“When little people are overwhelmed by big emotions, it's our job to share our calm, not join their chaos.”
-LR Knost
Co-regulation has become a buzzword in the parenting world. And for good reason! Co-regulation is such an incredible parenting tool when you fully understand how it works.
You’ll most commonly find this concept being discussed in terms of helping children be calm or work through a meltdown. And yes, co-regulation is a key piece of helping kids be calm. And when done well, it is so much more than meltdown management!
Co-regulation helps you to…
Support your child through meltdowns, big emotions, or frustrations
Set your child up for life-long emotional intelligence and health
Offer your child a sense of safety
Feel more connected to your child
To do justice to the importance of co-regulation for caregiving, we’ve created this two-part series.
You’re already on Part 1 where you’ll learn what co-regulation is and why it matters.
Then visit Part 2 where you’ll learn practical tips for co-regulating with your child!
What is co-regulation?
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.
That includes how to navigate big emotions in the moment of a meltdown, new experience, or excitement. It also includes those micro-moments throughout the day where you offer your child a reassuring glance or slow down to listen about their fears.
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. This might be shifting a kid out of a meltdown. It also might be sharing and making space for all of the emotions and feelings that little humans go through.
Here are the 2 key things you need to know:
1. Before you can co-regulate with your child, you need to self-regulate yourself. (See part 2 for tips on how to do this)
2. Children learn self-regulation through co-regulating with an adult who can self-regulate².
Here at Bearfoot Occupational Therapy, we expand the idea of co-regulation beyond just a tool to use to help your child be calm and take a deep breath.
Because...let’s be real, you’re not always going to be calm around your kid, and your kid will not always want (or be able) to be calm either! That’s not practical and it doesn’t take into account all the other moments of emotion you share with your child or they want to share with you.
Be silly when they're silly.
Acknowledge frustration when something hard happens and provide support.
Be excited for something new and model how to respond to the new situation.
To better understand how this whole co-regulation thing works, let’s take a minute to think about what works for you as an adult. Think of how good it feels to have someone be present and accepting inside of a moment — whether celebrating something cool or validating a true disappointment. It’s so much more than being calm. If you’re angry about something that happened at work, another human sitting there placidly and calmly just nodding along might not help. It definitely wouldn't help if they told you, "Let's take some deep breaths."
But if you were really angry about work, and someone you were with was like, "Ugh! That sounds awful!"
Or even offered to go on a walk with you — that might match your state without matching the dysregulation.
Co-regulation as a Stepping Stone to Self-Regulation
So before we go any further, let’s get on the same page by defining self-regulation for yourself and your child.
Self-regulation is the ability to manage your own emotions in response to the demands of the situation or environment³.
When you self-regulate, you adjust your body, actions and/or emotions to fit a situation. This might be to become patient, calm, and focused on homework. Or, it might be jazzed up for a ball game or an outing to the park.
Kids struggle to self-regulate on their own because their brains aren’t totally developed yet - basically it is an emergent skill that we shouldn’t expect them to master by themselves from a young age. As the brain matures, so do the skills of self-regulation like decision-making, impulse control, and self-insight¹.
Most importantly, the skill of self-regulation is heavily influenced by caregivers who are able to model and support this emerging skill.
This works because when your child watches you self-regulate, they get a model for how to respond when big feelings hit. You provide a safe place for your child to discover what it means to accept and feel big feelings, move through those feelings, and find ways to make adjustments to fit a situation. As your child watches you self-regulate and practices their own regulation skills in the context of co-regulation, they develop a healthy inner emotional resilience. You’ll see your children gradually need less co-regulation as their self-regulation skills become stronger and stronger³.
People Are More Connected To Each Other Than You Know
Without getting too technical, let’s talk about the basic neuroscience behind co-regulation.
You’ve probably sensed this without having a name for it — people influence each other. More specifically, our nervous systems are wired to connect with others. This is the under-recognized mechanism of co-regulation at work all around you, all the time.
If you’re in the room with someone angry, you’re more likely to get angry. And if you’re in the room with someone calm and relaxed, you’re more likely to move towards feeling calm and relaxed. This happens behind the scenes in your brain because your nervous system is monitoring every situation for signals of safety or danger⁴. And when your nervous system senses someone else feels threatened or going into a fight or flight state, your own nervous system is likely to go into flight, flight or freeze.
There was a time when this was useful. If you and your caveman friend were walking along in the forest and your friend saw a big hungry bear, their nervous system would go into fight or flight mode. Your nervous system would need to go into fight or flight too so you’d both avoid getting eaten.
Co-regulation is basically a shortcut to knowing how to respond to a situation by taking cues from those people around you — many times unconsciously.
The usefulness of co-regulation in parenting happens when you learn how to be more intentional about influencing your own nervous system state and the emotional state of your child. This means you don’t join their chaos or extreme emotions.
Instead, you share your calm and stability (or another reaction that feels authentic to the situation). They can count on you to be there in the big feelings without losing your cool.
Why is co-regulation so important for your child?
One benefit of co-regulation is that it provides the practice that eventually transitions your child to being better able to self-regulate their own emotions. This ability to self-regulate is associated with long-term academic and social benefits⁵. But the value of co-regulation is so much more than reducing meltdowns or improving attention in school. Co-regulation is how you build a connection with your child by being a safe place for them to find comfort, acceptance, or guidance. Nothing says, “I love you” more than being with someone through a difficult emotion. And that is what you’re doing when you offer co-regulation to your child.
You are demonstrating that your child is safe with you no matter what type of emotions they are having. That could be happiness, anger, frustration, or silliness. There’s no greater gift you can give your child than this sense of acceptance, belonging, and emotional intelligence.
If you want specifics on how to co-regulate with your child, head over to part 2 of this co-regulation series.
An Example of Choosing Co-Regulation With Your Child
Imagine your child is fighting in the yard with their sibling over a toy. There is shouting and both kids pull angrily at the toy.
If you don’t self-regulate, you’re likely going to get worked up yourself - “Why can’t they just get along?!” “Ugh, I’m trying to get dinner ready”. And you’re not going to be able to offer co-regulation to your children in this moment because you’re annoyed, perplexed, exhausted, and any number of other (super common) emotions as a parent.
Maybe you yell from afar for them to stop. And then your children will likely keep fighting over the toy. Now everyone is feeling frustrated and upset. Or decide to co-regulate. Take a deep breath. Calm yourself and then go to your kids. Maybe you get down on their level, acknowledge their anger, and speak calmly. And help diffuse the situation. You see their shoulders relax. And now you’re able to help them work out how to share the toy.
This is the magic of co-regulation. Sharing your presence, sharing your calm to right the emotional ship so to speak.
Start Focusing On Co-Regulation With Your Child Today!
In truth, co-regulation is one of the concepts that can sound simple but is way harder in practice. It is so easy to lose your ability to stay chill and share your calm when your child is angry, yelling, or testing your patience. That’s why the occupational therapy services at Bearfoot OT include opportunities to support parents between sessions. This allows us to answer questions and provide parents with ideas to supplement the work with each child.
Learn more about our outdoor occupational therapy services.
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
Gillespie, L. (2015). It takes two: The role of co-regulation in building self-regulation skills. YC Young Children, 70(3), 94-96. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4428971/
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
Porges, S. W. (2007). The polyvagal perspective. Biological psychology, 74(2), 116-143.
Raby, K.L., G.I. Roisman, R.C. Fraley, & J.A. Simpson. 2015. “The Enduring Predictive Significance of Early Maternal Sensitivity: Social and Academic Competence Through Age 32 Years.” Child Development 86 (3): 695–708. 10.1111/cdev.12325