Flexible activity
The activity of developing skills in self-regulation is important to children transitioning to school as it enables them to sit and listen in the classroom, behave in socially acceptable ways and make friends as they learn to take turns in games and conversations and share toys. These skills include learning to regulate reactions to strong emotions like frustration, excitement, anger and embarrassment, calm down after something exciting or upsetting, focus on a task and control impulses.
The development of self-regulation skills can be implemented through explicit teaching, modelling and reinforcing.
This flexible activity’s target group is students transitioning to kindergarten.
Kids in Transition to School (KITS): This program ensures multiple opportunities for practising self-regulation skills are embedded across classroom activities, such as handling frustration and disappointment, controlling impulses, following multistep directions, listening, and making appropriate transitions.
Second Step Early Learning (SSEL): This program introduces children to self-regulation techniques such as self-talk and learning to calm down.
Roots of Resilience: Teachers are trained in the use of coaching sessions that focus on self-regulation by isolating “serve and return” teacher-child interactions in which: 1) children’s serves show self-regulation (less-regulation or more-regulation); 2) teachers exhibit self-regulation when returning children’s serves; and 3) teachers return children’s serves in specific ways that support children’s growing self-regulation.
Developing skills in self-regulation is a process that, for some children, takes considerable time (particularly those children with ADS or ADHD). There is a role for both teachers and parents to consider the development of these skills on an individual basis that avoids comparing one child’s level of skill with that of another child.
24 Feb 2023
We acknowledge Aboriginal people as the First Nations Peoples of NSW and pay our respects to Elders past, present, and future.
Informed by lessons of the past, Department of Communities and Justice is improving how we work with Aboriginal people and communities. We listen and learn from the knowledge, strength and resilience of Stolen Generations Survivors, Aboriginal Elders and Aboriginal communities.
You can access our apology to the Stolen Generations.