East Renfrewshire Healthier Minds

Building Resilience and Developing Emotional Regulation in Children

Victoria Devlin (Healthier Minds Teacher) Sara Wood (Children 1^st Healthier Minds Project Worker)

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• Children & young people aged 10-18 years old
• Weekly screening hub
• Referrals via: school, GP, HSCP Partners, self-referral
• https://blogs.glowscotland.org.uk/er/healthierminds/healthier-minds-service/healthier-minds-service-2/

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What will we cover this afternoon?

• What is resilience and how does it relate to emotional regulation?
• Emotional Dysregulation – what happens in our brains and our bodies?
• Co-regulation – how to use your presence and calm to re-set your child’s distressed brain
• Considering your own needs
• Strategies to help your child learn to regulate
• Resources

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What is Resilience?

What develops resilience?

• Secure relationships with caring adults
• Positive role models – adults who demonstrate healthy coping skills for stress and life’s challenges
• Ensuring children have enough sleep, nutrition, hydration and exercise
• Being encouraged to take age-appropriate risks and responsibilities and to make mistakes
• Developing good self-regulation or emotional regulation skills is key to being able to deal with stressful situations effectively and to “bouncing back”

• Being able to control how you respond to your own emotions - emotional control and regulation is taking any action that alters the intensity of an emotional experience.

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• Self-regulation is how we adjust our feelings, actions, attention, thoughts and bodies so that we can handle different situations without getting overwhelmed. We need to “regulate” ourselves to make sure we have enough energy, alertness or calmness to deal with everyday life or extra stress. Children learn to self-regulate through their daily interactions with caring adults.

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• Younger children – teaching children the language to name emotions, how to identify them using tools such as stories and TV shows they enjoy, labelling your feelings and their own “You’re feeling disappointed that you didn’t get a turn”, “I’m feeling frustrated that am running late”, feelings charts with visuals
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOkyKyVFnSs (Inside Out Movie Clip game)

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• Older children – keeping a mood tracker diary, making links between emotions and situations in their lives. Looking at their thoughts and behaviours in relation to their emotions

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• Teaching about our brains and our body’s response to stress

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What is Emotional Regulation and how we can begin to develop the skills?

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8do0Jiscgsk

The Window of Tolerance Reimagined:

Brain Basics: Anxiety (for kids) Part 3 - The fight, flight and freeze responses

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8do0Jiscgsk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kx7PCzg0CGE

The Hand Model of the Brain, Emotion Coaching UK

“Co-regulation with parents is like teaching children how to ride a bike.

In the beginning, the young child simply sits there while the parent does all the work holding up the bike and pushing it forward. But soon, the child gets used to balancing on the bike. They start pedalling and balancing on their own. At some point, the parent can let go.”

Parents/ Carers Barriers to Self Regulation Activity

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It can be hard for parent’s to “Walk the Walk” for and with our children.

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Parents/ carers are only human too.

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In groups can you think of what barrier’s there might be to parent’s remaining calm and coregulating with our children?

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Barrier’s To Being Able to Self-Regulate Our Emotions

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• Stress/ overwhelm
• Tiredness
• Not looking after own needs in terms of nutrition, hydration, down time, following own interests.
• Having a difficult day
• Dealing with our own feelings of rejection
• Lack of support
• Mental and or physical health difficulties
• Not having being supported to develop emotional regulation as a child.
• Unresolved past trauma/ generational trauma.

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The Importance of Self Care

• The Oxygen mask analogy
• Making time for yourself
• Exercise
• Talking to friends
• Seeking extra help when needed
• Learning strategies alongside your children and practicing and model them for your own emotional regulation

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(CAMHS)

Regulation Strategies

• Rhythmic, repetitive activities – drumming, tapping, dancing, walking, music 80bpm, bilateral stimulation music
• Humming or singing – activates the vagus nerve which activates the relaxation response
• Breathing techniques – hand breathing, Buddy breathing – breathing with a favourite toy on stomach to learn deep breathing, box breathing
• Butterfly hug – arms around shoulders or hands crossed over chest, gently tapping one hand at a time
• Hands-on, focused activity - Colouring, drawing, arts and crafts, playdough, lego
• Grounding Techniques – using your senses (5-4-3-2-1)
• Sensory Strategies- weighted items, pressure and massage, fidget toys, scents – lavender and peppermint are particularly soothing, soft fabrics
• Self-Soothe or Distraction Box – create a box containing all the items you need to regulate, this will be different for different people. Can contain colouring books, lego, fidget toys, soft items, scented items, coping cards and affirmation cards,

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• Thinking Tools (children over 7) – Learning to notice unhelpful thoughts and try to reframe them into more helpful ways of looking at a situation See Challenging Unhelpful Thoughts link to Healthier Minds website in resources section

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• 5 point scale (maybe more suitable for younger children) – a useful tool for helping children notice the intensity of their emotions and communicate

how they are feeling. See CAMHS booklet, Emotion Regulation What is it?

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The Power of Stories

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Stories with strong relatable characters overcoming adversity can empower our children and young people.

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• Real Friends- Shannon Hale & Leuyen Pham
• Guts – Raina Teglemeir
• Frankie’s World- Aofie Dooley
• Smells Like Trouble- Marta Tedry & Micah Amundsen
• Speak Up- Rebecca Burgess
• The Light in Everything- Katya Balen
• The Fox and the White Gazelle- Victoria Williamson

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Resources – Websites and Books

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Healthier Minds:

https://blogs.glowscotland.org.uk/er/healthierminds/

Between: A Guide for Parents of 8 to 13 Year Olds, Sarah Ockwell Smith

How To Be A Calm Parent, Sarah Ockwell Smith

Instagram: @sarahockwellsmith

Instagram: @dr_rebecca_quin (chartered psychologist sharing relevant resources and strategies to support wellbeing in children and young people

Fight, Flight or Freeze Brain Basics video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8do0Jiscgsk

Window of Tolerance video (The Window of Tolerance Re-imagined, Tracey Farrell)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVEDueyZ2C4

The Hand Model of the Brain video (Emotion Coaching UK)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kx7PCzg0CGE

Kindle Kids Strategies for Co-Regulation

https://kindlekids.org.uk/strategies-for-co-regulation/

Teddy Breathing Instructions

https://blissfulkids.com/mindfulness-exercises-for-kids-teddy-bear-belly-breathing/

Challenging Unhelpful Thoughts (Healthier Minds Website)

https://blogs.glowscotland.org.uk/er/healthierminds/managing-stress-and-anxiety/challenging-unhelpful-thoughts/

Young Minds Parent’s Section

https://www.youngminds.org.uk/parent/

CAMHS Downloads

https://www.camhs-resources.co.uk/downloads

Emotion Regulation- What is It?

https://www.rdash.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/DP8655-Emotion-regulation-11.20.pdf

Box Breathing

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• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEmt1Znux58

Contact Us

If you have any questions following on from today you can get in touch by emailing:

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HSCPHealthierMindsHub@eastrenfrewshire.gov.uk