Weekly Series — Developing Thinkers
Learning to regulate emotions, feeling and attention is the first step on the road to independence for your child. These skills develop at different rates and at different stages. The skills fall under the umbrella of self-regulation.
Learning to self regulate is the key to becoming a well balanced and adjusted person.
One way to encourage the development of self regulation is to place children in the position of regulating others. Here are three specific ways to do that.
- Plan ways where your child can identify the mistakes in your work.
It is important for children to understand that everyone makes mistakes. You can draw pictures or write sentences with errors on purpose. Have your child find as many mistakes as they can.
2. Plan activities in which your child can regulate someone else’s behavior.
Give your child the responsibility for regulating the behavior you want them to learn. For example, if you want your child to be organized and ready in the morning have them track the progress of their siblings.
3. Provide your child with external reminders and supports.
If they are monitoring the morning routine of their siblings, provide them with a morning schedule. That way they can track the steps for their siblings. In turn their awareness and own progress will improve as well.
I hope this was helpful. All your comments and input are greatly appreciated. Don’t forget to follow us on Medium and join our newsletter at daVinci Publishing
