Zones of regulation

Keep calm and stay green.

From very young I taught my children the zones of regulation. If this is not something you are familiar with, I will explain briefly, but you may want to read up on the science behind it. The zones collect emotions into simple categories and assign them a colour giving children the ability to communicate their mood with simpler language. There is blue for low feelings, sadness, tiredness and being unwell. Green is for a calm state. A place where you feel stable, strong and ready to go. Next is yellow, which denotes any emotion that is starting to become unstable. Feelings of silliness and cheekiness. But also, uncertainty and irritation, confusion or nervousness. Lastly there is red for emotions that are out of control. Anger, rage, or even bursting elation.

A young child will not know the names of all the emotions they are feeling. They will however, be able to place their feelings into one of these colours. They can then say “I am feeling blue” or, you might be able to say, “it seems you are a little yellow right now” and they would understand that.

The default is to be green. Once your child can express which colour they are, you can begin to teach them how to regulate themselves back to green. This isn’t easy for even adults to do and the effectiveness of any calming activity will change with each individual. There are so many calming strategies if you google it and hardly any of them worked with consistency in my house. I did what I always do and I researched. After a few days I had a sketched blueprint. I was going to build a calm corner.

I chose a corner of our open plan living room, dining room and got to work. Some wallpaper, reversable sequin material, cute décor pieces and some crafting and I was ready to go. I made a fake wall of quarter the room height covered in reversable sequin material. This was one wall. Above I hung posters I had drawn with different breathing techniques and a feelings thermometer. The second wall was some pretty, tactile wallpaper with a tasselled rainbow and fake plant of the squishy variety hung up. For the floor, I got a bean bag for sitting and a small storage bench, painted cutely. The bench got a box full of fidgets inside, a few where’s wally books, some tactile pads in different textures and a feelings pineapple (it is a bit like Mr potato head but with features that depict specific emotions. I bought it on Amazon and it is brilliant). On top of the bench went a 10 minute sand timer.

The kids got introduced to the corner and the rules of how to use it. It is a safe space to go when you are not in the green zone. The activities in the bench help to regulate you back to the green zone and the timer sets the amount of time you can spend there. I knew that, without the timer, they were likely to spend longer playing with the fun toys and they would no longer work to regulate their emotions. It took a while for them to use it properly. The first week or so was simply saying they were yellow or red in order to enjoy time in the calm corner. After that though, it did settle and has been extremely useful to have on hand.

It is not just the kids who benefit. A calm corner is for everyone. I may just take some time there myself every now and then. Mums aren’t always in the green zone either.

You can find the posters I made in the shop. Breathing techniques, feelings thermometer or the zones of regulation, you can have them all tailor made to your needs. Please check it out.