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Social & Emotional Development
Developing Self-Regulation
WiseTip: SE-REG-M2436-I01B

Use the scaffolding method: Recognise what your child can do successfully, support them as they learn to manage their thoughts, behaviours and feelings, then gradually remove adult assistance.

24-36 months
Interaction with child
WHY IT MATTERS

The Office of Planning Research and Evaluation Report in North Carolina, USA, reviewed 102 studied preventive interventions targeting self-regulation development in early childhood between 1989 and 2013. Across these studies, two approaches were most used to promote self-regulation, either alone or in combination: (1) teaching caregivers how to co-regulate, and (2) providing children with age-appropriate skills instruction.

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  1. Murray, Desiree W., Rosanbalm, Katie, Christopoulos, Christina, and Hamoudi, Amar (2015). Self-Regulation and Toxic Stress: Foundations for Understanding Self-Regulation from an Applied Developmental Perspective. OPRE Report #2015-21, Washington, DC: Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation, Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (Level III)

Parental co-regulation was found to be the most effective means of developing self-regulation with infants and toddlers. Co-regulation involves: (1) Providing a warm and responsive relationship where children feel respected as individuals, comforted and supported in times of stress, and confident that they will always be cared for. This positive relationship will promote self-efficacy and allow children to feel secure enough to practise new skills and learn from mistakes.
(2) Structuring the environment by having consistent and predictable routines to allow children to feel safe to explore. (3) Teaching and coaching self-regulation skills through modelling, instruction, opportunities for practice, prompts for skill enactment, and

reinforcement of successive approximations

Reinforcement of Successive Approximations - Shaping with successive approximations is a procedure used to develop a new behaviour or one that rarely occurs. In shaping with successive approximations, a series of initial and intermediate behaviours are established in successive approximations to the desired target behaviour. The initial response that is reinforced bears some resemblance to the target behaviour (e.g., speech sounds and speaking in sentences) so that the intermediate responses can be progressively shaped toward the target behaviour.1

1. Sundel, M., & Sundel, S. S. (2018). Behavior change in the human services: Behavioral and cognitive principles and applications. Los Angeles: SAGE.

of desired behaviours.
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  1. Murray, Desiree W., Rosanbalm, Katie, Christopoulos, Christina, and Hamoudi, Amar (2015). Self-Regulation and Toxic Stress: Foundations for Understanding Self-Regulation from an Applied Developmental Perspective. OPRE Report #2015-21, Washington, DC: Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation, Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (Level III)