Implementing self-regulation


Children are unable to learn self-regulation without first experiencing co-regulation. This is where adults and children work together to find ways of resolving difficulties to enable a child to keep trying. 

Early years teachers’ own self-regulatory abilities are generally high, and modelling this will begin the process of supporting children to develop their own self-regulation skills. However, increased awareness of practices which support children’s self-regulation can further enhance the quality of your practice in this important area. 

To support the components of self-regulation development, your interactions with the children in your setting should include the following:

Strategy

Explanation

Warm relationships and secure attachments, developed through responsive and sensitive adult-child interactions

Studies show that children are better able to self-regulate when they feel emotionally close to caring and responsive teachers. Therefore, a positive emotional environment is crucial to support self-regulation development. You can help to provide a positive emotional environment by:

      • showing an interest in each child as an individual person. For example:
          • what do they enjoy
          • what are they interested in
          • how do they like to learn?
      • being available for children when they need help, but not always stepping in and ‘doing it’ for the child. At times, your help might be demonstrated by showing your faith in the child’s abilities and by simply offering encouragement or verbal suggestions. 
      • celebrating children’s efforts, and not just their achievements.
      • emphasising personal progress and achievements. Don’t be tempted to make comparisons with other children.
      • providing clear expectations for behaviour, and applying these fairly and consistently.
      • praising children’s positive behaviour more frequently than criticising poor behaviour.

Support for children's agency

When a child has personal control (agency) during their early educational experience, it is highly beneficial in supporting their self-regulation development. 

To support children’s agency, you should provide opportunities for them to:

      • make meaningful choices about their activities. Be aware of giving too many choices as this can overwhelm some children, depending on their age or level of development. 
      • be involved in decisions about the activities you provide in your setting.
      • set their own challenges.
      • reflect on and evaluate their own achievements.
      • experience difficulties and challenges independently. Rather than intervention, children should be given opportunity to resolve the problem or to decide for themselves when they need help.
      • pursue an activity to their satisfaction, through a flexible approach to timetabling.

Cognitive challenge and scaffolding for children's responses

Young children learn most effectively when they are supported to undertake tasks which engage their interest and enthusiasm, and that also present a challenge to all the components of self-regulation.

Tasks are more challenging and productive when they:

      • are presented as an open-ended problem, with many possible solutions, not one ‘correct’ outcome.
      • allow choice from a range of resources.
      • require children to plan how they will approach the task and organise themselves.
      • involve working collaboratively in small groups.
      • help children to see unexpected outcomes as part of the learning and experimental process. 

A clear indication that children are working at a suitably challenging level is when they talk to themselves (self-commentate) as they undertake the task. This has a self-regulatory function. As adults, we often still do this when undertaking something that is more challenging. including when we are thinking about a task through non-verbal thought.

Ways of scaffolding tasks effectively include:

      • modelling possible ways of undertaking the task. This can be as simple as playing alongside the children as they build with blocks, narrating some of your thought processes, trying out ideas and showing resilience when your own tower falls down.
      • providing hints and clues and posing ‘wondering’ questions. For example: "I wonder what would happen if we tried...?'
      • gradually removing support as a child’s understanding and progress on the task develop.

Opportunities for children to reflect on and talk about their learning

Providing opportunities for children to talk about activities they have taken part in will support them to learn to remember and reflect on how they approached things and how they overcame any difficulties. Along with the children’s own outputs from the task, you could use pictures taken at various points, or even video or audio recordings, to help stimulate reflective conversations. Please refer to and follow your centre’s Child Protection Policy for guidance before photographing or recording children. 

Other ways to support reflection are:

      • providing collaborative tasks that require children to talk about their thinking and learning
      • encouraging discussions during group times
      • using ‘peer-tutoring’ activities, where a child that is particularly good at something is encouraged to help another child.
Support for reflection helps make learning visible by making the processes of thinking and learning explicit. This has a powerful impact on children’s self-regulation and academic progress. Remember to keep the reflection activities fun and engaging. 

When age- or developmentally- appropriate, children can also be guided in two high-level forms of reflective talk which support self-regulation development:

      • exploratory talk - which involves children listening carefully to others in discussions, responding to ideas, and providing explanations for their own ideas
      • metacognitive talk - which involves children talking about their thinking, responding to questions about how to proceed with a task, discussing what was easy or difficult about a task, and answering questions about what they think about something.