What Goldilocks and The Three Bears Can Teach Us About Emotional Regulation

Helping Children To Regulate Their Emotions Will Help Them with Peer Interactions, and School and Lifelong Success

Emotional Regulation is a Key Component to Social Success 

We are social beings. Our waking hours are spent connected to others. Our social-emotional journey begins at birth and develops and matures as the child encounters new experiences and challenges throughout his lifespan.

Children present with different temperaments. Some are generally content and go with the flow pretty easily. While others may be considered to have a more "difficult" temperament. They may get upset more easily and take longer to calm down. They often display stronger emotions when they are unable to verbally communicate their feelings. First and foremost, parents should rule out any medical issues which may be contributing to regulation difficulties and seek to eliminate or minimize the causes if present. Additionally, parents and caregivers can help children regulate their emotional reactions to non-medical sensory hyper-sensitivities like temperature, lights, sounds, or touch and reactions to unwelcomed changes in schedules.

According to Thomas and Chess, "Goodness of Fit" is an important reciprocal dance between caregiver and child. The caregiver reads the signs and signals given by the child, and in a caring and respectful way, helps the child adapt to his environment. Sensory sensitivities and reactions to change can be regulated over time with increasingly small steps of exposure connected to or associated with the success of their ability to handle the experience.

The Goldilocks Rule Can Help Children To Learn Emotional Regulation

Eliminating exposure to disliked stimuli= TOO EASY to avoid things they don't like which may not be realistic for a long-term developmental plan.

Exposure without easing into it= TOO HARSH to learn to adjust to the stimuli

Exposure brought down to a low manageable level with increasing tolerance levels as the child builds success= JUST RIGHT

*Preparing a child about what to expect ahead of time, labeling the stimuli or their feelings associated with stimuli, and praising their efforts to regulate will help support a child's social-emotional success.

Are You Growing with Your Child’s Reading Needs?

 Are You Growing with Your Child’s Reading Needs?

Stages of Reading Skills

Babies -language acquisition, joint attention, snuggle time

Toddlers/Preschool-concepts, social lessons, early reading skills 

Early schooling-sight words, phonics, whole-language, basic 

comprehension

Intermediate skills-main idea, details, vocabulary building, intermediate comprehension skills, extracting important information from readings

Advanced skills-literary tools, implied meanings, abstract concepts, perspective taking skills, advanced vocabulary, classical novels with cultural and historical contexts, language and vocabulary, critical thinking skills, analysis and synthesis of multiple literary works. 

Levels of Parental Involvement

Children’s reading needs change over time and the demands on parents change with it.  When a child is young, sharing a story is part of the snuggly bedtime routine. It is filled with the wonder of first discoveries, charming picture books, and the smell of Johnson’s baby shampoo in the air as you cuddle with your freshly bathed little one on your lap. The degree of enjoyment is split pretty equally between parent and child, and the time commitment is relatively low.

 Parents move from this stage to the next reading stage fairly easily as picture books grow into phonics and sight reading. The excitement is shared as your child learns to read. The child reads more over time and become an independent reader. It is at this point that some parents feel as if they are done with reading interactions with their child. 

However, reading needs are on a continuum and the developmental demands and benefits of reading change according to the child’s age and cognitive abilities. As reading challenges increase, many children start to struggle. Frustrations can heighten and coping skills can be tested to their breaking points for both the child and parent. However, dispelling some common reading myths and understanding how reading skills change over time may help to give children the support they need to be successful at any stage.

5 Common Reading Myths

1.     Once My Child Starts Reading Independently, He No Longer Needs My Help- Reading skills change over time. Children may need a different kind of reading support.

2.     Smart Kids Don’t Need Help- Even the brightest of children may need support with acquiring new reading skills such as critical analysis or Shakespearean dialogue.

3.     If My Child Needs Help, She Will Ask For It-Many children don’t take the initiative to ask for help when they need it. Check in and see how things are going.

4.     My Child Is Pushing Me Away, He Doesn’t Want My Help-Often when a child uses anger or frustration to push a parent away; it is usually a sign that he really needs the help. 

5.     High School Students Shouldn’t Need Help- Skills often get more demanding and complex in high school. The bar is raised high in high school, and many kids need assistance with diverse literary styles, advanced vocabulary and critical thinking skills.

Although the road may be tough, the time invested by parents will be invaluable to the cognitive and overall positive life trajectory of their child. Parents are the spark from which the love of reading begins and lifelong learning continues.