Self-Regulation: What Is It and Why Is It One of the Most Important Skills?
By Julia Grover-Barrey OTR/L
Founder of In-Tuned®
Self-regulation is a term we use most often working with children who lack this skill. For instance, “Sally can’t self-regulate enough to stay seated during math class”, or “Johnny can’t control his emotions, so when he gets to a test question he can’t answer he gets so upset he can’t finish the rest of the test”, and “Jimmy can’t keep his hands to himself on the playground, he keeps pushing and hitting kids when they get too close to him”.
Self-regulation is the ability to control thoughts, actions and emotions in order to reach a desired goal or meet the demands of an activity being performed, or the demands of the environment we happen to be in at any given moment. Having optimal self-regulation sets us up for being successful. Our minds are attentive to the immediate task and what’s happening around us, we control our impulses to form adequate responses or actions and our expressed emotion is congruent to the situation.
Having an immature nervous system, without solid interconnectivity of the sensory systems, as well as wide, well-traveled neural pathways set up children with Brain-Based Disorder (BBD) for having poor ability to self-regulate compared to their peers.
The vagus n, cranial nerve X, has the biggest influence on a person’s ability to optimally self-regulate. The vagus nerve has influence from our midbrain function, to respiration, heart rate, gut motility and movement of muscles around the mouth. It’s no wonder many of our children who have difficulty self-regulating appear to have their mouth stuck in the “on” position.
In order to successfully help a child improve their ability to self-regulate, we must build an awareness in them of how to harness the physical to train the mind. We must show them through activity how there is a connection between breath, muscle engagement, visual attention and active listening. Teaching them how to breathe through movement, breathing with their whole body instead of just through their mouth or nose while keeping their eyes focused on a target or listening to different frequencies of sound helps lay the foundation for self-regulation in the child who has deficiencies with this skill.
Working on breathing alone creates alignment between the breath and heart rate, which has a positive effect on all of the other systems influenced by the vagus nerve. So, when a child achieves better self-regulation their attention and mood increase, and their anxiety and muscle tension decrease. This is a child who can now sit still in math class, carry on if he doesn’t know the answer to the question and keep his hands to himself in the process.
Also, of importance to the vagus n. orchestrating the messages and impulses to keep its systems regulated, is the child having enough sleep. Poor sleep habits and patterns keep breath and heart rate in an arythmic dichotomy instead of working in synchronization. Keeping video games and electronic device use to a minimum, ideally to a zero-use level, also helps. These activities keep the child’s mind switched on even when they aren’t actively engaging. Their minds are not available for the development of self-regulation when it is stuck in the “on” position.
When self-regulation is an issue it should always be the starting point, and when it’s achieved is the biggest win for the child and the family.
May we all have a self-regulated, productive day,
Julia