The Zones of Regulation

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As part of our learning about the Zones of Regulation, children will get to choose ‘tools’ to go in their toolkits. Taste– A lot of people don’t want to provide something edible for taste and that’s ok. We do try to avoid food in most places, and we often offer a chewy toy. This has always gone down well and can help reduce some tension for our students. Green Zone: The Green Zone signifies an optimal state of alertness. Children in this zone are focused, calm, and ready to learn. They feel happy, content, or relaxed. It’s important to include things on the poster like a social story of sorts that shows how not to act or behave, including dangerous consequences or hurting others as a result of angry feelings. Self-regulation can go by many names such as ‘self-control’, ‘impulse management’ and ‘self-management’. Self-regulation is best described as the best state of alertness for a situation. For example, when your child takes part in a sports game, they would need to have a higher state of alertness than when, for example, they were working in a library.

Large Scale Study: Research conducted in 5 schools as part of a comprehensive mental health intervention focused on increasing school safety in schools with significant disciplinary disparities. The Zones of Regulation was the chosen intervention for 62% of students receiving this intervention. Publication The self-regulation program teachers children and their parents or teachers how to recognize the relationship between emotions, feelings, and their internal “state of being” with the behaviors and actions that we see. Different tools work for different people. Can you help your child choose what works for them when they need to move from one zone to another?

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An Anger Poster might include a space to draw or write about things that lead to uncontrollable anger. There can be pictures cut out of magazines or printed from online that show what leads to these intense feelings. Red Zone: heightened state of alertness and intense emotions; not an optimal level for learning; out of control; feels mad/angry, terrified, yelling/hitting, elated, out of control.

Grounded in the cognitive behavior approach, this popular framework includes four colours to help people identify their current feeling on basis of their level of alertness, emotions, mental health and energy developing a colored system to guide them to metacognitive strategies and resources to promote regulation. By knowing how to detect triggers, read their bodies, consider their reactions, and think about the social context, people learn how they can increase their sensory regulation, regulate their emotions, and become more skilful and self-aware problem solvers. One of the key pieces to the a self regulation tool is the point that there is no one “right” level to be in. It’s OK to have emotions of all levels and behaviors that match…to a point (getting so angry that one breaks things or is destructive to property is not ok. Being so upset and frustrated that one is mean and hurtful to a friend is not ok). To enhance learners’ deeper understanding of daily life regulation, the lessons teach several skills, such as reading others’ body language and facial expressions, understanding the circumstance of the situation, noticing the change in body language due to the feelings, when and how to apply regulation tools, insight into circumstances that activate their less regulated Zones, identifying a wide range of emotions in other persons and themselves, and the role of regulation in their personal goals, overall wellness and success in life.Know yourself and how you react in difficult situations before dealing with your child’s behaviours. Identify your own feelings using Zones language in front of your child (e.g.: I’m frustrated. I think I am in the Yellow Zone.”) This relationship impacts attention, learning, and emotions. When students understand the connection between their arousal states and their ability to self-regulate, they can identify different zones or levels which they are currently in at any given time. Some children might prefer not to use the ‘Zones language’ but label the emotions directly – this is fine and encouraged! The curriculum is designed to be taught by anyone who works with students who struggle with self-regulation. This can include, but is not limited to, special education and regular education teachers, occupational therapists, speech and language therapists, psychologists, counsellors, behaviourists, social workers, and parents. Throughout the text, the user is referred to as “teacher”; however, this does not mean you need to be a classroom teacher to teach the lessons.