Regulate before you educate means that, as parents, we make sure our child has the capacity for change, for growth, the capacity to hear our redirection or our education, before we go right into it. And sometimes, once they are regulated, there is nothing left to educate.
Why an Overwhelmed Child Can’t Hear Us
An overwhelmed human being has less access to the cognitive resources necessary to change. That includes being able to hear something without automatic and immediate defensiveness. It includes the ability to put feedback into context so that we can understand it. And it includes the ability to differentiate the behavior from the identity. There is often a guilt response in the face of feedback, but it is unnecessary for there to be a shame response.
The Bubble Gum
A kid is yelling at his mom in the store because his friend just got a new pack of bubble gum, he wants a pack of bubble gum, and his mom never gives him bubble gum.
Even a simple response does so many things at once.
Yeah, I get it. That feels unfair to you. You’re perceiving me as being unreasonable for not buying you the gum. And this time, in this store, we just came to do some quick shopping for dinner, and we’re not going to be getting treats.
By affirming, we are saying it is reasonable for him to feel this, and this is probably why he is angry: he is perceiving an injustice. It is perfectly reasonable to perceive the situation that way, and we acknowledge and validate the emotion regardless.
Many emotions are not rational. They don’t require reason to exist.
How We Deliver It
This goes back and forth, because how the parent delivers the feedback matters too. Delivering a message from a dysregulated state ourselves will dysregulate the person we are giving feedback to, which again limits their receptivity to what we are saying.
The language matters as well. We don’t say, “You are a mean kid,” or “You don’t ever share,” or “You are messy.” Those are shaming statements. They are also strategically, fundamentally not useful, because they speak in overgeneralizations and universals, and they lack any direction as to what could possibly change. If I am messy, how would I change who I am?
Hey, son, I’m noticing that after snack you’re leaving your dishes in the sink, and I’d appreciate it if you put them away.
Now we are giving him something actionable. He might feel guilty about leaving his stuff in the sink, with all the defensiveness that comes with it, but he has something to do.
The shift is to specific, externalized, non-universal language. You are an individual who engaged in a behavior, instead of you are a behavior. Which, interestingly, is also just incorrect English, and it is probably one of the more common ways humans give each other feedback.
Sometimes, Don’t Educate
Regulate before you educate, or regulate and don’t educate.
That second part is a cornerstone.
I can be disappointed and hurt, and I can feel abandoned for not being invited to a birthday party I had absolutely no interest in going to, because I can’t stand the kid. When our child feels that, it is tempting to go straight to the intervention.
But I thought you didn’t like Billy anyway. You told me over the weekend you didn’t want to go.
We want to step into it first.
Oh gosh, I know what you mean, son. I’m sorry. It hurts to not be chosen, and it can be difficult not to take that personally. We’ll have to find something else we can do.
There are so many times we are just reflecting the validity of having an experience, a subjective perception, and our child doesn’t need feedback. He doesn’t need to be told that he doesn’t like Billy anyway, so next time he should differentiate a little from his emotional experience and realize that feelings are feelings and not necessarily true.
Of course, we all need that lesson in life. To grow into a mature adult, we need to be able to differentiate, and to understand that emotions are often not true. But plenty of moments don’t call for the lesson.
We call a kid in for dinner, and he’s furious because his friends have less structure than our household and nobody calls them in. He’s angry, he wants to play with his friends, and all we have to do is say that.
I get it. Your friends get to stay outside, and that sucks, because you’d rather be out there with them. And I need you to come in, because our family eats dinner together around a table every night. All families have different cultural values.
What Good Preschool Teachers Already Know
The funny reality is that regulate before you educate is a tool we watch every effective preschool and kindergarten teacher use with grace. If it’s a good teacher, they know how to do this. They are so good at it that they almost build a bank of affirming and regulating, so that when time is of the essence, they can move quickly to management and redirection.
This ties to the four roles of parenting: teacher, manager, mentor, and nurturer. The better we are at being the regulators, the affirmers, the humble ones taking responsibility for our own part, the more effective we are in all of those roles. We are safe. We are admirable. We are congruent and consistent, and that makes us easier to listen to.
A Skill We All Need
I started with preschool teachers, but this is a truism throughout life, a skill set we all need. Being a safe, secure, nurturing, regulating presence is what allows us to be a person who has influence.
It carries the innate value of being a secure attachment figure, whether in our marriage, with our children, with our siblings, or with our friends. It also carries the benefit of positive influence on our surroundings, and so of getting our needs met.
The better we are at regulating, the more effective we are at influencing, and the more effective we are at influencing, the more likely our boundaries are respected and our needs attended to.
