What are the “Zones of Regulation”?

The Zones of Regulation is a curriculum, structured toward helping children gain skills in consciously regulating their actions, which in turn leads to increased control and problem-solving abilities. The curriculum’s learning activities are designed to help children recognise when they are in different states called “zones,” with each of four zones represented by a different colour. In the activities, children also learn how to use strategies or tools to stay in a zone or move from one to another. The children will explore calming techniques and sensory supports so they will have a toolbox of methods to use to move between zones. There are four zones to describe how your brain and body feel.

BLUE Zone – Your body is running slow, such as when you are tired, sick, sad or bored.

GREEN Zone – Like a green light, you are “good to go.” Your body may feel happy, calm and focused.

YELLOW Zone – This zone describes when you start to lose control, such as when you are frustrated, anxious, worried, silly or surprised. Use caution when you are in this zone.

RED Zone – This zone is for extreme emotions such as anger, excitement, terror and aggression. When you are in this zone, you could be out of control, have trouble making good decisions and must STOP!

Why are we teaching this to the children?

We need to teach our children coping and regulation strategies so they can help themselves when they become stressed, anxious, or sad. Typically, children who can ‘self-regulate’ will turn into teenagers and adults who can self-regulate. Self-regulation skills are vital for the success and happiness of our children. In a world where there seems to be an increasing pressure on our children to cope with more and more stresses from a variety of factors, we feel as a school we can all benefit from talking more about our emotions and as a result, develop strategies to manage them.

More information and how you can help…

Ask your child what colour ‘zone’ they are in and consider what you can do to support them moving from one zone to another. The children have watched clips from Disney’s Inside Out which is a great film for explaining emotions and how they make their brain react in different ways. If you haven’t seen the film, please do try to watch it with your child. It will definitely put you in the green zone!