How Families Can Promote Self-Regulation in Children Through Parent Coaching

What is Self-Regulation?

Self-regulation has to do with how children manage their emotions and behavior. Self-regulation lays the foundation for children's future success. It impacts how children will function at school, in relationships, and in their mental health. 

Self-regulation spans a range of both emotional and behavioral skills. Children who have better self-regulation tend to be more self-aware. They can step back, observe, and reflect on their own behavior. Children with better self-regulation tend to have greater psychological flexibility. This means that they can adjust their behavior according to different situations. They can adapt when situations are not going as they expected. 

Self-regulation has many components. Most fall into the categories of either emotion regulation or behavior regulation. Read on to learn how parent coaching can support you in helping your child develop these essential skills.

Emotional Regulation

The essence of emotion regulation lies in the ability to effectively manage and respond to emotional experience. It’s best when we can express our emotions in ways that are adaptive, socially acceptable, and conducive to our well-being. Here are a few core elements involved in emotion regulation.

Awareness and Understanding of Emotions

Self-awareness involves recognizing and identifying one's emotions. It involves understanding the triggers and contexts that elicit our emotions.

Empathy involves recognizing and understanding the emotions of others. Empathy tends to be core in building healthy relationships.

Acceptance of Emotions

Non-judgmental attitude is when we can accept emotions as a natural part of the human experience without judging them one way or another. It’s not helpful when we tell ourselves, “I can’t feel this way,” or, “I shouldn’t feel this way.” A non-judgmental stance reduces the tendency to suppress or deny emotions. When we suppress or fight our emotions, we are more likely to engage in unhealthy coping.

Self-validation occurs when we can both identify and validate our own feelings. For example, we might say to ourselves, “It makes sense that I feel x because ….”  The ability to self-validate can be key to self-soothing when upset. 

Modulation and Expression of Emotional Responses

Intensity Regulation occurs when we adjust our emotional expression to match the situation. This involves calming down when emotions are too strong. It can also mean amplifying emotions when needed for motivation or social bonding.

Appropriate Expression involves showing our emotions in a way that is socially acceptable. We can tailor our emotional expressions to fit both the social and cultural context. In order to do this, we need to understand social norms and adjust our emotional displays accordingly.

Active Coping involves seeking support or redirecting our attention in an intentional manner. Active coping leads to better emotion regulation. In contrast, passive coping is less effective in helping us to feel better and face our problems. Passive coping might involve watching a show or retreating to bed. There is nothing wrong with these responses when used occasionally. However, over-reliance on passive coping is linked to poorer mental health.

Problem-solving is a specific type of active coping. With problem-solving, we generate solutions, evaluate the options, and take intentional action. Problem-solving involves thinking through the consequences of our choices. Problem-solving is a better alternative to impulsively forging ahead with some action.

Behavioral Regulation

Behavioral regulation is a key component of self-regulation. It involves the ability to control our actions and behaviors. Behavior regulation is essential for children. It helps them navigate social norms, follow rules, and achieve long-term goals. 

Impulse Control involves the ability to pause and think before acting. This includes resisting the temptation to engage in inappropriate or harmful behaviors. Impulse control is important when we experience anger or even excitement. Waiting our turn, not interrupting others, and refraining from aggressive behaviors are all examples of impulse control. 

Delay of Gratification is the capacity to wait for a more favorable outcome rather than opting for immediate but lesser rewards. For example, saving money for a desired toy is preferable to spending money right away on something less valued. 

Internalization of Rules and Limits involving learning to follow guidelines and instructions. These may be set by parents, teachers, or social norms. Children who can understand and follow guidelines tend to be better regulated.

How does Self-Regulation Develop?

Child-Based Factors

Much of the variation in children’s self-regulation can be explained by developmental factors and brain wiring. The prefrontal cortex continues to mature into early adulthood. Self-regulation depends on the prefrontal cortex. We would expect a 2-year-old to have much less capacity to self-regulate as compared to a 12-year-old or a 22-year-old. Children who struggle with self-regulation may also have neurodevelopmental conditions. Examples of these conditions include ADHD, learning disabilities, or autism. Not every child who has a hard time self-regulating has a diagnosis. Usually, though, there are temperament characteristics that are at play. 

