Teaching Emotional Self-Regulation Skills to Young Children With Challenging Behavior

Abstract

ABSTRACT Developing conscious control and self-regulation skills in the early years is an important factor in child development, although there is limited application of cognitive strategy-based approaches with young children in both clinical and non-clinical settings. This study investigated the Conscious Control Curriculum (3Cs), an approach to teach emotional self-regulation skills and conscious control strategies to young children (i.e., 3–5 years old). The research included five case studies involving 21 participants: five children between 3 and 4 years old, their parents, and educators. While performance was variable in each phase of the study, all children improved over the 17 weeks, as documented by their caregivers in the home and early childhood education and care (ECEC) setting. The research findings contribute to the field of ECEC and emotional self-regulation with young children. The children were also cognizant of improvements in their conduct and self-control that were consistent with the ratings of them by their caregivers. Despite less demonstrable change in caregiver self-control, the results demonstrate that the 3Cs improved children’s behavior and the feedback about the curriculum experience was positive.