ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that the goal of Self-Reg is to create a haven in our schools: a place where everyone—students, teachers, parents—feels safe from the moment they enter. Self-Reg enables us to recognize not just when a student or a class or even a whole school is becoming dysregulated, but what to do about it: the process that will enable us to experience that calmly focused state where learning and growth can occur. Self-Reg reveals just how important relationships are, especially for the student who seems to be struggling the most. In Self-Reg the emphasis is placed on promoting the student's embodied understanding of the physical-emotional nexus: that is, the connection between their physical state and their emotional experience. The standard approach to working on problems in the social domain is some form of skills training, where one attempts to teach the student social conventions or concrete strategies for dealing with interpersonal conflict.
