If you haven’t already checked them out, please read Introducing The Regulation Rocket and Understanding The Regulation Rocket.
The main reason I wanted to create a visual representation of regulation (besides my love of visuals to represent an idea) was to easily communicate what I believe is the entire point of regulation. I believe “being able to self regulate” is an unachievable goal. There will always be an environment, personal factor, stressor or occupation (or some combination of them) that challenges even the most well regulated of us. Have you ever zoned out in the middle of a lecture, meeting or even a conversation? Maybe you’ve yelled obscenities whilst driving. Or perhaps you’ve frozen on a first date or during a speech. I would be extremely suprised if you hadn’t experienced these or something similar, and probably on a semi-regular basis! It’s an impossible goal to strive for self regulation at all times.
How would you even measure the goal of “being able to self regulate”? Will a child only be successful if they remain regulated at all times? What happens when the environmental and occupational demands are overwhelming? What if the demands are almost always “too much” for a child? Have they then “failed” at self regulating? The pressure and expectation this puts on a child can be damaging to both their confidence and self esteem. Instead of “being able to self regulate”, the goal should be for a child to be engage in occupations that are meaningful and purposeful.
This shifts the focus from ‘fixing what’s wrong’ to ‘supporting what’s right’. What occupations already match a child’s Rocket? What environmental factors help or hinder them? Once we see what a child CAN do, we (as their social supports) can ensure that any necessary changes to the environment are made to support their individual needs. We can also put in the supports they need to extend their skills and therefore occupational abilities. We all rely on supports within our environment to help us self regulate. For the majority of us, these supports aren’t even noticeable as they are ever present or accepted by society. There is nothing wrong about succeeding in an environment that supports your needs. If an environment or additional supports are different or unusual to the norm, so be it!
So does this mean we should just expose individuals to environments and occupations that they can already easily succeed at/in? Absolutely not!!! Just as we encourage children to extend and develop their motor and communication skills from a young age, we can also encourage development of self regulation skills. But we wouldn’t put a child who can’t crawl on a treadmill, and we wouldn’t ask a child who’s learning to communicate to give an hour lecture on engineering. These may seem like extreme examples, but the point is we wouldn’t ask an individual to do something far beyond their skills set. We need to find the “just right challenge” that allows them to be successful whilst also developing new skills.
When we look at the occupations a child wants, needs or is expected to engage in, we need to keep in mind both their current personal factors and the impact their environment has on them. This allows us to modify the occupation to be “just right”.
A quick word on “expected” occupations:
We all have occupations that we are expected to engage in as part of society. These expectations are not static or uniform. They differ depending on a variety of factors including our age (developmental and chronological), role within society or social group, physical location, abilities, gender, economic status, culture, even the point we exist in history. We don’t expect the same occupations for everyone, in every place or at every time. While sometimes equality of expectations is fought for or sought after for a particular group of people (and rightly so!), it’s also valuable to recognise that every individual has different strengths, weaknesses and abilities to contribute.
Different expectations don’t mean “lesser” or “lower”. They are still expectations, just tailored for an individual, and there is virtue in being able to recognise all expectations as worthy.