It is no secret that our students today have a lot going on inside and outside of school. We are teaching students who are undergoing trauma, stress and anxiety. To support the social and emotional well-being of our students, we have to teach and provide space for them to learn how to self-regulate.
Emotional self-regulation is important for helping children manage how they express and experience emotions. CASEL defines self-regulation and self-management as the ability to regulate one’s emotions to handle stress, control impulses and persevere in overcoming obstacles; setting and monitoring progress toward personal and academic goals; and expressing emotions appropriately.
Just as we provide students explicit instruction on academic content, we want to provide explicit instruction for social emotional learning. Three of my favorite approaches to supporting students with self-regulation are Zones of Proximal Development, Yale’s Center for Emotional Intelligence Mood Meter and the Incredible 5 Point Scale.
Zones of Proximal Development
The Zones is a systematic, cognitive behavioral approach used to teach self-regulation by categorizing the ways we feel and states of alertness we experience into four concrete zones of blue, green, yellow and red.
The Zones framework provides strategies to teach students to become more aware of an independent in controlling their emotions and impulses, managing their sensory needs and improving their ability to problem-solve conflicts.
Some helpful websites with lesson plans and videos on the Zones of Regulation are Social Thinking, The Zones of Regulation and Mrs. Durante’s Regulation Website.
Mood Meter
The Mood Meter is a tool used to recognize and understand our own and other peoples’ emotions. It’s divided into four color quadrants: red, blue, green and yellow – each representing a different set of feelings. Feelings are grouped together on the mood meter based on their pleasantness and energy level.
- Red: High in energy and more unpleasant (e.g., angry, scared, anxious).
- Blue: Low in energy and more unpleasant (e.g., sad, disappointed, lonely).
- Green: Low in energy and more pleasant (e.g., calm, tranquil, and relaxed).
- Yellow: High in energy and more pleasant (e.g., happy, excited, and curious).
To use the tool, encourage students to plot their feelings multiple times a day: before starting class, before or after a test, after recess, or during a disagreement. Facilitate discussions on various coping strategies and peer-assisted supports. Visit the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence for further support.
The Incredible 5 Point Scale
The Incredible 5 Point Scale is used to assist students in becoming aware of their emotions, such as anger or worry, and the stage or level of the emotion. One to one instruction is suggested as the best way to introduce this strategy.
Using the scale, the student rates his emotions or status of a condition or state. Possible areas of focus may include anger, worry, anxiety, voice level, body space, etc. At each level your child will identify what each rating may look like, feel like and possible solutions to control them.
By using a graphic 5 point numerical scale, this may help put abstract information into a concrete, visible, and measurable format that can be referred to at any time by either the child or parent (Dunn & Curtis, 2003).
We need to teach our students good coping and self-regulation strategies so they can help themselves when they become stressed, anxious or sad. Normalize all the zones and quadrants.
It is human to have various feelings at different points within a day based on context and situation. In order for students to improve their regulation skills, it's important to not be ashamed of uncomfortable or unwanted emotions.
Helping students recognize feelings enables them to understand how feelings impact decisions and behaviors. It’s also the first step in helping them develop empathy.
