Transition from being “slaves to the environment” to becoming “masters of their own behavior”
I whisper. Listen. Listen to the woods. Fall is coming. Listen to the trees. To the migrant birds who are passing by.
He takes a deep breath and the last tear sliding down from his baby chicks falls on the deck’s concrete floor and makes a round mark. Wind whirls and twirls among the trees.
He takes his next deep breath and looks at me while pointing out to the trees and says: Mommy, wind! And then as if nothing has happened, he goes to the balustrade and follows the birds. He occasionally turns back towards me and smiles. To me, it is like he is saying: “thanks for helping me out of the situation”. You never imagine that before all this, he was having a tantrum because he didn’t want me to pit his dates.
How an 18 months old toddler can manage the storm of complex feelings and overwhelming thoughts? How does he know the power of deep breath and mindfulness?
More about self-regulation
Self-regulation is the ability to manage feelings and thoughts. It takes a long time to develop and is not fully in place until early adulthood. In fact, it is directly related to brain maturation.
Self-regulation is described as a skill and it means like other skills kids need to practice becoming master at it. It is their capacity to navigate difficult emotions, thoughts, and experiences, so that they can bring the best of themselves forward.
For Lev Vygotsky, self-regulation is not a single trait or even a combination of traits but rather a critical development signaling emergence of uniquely human set of competencies “higher mental functions”. Vygotsky described them as deliberate, intentional, or volitional behaviors, as something that humans have control of acquiring higher mental functions allows children to make a critical transition from being “slaves to the environment” to becoming “masters of their own behavior”. This process requires children to master specific cultural tools — including language and other symbolic systems — which they can use to gain control over their physical, emotional, and cognitive functioning.
The journey to self-regulation is a long way and it cannot be achieved without the help of a responsive caregiver. In fact, a caregiver with co-regulating provides the stimulation that helps the child’s brain develop the capacity for creating and maintaining healthy emotional relationships.
Here is what I think. We adults have so many ways to calm down ourselves. Let’s put aside the unhealthy ways that some people prefer like shouting, shutting the door or punching the wall. We all have our own ways to regulate our emotions and thoughts. We walk, talk, write, take a deep breath, we exercise, eat, take a shower. The list can go on and on. But what kids can do? How many ways do toddlers know to self-regulate? Even if they know that talking can regulate them, they don’t have enough words to explain. They cannot go out and walk, they cannot write. Most of them have only one weapon, crying. Their very first ability to survive that nature provided for them. If we, as their care givers, don’t model with other methods, we cannot expect them to learn on their own.
Though self-regulation at the age of 18 months is in its infancy level, I wonder how capable toddlers are in modeling us.
Here is how we model self-regulation
My husband and I embrace all our feelings and thoughts. It is okay not to be in mood, be sad, anxious, tired, or even angry as long as you respect one another, and you don’t cross the red lines. So in this way, our son knows that all emotions are okay, and he is natural. Although he only knows happy, sadness and fear by now, we are pretty sure he has so many other emotions that are hard to label as our communication is only limited to his at most 200 words.
Susan David in her cutting-edge book Emotional Agility goes deep into this subject that first thing to do is feel an emotion and then gain control over it. She talks about emotional acknowledgment and how emotions that we call them bad emotions like sadness, fear, grief, boredom and stress can show us some insights from deeper things that are going on that we couldn’t get without having them. She says by not allowing children to experience difficult emotions, we undermine their resilience, their well-being, and their happiness over time.
To implement this idea, we try to interact with him as we do to each other.
How do you respond to a friend when (s)he is having a tough time?
· You encourage them to talk to understand what is going on.
· You don’t yell; you show empathy.
· You don’t shush them; you say I’m sorry that you are having a tough time.
· You don’t put a pacifier in their mouth to stop their crying; you hold their hands and say do you want to talk?
· You don’t say go to your room; you say what can I do for you?
Though it seems silly to ask an 18 months old toddler to talk about their feelings but seeing him as a whole human helps us to stay on a right path. We tell him with a soft voice that sweetheart, when you yell, I don’t know what you want. Would you like to help me understand you? Help is a key word for a toddler as their inner intend is being helpful and doing real things like we do. Then we continue by guessing what he might want then we ask: Did you want to open this jar’s lid, or you wanted to have that item? Always 2 questions. More will make him confused. Even if none of them is what he wanted, he chooses one. Sometimes he says hug! Means I don’t want that anymore, but he is sure that he is heard.
We have witnessed the most amazing thing happened.
When I’m down, I don’t act that nothing has happened, and everything is going to be okay. No. Sometimes you don’t want to say or hear that cliché. Sometimes you want to mourn that nothing is going to be okay. So, I write, or I talk to my husband; or I go out on the deck and take a deep breath. My husband sometimes comes out and sits close and hugs me in silent. Sometimes he holds my hand and looks at the woods with me. Recently, my son joins us and stays nearby. This is exactly what we do when he is having a hard time. I can tell that he knows that I’m not okay and he tries to make me feel better and he is extremely good at it. He says: mommy! And looks into my eyes with a sweet smile. I smile back. Everything becomes okay right away.
Then I thank him for helping me out of the situation.