Environmental Factors 

The outside world also has an effect on children’s ability to self-regulate. Children tend to do best in environments that provide structure, consistency, and predictability. We cannot always control whether adversity will impact our children. However, we can often influence how a child is supported when difficult things happen. Warm and supportive relationships will have a positive influence on a child’s self-regulation. 

How Parents Can Be Agents of Change in Children’s Self-Regulation

Parenting Types

You have probably heard of “authoritative” parenting. Authoritative parenting is considered the gold standard when it comes to parenting types. Authoritative parents are high on warmth and connection. At the same time, they set limits and hold their children accountable. When parents focus just on having a positive relationship, they might hesitate to put in place clear rules and set limits. In this case, children will miss out on a critical environmental factor to help them learn self-regulation. Similarly, if we are all about limits and rules but ignore the relationship, our children won’t thrive. Children need relationship warmth and structure. 

Household climate

Household climate is an often overlooked aspect of parenting. The emotional tone of home life is critical to children’s mental health. Kids are almost always more aware of negative emotional undercurrents than parents may realize. Consider issues such as marital conflict and parent mental health as needing priority attention. It’s also important to mention that the presence of any interpersonal violence is hazardous to children’s mental health. This holds true, whether or not the child directly observes these behaviors. Interpersonal violence includes coercive control dynamics. These are complex problems that require specialized resources (Domestic Violence Hotline is 1-800-799-7233).  

Beneficial Household Habits

When a child is prone to big emotional reactions, parents may feel as though they need to cater to their child’s demands to “keep the peace.” This is usually a mistake. A clear family hierarchy is core to a healthy household climate. Parents are responsible for providing the structure and expectations at home, not the children. When a child is allowed to be in charge, the family structure is compromised and children are less likely to thrive. 

Instead, parents can provide consistent routines and clear expectations. These will help children understand what is expected of them and provide a sense of security. Predictable schedules and organized spaces can reduce anxiety and improve cooperation. Parents can be mindful of how they respond to a child’s demands of them. While we want to be responsive to a child’s needs, this does not mean that we should allow children to boss us around.

Parent Self-Regulation

Parent self-regulation is key to child self-regulation. Parent self-regulation is important because children learn through what is modeled for them. It’s also important because children can get really dysregulated in response to a dysregulated response by a parent. 

The less helpless parents feel, the less likely they are to become dysregulated in the face of a difficult interaction with their child. Parent coaching helps parents develop highly specific roadmaps and protocols for when various challenging scenarios occur. Parent coaching also helps parents build awareness of common parent traps that tend to derail emotional responses.

Attunement to the Child

Children need their parents to be attuned to their emotional experiences. Attuned responses by parents help to settle the nervous system. At these times, children learn self-understanding and self-validation. Children benefit when parents offer accurate reflections on what’s happening to their children. As part of this, parents can help their children make sense of their own emotional experiences. When children develop coherent stories about their emotions, self-regulation tends to improve.

An interesting shift can occur when parents focus their attention on the story of their child’s emotional experience. With the focus on what an event means to the child, parents are more likely to have a clear view of their child. By slowing down the communications, parents can better zero in on their child’s perspective. This can lead to a more complex understanding of factors leading to the emotional reaction.

Adjust expectations

As part of an attuned parent-child relationship, parents may find that they need to adjust their expectations. Adjustment of expectations is a bit of a fine art. We don’t want to overload children with demands that are beyond their capacity, but we don’t want to go so far as to reduce demands altogether.  

Identify the need behind the misbehavior

It’s important to consider what a child’s misbehavior is communicating. Many times, a child is trying to get a need met. Before we move on to the role of discipline, it can be helpful to reflect on what’s really behind the problem behavior. What is the child trying to communicate with their reactions? 

The goal is to reduce unnecessary triggers to frustration in the first place by addressing the child’s needs proactively. For example, a child might have a meltdown after being told no to an extra half-hour of video games. It’s easy to mistake this situation as simply reflecting a child’s need to have more video game time. 

