Supporting the Development of Self-Regulation through Responsive Parenting

Self-regulation is the ability to monitor and manage one’s attention, thinking, feelings, and behaviours to accomplish goals1. Important skills such as coping with setback or frustration, following rules, or problem-solving all involve self-regulation, and such ability is closely associated with those cognitive processes collectively known as executive functions in the brain. Children are not born with this ability but with the potential to develop them. It emerges in the first year of life and has an extended course of development into adolescence and early adulthood2.

Just as children in their first few years of life need help from caregivers to meet their various basic needs, they often depend on their parents for co-regulation during times of distress. Through different coordinated behavioral, emotional and physical patterns of exchanges (e.g. respond with matched gazes, attention and affects; offering soothing or help), caregivers provide external regulation to children with limited self-regulation capabilities3. Through co-regulation with nurturing caregivers, children are facilitated to understand, express, and adjust their thoughts, feelings, and behaviours4. Children can gradually rely less and less on external regulatory efforts as their self-regulatory capacities mature5.

The development of self-regulation is affected by different biological, socialisation and contextual factors4,6. Among them, studies suggest that sensitive, responsive caregiving and individualised guidance on practicing these emerging skills is an important factor to foster the development of self-regulation2. Responsive caregiving/ parenting7 is characterised by mutual and synchronised interactions between the parent and child, where the parent recognises the child’s cues (sensitivity) and responds contingently and promptly in a way that is emotionally supportive and appropriate to her developmental level (responsiveness). Parent’s responsiveness facilitates subsequent responses of the child which allow the dyad to engage in back-and-forth or “serve and return” interactions8.

In a moment-to-moment level, responsive parenting help caregivers to co-regulate effectively and flexibility with their child, which is found to support development of self-regulation3. Through this mutual interactivity in daily life, the child finds her needs being satisfied and gradually develops a sense of safety and trust towards the parents. It also provides a sense of predictability, safety and connectedness with the environment that support the child’s development of self-regulation.

With sensitive and supportive parenting, children are given repeatedly opportunities to practice self-soothing, waiting, staying in seat to do tasks etc. based on their different developmental readiness. With time and practices, they will gradually achieve the not-so-easy task of self-regulation, signifying the progress from complete dependence to gradual independence.

As the quality of parenting and parent-child relationship are also found to influence the development of various biological systems of the child related to self-regulatory capability, positive caregiving in the early years supports the development of self-regulation not just at the behavioural level, but biologically through the influences on the development of stress neurobiology, immune function, and cortical and limbic systems, etc.5.

Challenges in Responsive Parenting

As there are individual variations in developmental characteristics including temperaments and abilities, parents have to be sensitive in recognising their child’s characteristics and nature of needs so as to help her develop self-regulation skills appropriate to her developmental level. For example, children with low frustration tolerance may need additional guidance and encouragement to carry through a challenging task. For children who are slow to warm up, caregiver may follow their own pace and gave them time for warm up, while gradually and sensitive guide them to have social encounters when they are ready.

Caregivers’ responsiveness can also be impeded by daily hassles, stresses and other factors including parental expectations, which may undermine their capacity and motivation to tune in with their child’s needs. For instance, it is common for parents to react impatiently or dismissively when their child become distressed and refused to cooperate when they are in a rush. What is worrying is that for caregivers under chronic stressors, that may become their usual parenting pattern and their capabilities to responds to their child’s needs become undermined. As research suggests that children’s self-regulation are affected by parents who need to cope with external problem such as facing marital maladjustment, lower socioeconomic status (SES), or drug use 6,9. Professionals may provide early support by identification and referral of high risk families to appropriate resources.

In addition, affected by their own upbringing, some parents may have different beliefs on responding to their child’s needs for exploration and comfort. Some may not feel comfortable and safe to let go of their child to try new things even though it may be developmentally appropriate. Others may hesitate to provide comfort and reassurance when their child feels sad or scared, as they were often told to “tough it out” as a child. While such parents may need more professional guidance in helping them to see how their past experiences have hindered their practice of responsive parenting, but through supporting them in recognising the signals, needs and abilities of their child may be helpful in enhancing their caregiving.

Supporting Responsive Parenting

As responsive parenting is manifested in different aspects of parental care including feeding, sleep or play, professionals may introduce the concept of responsive parenting and its long-term benefits to parents when they discuss specific childcare activities or routines. Guiding parents to be sensitive to their child’s cues and respond accordingly and informing them on the different developmental needs of their child could be helpful in supporting them to put the principles of responsive parenting into practice. In addition, emotional support to parents could be valuable to help them alleviate their stresses and attend psychologically to their child’s needs. Some parents may benefit from attending parenting programmes to help them to reflect on their role as parents and learn skills to support and form secure bonding with their child.

Conclusion

Learning self-regulation skills from early childhood is important as it predicts academic attainment and is associated with social competence, healthy behaviours/life style and physical conditions, as well as work achievement in adulthood9. The development of self-regulation progresses on an extended course and young children is dependent on the co-regulation with caregiver. Responsive parenting lays the foundation for children to learn self-regulation skills. Helping parents to observe sensitively and respond to their children’ cues in an affective and developmentally appropriate way is important to support the long-term development and wellbeing of children.

References

  1. Thompson, R. A.  (2009).  Doing what doesn’t come naturally: The development of self-regulation.  Zero to Three Journal, 30(2), 33-39.
  2. Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University (2011). Building the Brain’s “Air Traffic Control” System: How Early Experiences Shape the Development of Executive Function: Working Paper No. 11. Retrieved from www.developingchild.harvard.edu.
  3. Lobo, F. M., & Lunkenheimer, E. (2020). Understanding the parent-child coregulation patterns shaping child self-regulation. Developmental Psychology, 56(6), 1121-1134.
  4. Murray, D. W., Rosanbalm, K., Christopoulos, C., & Hamoudi, A. (2015). Self-Regulation and Toxic Stress Report 1: Foundations for Understanding Self-Regulation from an Applied Perspective. OPRE Report # 2015-21. https://www.acf.hhs.gov/opre/report/self-regulation-and-toxic-stress-foundations-understanding-self-regulation-applied
  5. Thompson, R. A. (2015). Relationships, Regulation, and Early Development. In R.M. Lerner (Ed.), Handbook of Child Psychology and Developmental Science (7th ed., Vol 3), John Wiley & Sons. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118963418.childpsy306
  6. Bridgett, D. J., Burt, N. M., Edwards, E. S., & Deater-Deckard, K. (2015). Intergenerational transmission of self-regulation: A multidisciplinary review and integrative conceptual framework. Psychological Bulletin, 141(3), 602–654. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0038662
  7. Sroufe, L. A.  (2005).  Attachment and development: A prospective, longitudinal study from birth to adulthood.  Attachment & Human Development, 7:4, 349-367  Retrieved from https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14616730500365928
  8. National Scientific Council on the Developing Child. (2004). Young children develop in an environment of relationships. Working Paper No. 1. Retrieved from http://www.developingchild.net
  9. Raby, K. L., Roisman, G. I., Fraley, R. C., & Simpson, J. A. (2015). The Enduring Predictive Significance of Early Maternal Sensitivity: Social and Academic Competence Through Age 32. Child Development, 86(3), 695-708. doi:10.1111/cdev.12325  Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4428971/