Zones of regulation
Have you ever been in a mood, or felt in a negative mood and couldn’t quite put your finger on what or why it is? Have you ever gone home and took it out on the wrong person or people? If you have, trust me lots of us have and lots will continue to do so.
A method used effectively in schools is called Zones of Regulation. Zones of regulation is a simple framework that helps children develop self-regulation skills by categorising emotions and states of alertness into four colour-coded zones (Blue, Green, Yellow, and Red). The idea is to promote emotional awareness and management. This is a great tool for educational professional to have in their armouries. It allows both staff and students to have open and constructive conversations about feelings and emotions and can provide opportunities to strip back events or situations that have led up to them feeling how they do and come up with potential solutions how to move into a more positive colour. The emphasise is very much on the young person managing their own emotions and figuring out a solution to help them better understand their own feelings and the feelings of others. Some of the teaching resources have been linked to the film inside out.
How can this support you as an adult? Firstly it’s a great tool to use with young families. If you are a parent of primary age children then it’s highly likely they will be using this model at their school. This is such a good way of parents supporting teachers by keeping a proven system working at home, during the holidays etc and a great way for them to express themselves to you. It also allows you as a parent to be able to have conversations with their teachers on parent’s evenings and you both have an understanding of each other. If there’s been a change in family circumstances etc sometimes it’s difficult to find the exact way to describe thoughts or feelings of another person but this method takes that away from you and the school may be able to pick up on some similarities, timelines or common trends.
When I, and I’m sure many of you were growing up, Interventions like this were never used. I spent some of my earliest years of education isolated and locked in a cloakrooms to figure it out. I had 5 different teachers one year but all I really needed was one to sit down and talk to me and explain things to me. I wasn’t the only one and sadly this is the case for many men born pre 1990’s. I know there’s men out there that have created an element of resilience around them and have been successful in life, however, I believe these self taught strategies have a life span and with how rapidly the world and things are changing it’s tough to stay with the times. This is where the zones of regulations can truly help. It takes us back to the basics and back to understanding and expressing our feelings and emotions rather than pulling down the hatch and riding it out. I know as I still struggle with this weekly. As with most things individual tools don’t always work well on their own. Take map reading for example, with just a map you’d probably manage to find where you were going but with more tools, a compass, a pace counter etc things become a little easier. It’s the same with looking after ourselves. It’s great identifying we’re in the red zone that’s important, we have a starting point. Now, we need to identify other strategies to take us from that zone into another. Or at the very least understand our limitations whilst in that zone. For example, if you’ve left work late in the red zone after an awful day, it’s probably not a good idea to start putting the kids to bed as soon as you get in. Identifying and naming what you’re feeling and what caused you to feel like that, then maybe going for a short walk prior to driving home might just be what you needed to shift you into a yellow zone and allow you to drive home calmer and in a better state of mind for your family.
This is a tool that can be used for anyone from any walk of life, man or woman and combined with other tools is pretty powerful. It can be used individually or within a team or home. If doing this individually, changes aren’t instantaneous you have to put the steps in, but over time those steps will compound. If you would like to work with me and experience a rapid positive mindset change feel free to get in touch.
Thank you for reading. 🫶 🧘♂️
