Tools to help students with self-regulation

Strategies to Help Students

Welcome to the OT Cutler School Parent Blog.  This year’s blog will focus on self-regulation.

Does your child know the four different Zones?

The Cutler School has embraced teaching kindergarten through grade five classrooms The Zones of Regulation Curriculum. This program teaches the students the life skill of identifying and managing their emotions and tools that they can use to help them deal with their feelings in more appropriate ways to match the circumstances.  The feelings are categorized into four zones.  None of the zones are good or bad.  You can be in more than one zone in a day and that is okay.

In the blue zone your body is running slow.  You can be sad, sick, hurt, bored, or shy. 

In the green zone you are ready to participate.  Some feelings in the green zone include happy, focused, okay, thankful, good, or proud. 

You are starting to lose control in the yellow zone, but generally can get it back.  In this zone you may feel distracted, silly, fidgety, frustrated, anxious, or worried. 

When you are in the red zone you are out of control.  Your brain and your body are not talking to each other. It is hard to make decisions.  Usually when you are in the red zone you need to take a break.  In the red zone you can be angry, mean, yelling, shouting, or physical. 

The author Leah Kuypers noted, “The Zone curriculum provides strategies to teach students to become more aware of, and independent in, controlling their emotions and impulses, managing their sensory needs, and improving their ability to solve conflicts.”  The Zones program can be utilized at home and in school.

Please check out the Zones of Regulation program to get an overview of the book.

               

Our next blog in November will start to focus on Zone Tools (strategies) that can be used at home and school.