding yourself and your own sensory system. Because if you’re dysregulated, it's so hard to be available for co-regulation to your child. Dysregulation can feel like being irritable, short-tempered, or overwhelmed. It is important to note, these are normal human experiences that simply indicate an underlying need. So instead of being hard on yourself when you get dysregulated — get curious.
Get curious about what you’re feeling, your stress & sensory triggers, and what steps bring you back to a self-regulated state⁵.
To get you started: take a little inventory.
What are your triggers?
Noise
Stressful workday
Hunger
Juggling multiple demands at once (prepping dinner + watching kids + an upsetting text message)
Social media consumption
Lack of sleep
Looking at a screen too long
Not getting enough physical activity
Now think about what helps you:
Talking to a friend
Going for a walk
Enjoying a snack
Getting more sleep
Relaxing yoga
Practicing deep breathing
Reciting mantras
Overall, get in tune with yourself so you can identify when you’re dysregulated. Then figure out what works best for you in terms of calming down in moments of stress. Do this, and you’ll find yourself so much more available for moments of co-regulation.
Tips for How to Co-Regulate When Your Child Is Having a Meltdown or Big Feelings
The first thing to keep in mind is that your goal is to be present and available to your child no matter the situation or level of emotions. This makes you a safe place for big feelings. You can hear and acknowledge how they are feeling without taking those feelings on.
Co-regulation is not about fixing, minimizing, or discounting your child’s feelings. Your goal is to give them the message that they have a right to their feelings even if they are sad, angry, or frustrated. So many kids get the message from early on that there are GOOD feelings and BAD feelings, and put anger, sadness, shame, shyness, embarrassment and more into the BAD feelings bucket. This false dichotomy is a really sticky concept and can follow kids for a long time, so we are trying to let them know that feelings are FEELINGS. Not good or bad.
Here’s more about how you co-regulate with your child⁶:
Close Proximity
You can’t co-regulate as effectively from another room. When possible, get on the same level, at eye level. Be aware of your child’s preferences around physical touch like a hug or back rub based on their preferences. It’s important to note that some kids find physical affection adds to their sensory overwhelm when they are dysregulated, so follow your kid's lead.
Match Your Child’s Energy
Initially, energy is matched by the regulated person without losing your own regulation. This might mean saying, “Ugh, that really stinks!!” Or, “This is hard stuff, it makes sense that you’re upset right now.” In some cases, you might not need to do or say much other than being present and self-regulated. It’s about being in the moment with your child versus saying or doing something. This is very different from ignoring your child or being in the same room but distracted.
Put a Pause on Logical Reasoning
It’s helpful to remember that feelings don’t always make sense. And co-regulation doesn’t mean you somehow talk your child out of having a big feeling or meltdown or try and reason with them.
In fact, when someone is dysregulated, the nervous system is in fight, flight or freeze and reasonable and logical thinking isn’t available.
In these moments, remind yourself that whatever your child is feeling “makes sense” from their perspective. This can help you dampen the urge to talk too much or offer logical solutions. Instead, prepare to simply ride out the big feelings with your child while offering nervous system regulation options like drinking from a straw, squeezing a pillow, or finding a dark, soothing space.
Take a Break
It’s not always easy to stay calm and regulated when your child is dysregulated. There might be moments where you need to step away to regain your composure. Maybe step outside the room to take a deep breath. Tell yourself a mantra. Or simply go to the bathroom and splash some water on your face. When you feel yourself regain composure, head back to your child to continue to co-regulate.
And let’s be honest, showing up for your child in this way may not always be convenient. It might be at a family gathering or during your dinner prep when big feelings show up. Inconvenient timing doesn’t change the fact that they need to process their feelings and doing it with a safe person makes a world of difference to their long term emotional health.
Co-Regulation and Modeling During Everyday Moments
There are so many little moments throughout the day where you can offer your child co-regulation.
In fact, the best time to co-regulate and model self-regulation is when your child isn’t in the middle of a big emotion or meltdown. That’s because self-regulation is a skill. And skills are best developed when your child is calm and regulated.
And keep in mind, kids pay attention to what you do more than what you say. So your reactions during times of stress are what your child is observing. And over time, these observations become the tools they pull from in their own moments of stress, excitement or frustration.
This is NOT to say that you are supposed to pretend everything is hunky-dory all the time - not at all! We encourage you to model experiencing a range of emotions. Let’s make this concept practical by looking at the example of taking a deep breath.
If you give your child that instruction in the middle of a meltdown, it’s going to be super hard (and maybe annoying) for them to hear. Instead, you model taking a deep breath to calm yourself when it makes sense for the context. Or even sometimes highlighting your action by talking out loud, “Hey, I’m feeling stressed right now. I’m going take a moment to take and deep breath.”
And co-regulation isn’t always about stressful situations. Consider the everyday task of homework and feeling too energetic to sit at the table. To model self-regulation in this case, you might co-regulate together by doing an outdoor activity before tackling those math worksheets. In this case, you might even say, “I have too much energy to sit down right now. Want to play basketball before we do this homework?”
In both cases, you're offering co-regulation and self-regulation skills through your words and actions.
Practice Being More Intentional With Co-Regulation
Here’s the good news! Co-regulation and self-regulation are skills that improve with practice. That means even adults can continue to learn too! So try it out. Next time a big emotion bubbles up for your child, pause and think about being more intentional with how you offer co-regulation. See if it makes a difference.
To be totally clear, you’re not expected to be calm, cool, collected, and available for co-regulation with your child all the time. Parenting is a journey and you’re a human with legitimate emotions too. You’re going to mess up and lose your cool. Or have moments when you can’t self-regulate. Give yourself grace and remember it’s always possible to apologize and repair when you’re not proud of how you handled a situation. And you’re putting in the effort right now simply by learning these practical tips around how to co-regulate with your child.
bay area parents — check out our services at Bearfoot OT. We provide comprehensive therapy packages that include parent support so we can support you in your journey to understanding your triggers and sensory system as part of supporting your kid.
References
Silkenbeumer, J., Schiller, E. M., Holodynski, M., & Kärtner, J. (2016). The role of co-regulation for the development of social-emotional competence. Journal of Self-regulation and Regulation, 2, 17-32.https://journals.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/index.php/josar/article/view/34351
Housman, D.K. The importance of emotional competence and self-regulation from birth: a case for the evidence-based emotional cognitive social early learning approach. ICEP 11, 13 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40723-017-0038-6
Eisenberg, N., & Sulik, M. J. (2012). Emotion-Related Self-Regulation in Children. Teaching of Psychology, 39(1), 77–83. https://doi.org/10.1177/0098628311430172
Grau, M. D., Moliner, A., & Patricia, C. (2020). Effects of Age and Gender in Emotion Regulation of Children and Adolescents. Frontiers in Psychology, 11, 497592. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00946
Yaacoby-Vakrat, R., Pade, M., & Bar-Shalita, T. (2023). Exploring Co-Regulation-Related Factors in the Mothers of ADHD Children—Proof of Concept Study. Children, 10(8), 1286. https://www.mdpi.com/2227-9067/10/8/1286
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