Resources for Self-Control, Self-Regulation, and Mindfulness

I think the work of Lauren Brukner, occupational therapist, is extremely useful to elementary counselors and parents of children who struggle to self-regulate. The 3 books pictured above are the ones I use to pull ideas from for my small groups on self-regulation. The 6 exercises shown above are the ones I have pulled from the 3 books to use as the warm-ups in my third grade group. I also posted my overview of my third grade group. Small tier 2 groups are growth-promoting environments that provide children with “scaffolding” and opportunities to practice necessary skills before they must perform them alone. As counselors, we know that different tools work for different kids so I teach different ones in each group because some of these same students would have been in self-regulation groups in Kindergarten and grades 1 and 2.  Actually many of the tools presented in these books would be great for classroom lessons, particularly in grade 3 where the level of toxic stress seems to peak because of letter grades and standardized testing in our state.

She has another book Awesome and In Control that I recommend to parents. We have a copy in the Self-Regulation Family Resource Pack we loan to parents. I agree with Brukner that we want our children to gain "control, direction and ownership of their own states of self-regulation. Children are not born knowing how to self-regulate and for some children it takes special instruction to master these critical life skills.