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Zones of Regulation

Rationale:

At Sidestrand Hall School, we recognise the importance of promoting positive mental health and emotional wellbeing to our students and their families. We aim to create an open culture around the discussion of mental health and wellbeing and to empower our children to be able to regulate their emotions. By implementing the Zones of Regulation curriculum we aim to teach our pupils to identify emotions in themselves and others and provide them with a bank of strategies to help regulate their emotions and improve their wellbeing.

The Zones of Regulation is a range of activities to help your child develop skills in the area of self-regulation. Self-regulation can go by many names, such as self-control, self-management and impulse control. It is defined as the best state of alertness of both the body and emotions for the specific situation. For example, when your child plays in a basketball game, it is beneficial to have a higher state of alertness. However, that same state would not be appropriate in the library.

The Zones of Regulation is a curriculum based around the use of four colours to help children self-identify how they’re feeling and categorise it based on colour. The curriculum also helps children better understand their emotions, sensory needs and thinking patterns. The children learn different strategies to cope and manage their emotions based on which colour zone they’re in. Additionally, the Zones of Regulation helps children to recognise their own triggers, learn to read facial expressions, develop problem-solving skills, and become more attuned to how their actions affect other people.

  • Recognise when they are in the different Zones and learn how to change or stay in the Zone they are in.
  • Increase their emotional vocabulary so they can explain how they are feeling.
  • Recognise when other people are in different Zones, thus developing better empathy.
  • Develop an insight into what might make them move into the different Zones.
  • Understand that emotions, sensory experiences such as lack of sleep or hunger and their environment might influence which Zone they are in.
  • Develop problem-solving skills and resilience
  • Identify a range of calming and alerting strategies that support them (known as their personal ‘toolkit’).

What are the Different Zones?

Blue Zone: low level of arousal; not ready to learn; feels sad, sick, tired, bored, moving slowly.

Green Zone: calm state of alertness; optimal level to learn; feels happy, calm, feeling okay, focused.

Yellow Zone: heightened state of alertness; elevated emotions; has some control; feels frustrated, worried, silly/wiggly, excited, loss of some control.

Red Zone: heightened state of alertness and intense emotions; not an optimal level for learning; out of control; feels mad/angry, terrified, yelling/hitting, elated, out of control.

Understanding the Zones:

Click on the image to take you to that zone:

Talk through the zones with your child. Ask them how they would feel in each zone?

  • Discuss what emotion they feel in each zone e.g. in the yellow zone I may feel worried
  • How they physically feel e.g. in yellow zone I may have butterflies in my stomach or have sweaty palms (if feeling anxious).
  • Then discuss what might they be doing- what be their actions e.g. in yellow zone would they be pacing around, snapping at others, fidgeting?
  • Then discuss how to help them move into the Green zone e.g. if I was in the Yellow zone and feeling anxious I might find competing some yoga stretches/ breathing techniques helps me get back into the green zone.
  • Create a list of strategies that work for the child- Remind the child that we are all unique and the strategies that work for one person might not help them so they need to think about what would help them.

Remind them that we will experience all zones and there are no good or bad zones- however our success in regulating our emotions depends on us recognising our emotion, understanding it and putting a support strategy in place.

For further information on the Zones of Regulation, please follow this weblink:

https://www.zonesofregulation.com/learn-more-about-the-zones.html