Module 8: Supporting Your Child To Develop Self Regulation
Module 8 is aimed at providing parents withe strategies they can use to improve their child's self-regulation. There are many times when young children have trouble settling and focusing their attention. It is likely they will misbehave-all children do at times. Children also have difficulty managing their emotions. All this can affect other people and sometimes breaking rules puts your child and other people at risk.
Children need to learn how to develop self-regulation. This means supporting children to 1) focus their attention, 2) learn how to follow rules, and 3) manage their emotions.
This module builds on managing emotions under pressure: it can be difficult to support a child when we are feeling angry or overwhelmed. Mindful management of our own emotions is key to supporting children to learn self-regulation.
In this module parents are helped to see the relevance of mindfulness skills to discipline. Specifically, in being mindful of their emotional state (and therefore their immediate tolerance threshold) and in using mindfulness skills (such as mindfulness of the breath) to create a small, but important shift towards greater emotional control when they are with their child.