However, what the child is really letting us know is that they are struggling to cope with the frustration and disappointment of being told no. Children who have low frustration tolerance do better when they know what to expect. Perhaps the parent said “yes” to extra video game time yesterday. The child in this situation might be communicating, “I am overwhelmed with frustration because I expected you to say yes again today. I need to be able to predict what you’re going to say so that I don’t end up so frustrated.” In this case, the child, in a sense, is communicating that they need absolute consistency when it comes to screen time limits. 

The Importance of Limit Setting

When children know exactly what the rules are and exactly what will happen if they cross the line, they are more likely to internalize rules. We want children to internalize boundaries and limits.  This improves self-control over the longer term. Many parents are surprised to learn that limits setting can actually increase the child's trust in them. Children are also likely to be less anxious. This may be because children know exactly what reactions to expect. Parents stay better regulated when they know how and when to set limits.  Clear limits are part of a healthy household structure that is a basic need for all children. 

Behaviors That Need Limit Setting

When it comes to knowing when to apply discipline to set limits, the list is clear:

• Aggression towards others(e.g., hitting, kicking, spitting, pushing)

• Destructive behavior (e.g., throwing things, breaking things, ripping things)

• Off-limits behavior (e.g., sneaking, rule-breaking, getting into something off-limits)

• Noncompliance (e.g., defying the parent, refusing to cooperate with a reasonable request)

It’s important to also be clear on what does not need limit setting. Annoying behaviors that aren’t breaking any rules can be ignored. I would argue that “attitude” and rudeness can also be ignored. The same goes for verbal aggression, where it is often better not to engage. Whether to set limits on verbal aggression is a nuanced topic and depends on the specifics of the situation and family context. 

Effective Limit Setting

When setting limits, the parenting response needs to be reasonable, predictable, and calm. Remember that you may also need to make adjustments in the environment to reduce the frequency of problem behaviors in the first place. This is where a parent coach can be helpful in identifying changes that would help to support a child to do better without catering to demands.

Effective limit setting may involve strategies such as time-out in younger children. For older children and teens, the use of correction-overcorrection and job cards is recommended. Unfortunately, strategies such as time-out have received negative media press based on misinformation. Through careful application of these strategies, self-regulation often improves. Both parents and children are more likely to stay regulated when limits are set in a systematic way.

How Parent Coaching Can Help With Self-Regulation

Self-regulation is a critical skill that enables children to manage their emotions and behavior. It helps children to achieve their goals and function well in society. It is a complex process that develops over time and is influenced by a combination of biological and environmental factors. Better self-regulation in children leads to more positive academic, social, and emotional lives. While we may not have control over a child’s brain wiring, we can influence the environment in ways that promote self-regulation. Working with a parent coach can provide you with tailored strategies to create a supportive environment for your child’s growth. Parent coaching at Child and Teen Solutions is one way to optimize household practices to support self-regulation in children. 

Promote Self Regulation With Parent Coaching in Seattle, WA

Parent coaching in Seattle, WA can provide you with the tools to understand your child’s needs and respond with confidence and care. By learning effective strategies for self-regulation, you can help your child navigate their emotions and behaviors with greater ease. At Child and Teen Solutions, we can create a calmer, more connected home environment for your family. Follow these three simple steps to get started:

1. Contact us and we will gather information and answer any questions you may have about parent coaching.

2. Our Client Care Coordinator will walk you through the steps for scheduling and preparing for your first appointment with a skilled parent coach.

3. Start helping your child navigate their emotions and behaviors!

Other Mental Health Services Provided by Child and Teen Solutions

CATS offers comprehensive support tailored to meet the unique needs of every family member. We provide a range of services, including parent coaching, to help you with your child’s emotions and behaviors. Our specialized services for young individuals support them in areas such as self-regulation, ADHD, autism/PDA, emotional management, defiance, and anxiety. Additionally, for families with young children, we offer Theraplay, creating a shared experience for parents and children in therapy sessions. If your child or teen would benefit from working one-on-one with a therapist, please explore our child and teen service pages. In some instances, the same therapist providing parent coaching may transition to work directly with your child, or it may be beneficial to assign another CATS specialist to support them individually. For families seeking more insight into a child or teen’s development and learning profile, we also offer neurodevelopmental evaluations. We welcome and affirm all family structures and identities, including LGBTQ+ individuals, in every aspect of our care. Check out our blog for more articles like this!