Practitioner's Guide to Emotion Regulation in School-Aged Children

Most children master emotion regulation skills during their early childhood, though, increasingly, many enter school with mild or serious deficits that may not be addressed effectively or early enough. Practitioner's Guide to Emotion Regulation in School-Aged Children presents in-depth background and practical information on the subject to enable school professionals to craft interventions that are developmentally appropriate, relevant, and timely.

In this volume, variables that contribute to emotional regulation are identified, complex relationships between emotions, stress, and temperament are explored, and challenges to competence at school (e.g., test anxiety, bullying) and at home (e.g., punishment for "wrong" emotions) are examined. Strategies for recognizing specific skill deficiencies or more general needs are provided, along with emotion coaching techniques, cognitive-behavioral methods, anger management programs, empathy training, and other interventions. Dozens of worksheets and handouts included in the book can be reproduced or fine-tuned to fit age and ability levels.

Featured topics include:

• Emotion dysregulation as a risk factor for mental disorders, including anxiety, depressive disorders, and the autism spectrum.
• The biology of emotion regulation, and its potential in designing interventions.
• Strengthening parenting skills to reinforce children's emotional skills.
• Working with teachers to improve the emotional climate in the classroom.
• The peer group: translating self-regulation into social contexts.

• Step by step intervention processes.
  With targeted training at the classroom, home, and peer levels, children can better attain the vital skills they need for a lifetime of social interactions. This volume is an essential resource for school psychologists and other school-based mental health professionals.

Auteur

Gayle L. Macklem, MA, NCSP, LEP, is a Massachusetts licensed school psychologist and a Massachusetts-licensed educational psychologist. She has served in the field of education for 30 years. A former president of the Massachusetts School Psychologists Association (MSPA), she serves as the Technology Chairperson of the state association. Gayle is an adjunct instructor in the Counseling and School Psychology Specialist Training Program at the University of Massachusetts at Boston. Gayle writes curriculum and writes on topics of interest to educators. She is a frequent presenter at regional and national conferences. Gayle is the author of Springer's Bullying and teasing: Social power in children's groups (2003).

Résumé

Emotional regulation has to do with a person's efforts to take charge of one's emotions. A child's access to different emotions, a child's ability to modulate or elevate the intensity of emotion that is being experienced, the length of time that a child's intense emotions last and whether or not a child can switch from one emotion to another are aspects of emotional regulation. A child's ability to learn how particular emotions are expressed in particular situations and the child's understanding of his/her own emotions are also part of this complex set of behaviors (Cole, P.M., Michel, M. K. & Teti, L. P., 1994).
Many, if not most, of the children with whom school psychologists interact regularly have difficulties with emotional regulation. Children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, oppositional defiant disorder, Asperger's Syndrome, autism, nonverbal learning disabilities, and bipolar and personality disorders have significant and often primary difficulties with emotional regulation. Unfortunately, there is little if any literature for school-based practitioners to access that is organized, practical, and readable. The text that is proposed here would meet that need.
Currently, affective or emotional regulation is clearly a significant topic in several fields. According to Watt (2004), the topic of emotion is "an exploding subject of compelling attraction to a wide range of disciplines in psychology and neuroscience." Helping children learn to regulate their emotions is, in fact, much more important than many educators and parents realize. Although the concept of affective regulation has become a buzzword among scientists, mental health workers in schools are just becoming aware of their need to understand concepts and to develop strategies for use in their work with children.
Emotional regulation during social interaction and regulation of attention are strongly related to school success both academically and socially. In fact, regulation of emotions is absolutely necessary for all sorts of adaptive functioning and general health at all ages. Both elementary and secondary teachers view children's ability to control negative emotions as crucial for success in school (Lane, K.L., Givner, C. C. & Pierson, M. R., 2004; Lane, K. L., Pierson, K. R & Givner, C. C., 2004). A child who has difficulty dampening negative emotions will most likely be at risk for developing behavioral problems or anxiety and depressive disorders (Silk, J. S., Shaw, D. D, Lane, T. J., Unikel, E. & Movacs, M., 2005).
This text will explore recent knowledge about:

• Emotion and the brain.

• The conditions of early childhood that influence emotional regulation.

• How a child learns to regulate emotions.

• What happens when emotional regulation goes awry and becomes dysregulated.
  The text will examine the concept of affective style and how negative emotionality or reactivity and emotional regulation can interfere with social competency as well as academic and behavioral competency.
  Because poorly regulated children are at risk for serious adjustment difficulties, school psychologists need strategies to help children improve in self-regulatory skills. Knowledge about how to help children access a range of emotions, to modulate the intensity of emotion, and to shift from one emotional state to another is a critical need. In addition, school psychologists and other mental health workers need to learn how to help parents understand their vital role in influencing the development of self-regulatory skills in their children.
  This text will also review the more extreme disorders of emotional regulation because understanding children who experience the most extreme difficulties with emotional regulation can help us develop interventions for children whose issues are less intense.
  As society becomes more stressful and complex, while at the same time the demands for performance increase, school-aged children are at increasing risk for adjustment difficulties. School psychologists and other mental health workers in schools are hungry for concrete approaches to help children develop relationships, to be more successful in the classroom and in the peer group. Most important, this text will contain many practical strategies for helping children, their families and their teachers to help children more successfully negotiate their worlds on a day-to-day basis.

Contenu
The Importance of Emotional Regulation in Child and Adolescent Functioning and School Success.- Emotional Dysregulation.- Understanding the Biology of Emotion and Using this Knowledge to Develop Interventions.- Development of Emotion Regulation in Young Children.- Parenting and Emotion Regulation.- Emotion Regulation in the Classroom.- Emotion Regulation and Social Functioning in the Context of the Peer Group.- Regulating Positive and Negative Emotions.- Strategies for Parents and Teachers.- Adapting Interventions for Use with School-Aged Children.- The Intervention Process.