05/16/2023
We have all heard it, the terrible twos and terrorist threes, but let’s dive a little deeper in why these young kiddos have gotten these nicknames!
Between the ages of 2-5 years old kids are learning how to self-regulate. Self-regulation refers to the process in which a person handles…
•emotion
•attention
•behavior
…in response to a situation or stimulating circumstance.
Self-Regulation an umbrella that encompasses a variety of sub-skills we all use when navigating through this life whether it’s socially or with a direction toward a goal.
This can also be referred to as control reactivity. An example of this would be a child waiting for permission to open a present, though the dominant urge or reaction would be to just rip it open and see the surprise. Which leads us into Effortful Control (EC) the ability to hold back the dominant response. Effortful Control is a key component to self-regulation. As a child is still learning Effortful Control, they will show behavioral components such as temper tantrums. The temper tantrum is when they are letting the dominant feeling or urge determine their response to a situation or stimuli. This is where the fun nicknames come from. Later in life Effortful Control will play a huge role in…
•moral
•personality
•academic development
•competency
…Kids between the ages of 2-5 are truly setting the foundation to who they will be and how they will respond to situations for the rest of their lives.
As parents it is important that we teach out kids how to regulate their emotions and work on effortful control. This can all be done in a positive and optimistic environment. Teaching yoga at daycare we do purposeful breathwork with explanations as to why we do it. We talked about feeling RED (mad), BLUE (sad), Yellow (Happy), and many emotions in between and then do fun breathing exercises to help cope, while purposefully explaining why in terms the children could understand.
For example, if a child is feeling BLUE and is crying, we, as parents, can blow on their face. TRUST ME, this WORKS, the child will stop crying and will take a breath in. Do this while explaining why you are breathing, to calm down, so we can use our words to express what is causing the emotions. This is a form of directed self-regulation that will eventually teach the child to practice the breathwork on their own without direction from the parent. This in many ways is also beneficial to mom and dad as it will bring them into the present moment and regulate themselves in what may be a highly stimulated situation WITH their child.
Overall, yoga has been found to enhance self-regulation among preschoolers. Along with breathwork kids can also practice short burst of yoga (25-30 minutes)
