Zones of Regulation

The Zones of Regulation was a tool given to our students by the OCSB Social Emotional Learning Team. It helps the students look inside and helps them identify their emotions as to whether they are in a space where they can be learning well.

Self Regulation

Self regulation is not a new word in education circles. It is something that has been around for many years. Self regulation is the ability to monitor and control one's own behaviour, emotions and thought and being able to change them given the situation one is in. Self regulation is often mixed up with the word, "self-control," which is the ability to control one's behaviour. Without self-regulation, the ability to control one's behaviour is diminished.

Many of today's youth are very stressed. We see this manifesting itself in ever increasing rates of mental illnesses. Stuart Shanker, one of the guru's of self regulation describes self regulation as this:

"In the simplest terms, self-regulation refers to the neural processes that control the energy expended to deal with a stressor and then recover. When a child's stress levels are too high various systems for thinking and metabolic recovery are compromised. The signs of when this is happening show up in the child's behaviour, or mood, or attention, or for that matter, physical well-being. And judging from the growing numbers of problems that we're seeing in kids in these areas, it would seem that Canadian children are dealing with far too much stress today." 

Huffington Post,  Why Are Canadian Kids So Stressed Out? 

This blog will be a learning journey, as we learn together about how self regulation affects our children and ourselves and ways we can manage it.