Broadening Horizons. Brightening Futures
Zones of Regulation
'Life is 10% what happens to us and 90% how we react to it'. Charles Swindoll
The Zones of Regulation is a framework that we use to support children to describe, understand and manage their feelings and behaviour. This is used with all children at Ellergreen Nursery School and Childcare Centre as the ability to self-regulate is a skill that children need to be taught, just like writing their name or using a knife and fork!
The zones of regulation are split into four colours blue, green, yellow and red. Each colour represents a different group of emotion and behaviour, as displayed above.
No zone is a 'bad zone'. We encourage and validate all feelings across all four zones. We teach the children that it is ok to be in any zone but that it doesn't feel nice to be out of the green zone for too long.
Talk to your child about:
The Tool Box
When children are stuck in a zone they can be encouraged to use a 'tool' from their tool box to change it. We help the children to identify different tools that help them when they are in a zone that they are uncomfortable in. For example, if your child is comforted or soothed by drawing then you may say "let's think about your tool box, what helps you to get in the green zone? Drawing is in your tool box". In school, if the children have a successful yoga session then the staff may say "yoga has helped you to get into the green zone, let's put yoga in your tool box".
Here are some more strategies you might like to try:
1 Breathing exercises
2 Squeeze a stress ball or pillow as hard as you can
3 Go for a walk
4 Go on a swing
5 Do some colouring or drawing
6 Play with play dough
7 Use positive affirmations
8 Rip up paper
9 Dance
10 Do some yoga
11Ask for a hug
12 Hug your favourite stuffed animal
13 Watch funny videos
14 Build with Lego
15 Do 5 jumping jacks
16 Spend time with a pet
17 Look through a photo album
18 Use a fidget toy
19 Go outside
Stories and Books
Every book that is shared is an oppourtunity to support children in understanding the zones, for example, "Goldilocks is crying. What zone do you think she is in?", "look at the bears face, how is he feeling?". You might like to share some of the stories below with your child to further explore feelings and emotions.
In My Heart: A Book of Feelings
What should DANNY do? By Ganit & Adir Levy
https://"Pete The Cat and his Magic Sunglasses" by Kimberly and James Dean
The Way I Feel - by Janan Cain
Today I Feel Silly & Other Moods That Make My Day
Size of the Problem
The zones of regulation 'size of the problem' teaches children to consider the size of their problem in contrast to the size of their reaction. It is an emotional regulation tool that can guide children to self regulate their emotions, in order to respond appropriately. We support children to understand the size of the problem by discussing how much help they need, for example, "I know that you're sad because you're tower has fallen down. I can help you to build it again quickly, this is a tiny problem". However, if a child needs a lot of help from adults to solve their problem then this would be considered a big problem.
It helps children to know and understand the following:
By teaching children this, we help establish norms around defining and emotionally responding to a problem.