POSITIVE PARENTING PRACTICES IMPACT THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHILDREN’S SELF-REGULATION ABILITIES

Much research has shown that the ability to self-regulate has been associated with

that children have with the parents or caregivers.Parents who are responsive to children’s moods and emotional states help develop self-regulation.

Parental use of positive controlling strategies consisting of directiveness with low to moderate power assertion, guidance and instruction was positively related to self-regulation. Conversely, negative controlling strategies, such as power assertive, limit-setting activities and coercive behaviours, were negatively associated with self-regulation.

Young children typically look to their parents as models for developing standards of their own self-regulatory skills and to further provide scaffolding for self-regulation development throughout their daily activities. Paired with children’s continually developing neurobiology during their early years, parenting practices are particularly important for development of children’s self-regulatory skills.

The Office of Planning Research and Evaluation Report, in North Carolina, USA, carried out a review of 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.

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 be cared for no matter what. This positive relationship will promote self-efficacy and allow children to feel secure enough to practice 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. Teach and coach self-regulation skills through modelling, instruction, practice opportunities, prompts for skill enactment, and reinforcement of successive approximations.

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   7. 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)

Infants require adults to manage a large portion of their regulatory needs, from feeding to temperature control to the management of environmental stimuli. Infants react physically to the sensory information around them, with little capacity to change their experience. They need adults who are sensitive to their cues, responsive to their needs, and able to provide a soothing presence in times of distress.

Over time, responding to babies’ needs responsively and consistently helps them to learn that the feelings of distress they are having are not permanent. They learn that these feelings do pass. They also learn that there are both external and internal ways to manage their feelings so that these feelings do not overwhelm them. Caregiver capacity for co-regulation depends on the caregiver’s self-regulation skills.

Although the process by which infants learn to regulate their emotions is still being studied in the scientific community, research has highlighted the importance of synchronous interactions between parent and child to this process. These interactions consist of the temporal (time-based) matching of micro-level behaviours such as gaze, affect (emotional connection), vocalisation, body movements, and arousal indicators.

Studies show that mothers often coordinate their behaviours based on the cues of their infants and that with time, infants and mothers begin to synchronise their behaviours, forming a repetitive rhythmic organisation to mother–infant face-to-face interactions. The adaptation of the mothers’ behaviour to infants’ cues is essential to infants’ social emotional development, particularly the development of emotional regulation. Another longitudinal study of 55 infants showed that infants who had more synchronised interactions based on mutual gazing between mother and child at 5 months showed better attentional control at 11 months.

An early longitudinal study by Gable and Isabella has illustrated how the matching of maternal behaviours to infant’s cues predicted later regulatory skills. Alert and attentive mothers who displayed appropriate levels of stimulation with their one-month-old infants during face-to-face interactions, adapted their behaviours to that of the infants. Findings revealed that such mothers had infants who showed better regulatory skills at 4 months of age.

After infancy, toddlers enter the stage where they are beginning to build motor and language skills that allow them to control some aspects of their environment, like moving away from a loud noise or asking for something to eat. However, they continue to have strong emotions that far outweigh these emerging skills. In this developmental period, caregivers can begin to teach and model skills like waiting (brief delay of gratification) and using simple words to communicate feelings and needs. Adults are still mostly responsible for structuring a safe and manageable environment, as well as for providing comfort and reassurance when toddlers are upset.

Studies have also shown that child routines

and structured play as well as behaviour management techniques can be applied by caregivers to develop children’s self-regulation abilities. Having opportunities to practice expected behaviours through daily routines help create and maintain appropriate child behaviours as it gives children consistency and helps with planning abilities. Consistent routines are associated with less impulsivity, aggression, and oppositionality among children. Researchers suggested that routines may even protect against developing externalising behaviour disorders by providing impulsive children with predictable consequences they can learn to work around and the ability to learn coping strategies.

Play has been shown to be effective in helping children develop self-regulation. To sustain play, children must act deliberately, inhibiting behaviour that is not part of the specific role. This action helps support the development of intentional behaviour.